Paul McNamara is the founder, president, and head coach of the Eugene Fencers Club. He has been competing for 35 years and has coached thousands of fencing students, some of which have become national champions. He got his training at the Olympic center in Squaw Valley.

Ben McBee: Can you tell me the story of how you started the Eugene Fencers Club?

Paul McNamara: I started the Eugene Fencers Club in 1976 and our first session was here at Roosevelt Middle School in 1977. I had originally taken a class from my first coach Paul Dart who was the collegiate national champion. He was the one who taught me first and had me as his assistant coach at the University of Oregon for two years for about eight different classes a week. When he had injured his knee and couldn’t continue teaching any longer, it was sort of left up to either let the fencing club die or start it up again so I volunteered to be the coach. The first year that I was teaching here as a beginning coach I was invited to the Olympic training center in Squaw Valley and went for a series of six years there. That was where I first started learning the real sport of fencing because I was fencing with Olympians and Olympic masters.

B: Do any moments stick out in your mind as a coach?

P: A number of years back I had a young middle school kid come into the club who had no central vision in his eye. He only saw with his peripheral vision and he spent all this time moving his head around picking up the general colors that were coming through. I taught him to use his ears more. I taught him to focus more on one area and to sweep more, so that when he felt someone’s blade he would attack whichever way the blade was coming. He fenced for about 6 months and actually went to a tournament where he took third out of twelve. He was ecstatic about it; he came in to the club shook my hand and said thank you and that was the last I saw of him.

B: What little tricks do use while fencing to get the better of your opponent?

P: What don’t I use? Distance, timing, misleading actions and body language, anything that works. You do best when you practice on a regular basis. Fencing is very much physical chess. Strategy is everything. When you’ve got somebody who is trying to protect their body with their blade you have to make them open a line long enough and maybe you’ll go there, maybe you’ll go somewhere entirely different.