Fencers foil difficulties of wheelchair

When inspiration struck women's varsity fencing coach Jim Murray two years ago, he didn't just set his idea aside. "Coaches need to have a vision," Murray said, and that's exactly the motivated mindset that led him to take action.

For the past two years, women's varsity fencing coach Jim Murray has coached a wheelchair fencing program with nearby the Bennett Sports Institute, a satellite program of the Kennedy-Kreiger Rehabilitation Hospital that specializes in wheelchair sports. For an hour on the Saturday mornings when the Varsity team isn't traveling to competitions, Murray and several of his team members conduct practices with the teen athletes at the Bennett Sports Institute.

Murray initially got the idea for the program after volunteering as an ice hockey goalie coach at the Sports Institute. As a college fencing coach for over 25 years, it made perfect sense for Murray to share his passion for fencing with the teen athletes at the center. After sending a few e-mails, making the necessary arrangements with assistance from the Hopkins Athletic Department and promoting his program at an Institute basketball tournament, Murray turned his idea into a program that quickly became an opportunity for everyone involved to share their interest in fencing. In fact, Murray said he was amazed by "how easy it was to make happen with a little bit of vision and support from the team."

Perhaps some of the ease with which Murray found interested athletes was due to the special draw of the sport itself. "Fencing has a very unique appeal, particularly with younger people," he explained.

"Fencing has a special niche or groove -- it's all in the mind and the arm," said Murray. This acts as a key advantage for chair fencers -- since the wheelchair is held in place by a frame, chair mobility skills are not a requirement. Everything else involved is identical to the skills utilized by able-bodied fencers.

The participants at the Bennett Sports Institute practice a number of sports there, so "we are working with elite athletes --highly trained, talented people," Murray said. Some of the young athletes at the Bennett Sports Institute have participated in U.S. Paralympic competitions for various sports. Murray emphasizes this point to the athletes he works with -- he often tells the athletes that "somebody's got to be on the Olympic team -- why not you?"

For further inspiration, during beginning sessions, Murray showed a homemade video tape that he created about chair fencing. Thanks to Murray's involvement with several chair fencing programs like the wheelchair fencing clinic at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the tape includes recordings of professional fencing competitions and in-depth interviews with Paralympic fencing competitors. During these interviews, Murray used a little cinematic trick to really surprise his audience -- he only showed his interviewees from the shoulders up (and even placed a poster directly at head level) until the end of the video clips, so that the emphasis was on the athletic aspect, not the disability.

Senior Kate Dunne, a captain for the women's varsity team, has "helped out a couple of times" with the sessions. Although she's not able to volunteer much during the peak of the season, she's assisted with demonstrations and mini-clinics for the fencers. "It's a really great program," Dunne said.

Murray emphasizes that he'd like to see other schools create outreach programs similar to his. "I hope for college teams to use us as a model and to do what we do," he said. "They should see the possibility is there."Murray reminds, "The emphasis is on the ability, not the disability. I knew that would happen."