The club consisted of six fencers who dusted off their foils and decided it was time to have fun! Kit Boesch, who served as head coach, was a competitive fencer for more than twenty years. She coached two youth clubs in Wisconsin and spent seven years coaching at Ohio State University. She began her career by winning the under-nineteen Wisconsin Championships. She is proud of the silver medal she earned at the National Senior Championships.
As the fencing club grew, we decided to hire the former Olympic coach for Hungary, Janos Gasparin. At age 16, Janos was the junior national foil champion of Hungary and was on the national team from 1972 to 1974. Janos was slated to be a member of three Olympic teams in 1976 but was denied a spot, because his family were not card-carrying members of the Communist Party. He and his wife, Kati, who has continued to compete and earn many national medals herself, became involved with Lincoln Fencing Club in April of 1995. The club ran under the direction for Janos and Kati Gasparin (with Kit keeping a close eye) till 1997.
After Janos and Kati left, Kit took over again as head coach. LFC decided to start the Icicle Invitational, which continues to be a great competitive tournament, attracting fencers from around the Midwest each January. In 1998, LFC decided to hire another foreign coach: Archil Lortkipanidze, from the Republic of Georgia. He served as head coach till 2000, then, once more, Kit took the job over till 2002. Several fencers banded together as coaches, and in 2003, Kristian Anderson took over as head coach. In 2008, Kristian stepped down as head coach, handing the reigns over to Cassidy Kovanda. Cassidy served until 2016, when he passed the torch to our current head coach, Brad Tucker.
Today, LFC has more than seventy-five members and continues to grow. It focuses on competitive fencing in all three weapons: foil, épée, and saber. LFC is a 501(c) nonprofit organization located at 6800 P Street, Suite 200. We sponsor several tournaments and offer classes for youth from age 8 and adults up to age 75 (and, in a few cases, older than that). LFC promotes directors and fencers to gain top-level ratings. We demand safety, mutual respect, and the opportunity for everyone to fence.
LFC was founded by Kit Boesch, Rick Kohn, and Damon Scaggs in 1980.
