Fencing student-athlete Jessica Lewis-Turner takes great pride in her sport, one that she describes as requiring a combination of mental and physical skill that involves athleticism, as well as strategy.

A fencer since the age of 8, Lewis-Turner, a 21-year-old senior at Brandeis University, also realizes that most people don't necessarily see it that way.

"We're not thought of as typical jocks. People don't automatically think of us when they think of sports at Brandeis," she said. "I don't think a whole lot of people have even heard of fencing as an Olympic sport."

Many would be surprised to know that fencing has a long tradition. Its origins date back centuries, and it is one of only four sports to have been in every Olympic Games since the modern Olympics resumed in 1896.

Yet, despite its rich history, most people have never attended a fencing match, read about it in a newspaper or seen it on television. Even the endless hours of television coverage of the summer Olympic Games every four years rarely includes much fencing.

This seeming lack of interest can frustrate college coaches, student-athletes and athletics administrators struggling to keep their fencing programs alive.

"I am at a loss as to how (you get people interested in fencing)," said Jeff Cohen, director of athletics at Brandeis and chair of the NCAA Men's and Women's Fencing Committee. "We're going to host nationals at Brandeis this year, and I don't expect us to have huge crowds. We'll have some folks because there is a good deal of amateur fencing in the Boston area, but those are the folks who will come. It won't be sort of a casual, 'Hey, there's a fencing event at Brandeis, let's go.' It's not that kind of sport.

"If you really don't understand it, if you're not an aficionado, if you're not a participant in it, it's not a sport you're likely to go watch."

Cohen added that it can be difficult for the novice observer to know who has scored or even who is on which team since everyone wears the same uniform.

Lewis-Turner acknowledges that not all teams even set up bleachers at competitions. Still, she said that fencing student-athletes deserve the same recognition given to teams that attract thousands of fans.

"I think that sometimes it's a little irritating that we don't get recognized for the amount of effort that we put into the team," she said. "I would like more respect in terms of the fact that I participate in a real sport."

Growth despite lack of exposure

Lewis-Turner said when many people hear she's a fencer, their first reaction is to "do the en garde stance" and talk about Zorro and Errol Flynn. The movies do not reflect the reality of the sport, she said, adding there's a need to re-educate people that fencing student-athletes train and practice the same as any other student-athlete.

Laurence Schiller, head women's coach at Northwestern University, agrees that fencing is not a sport the general public encounters regularly.

"If they put it on TV or something, I think you'd find more people would be interested and would seek it out, but the trouble is it's never on TV," said Schiller, who also serves on the NCAA fencing committee and is four wins away from 800 career victories in the sport. "The NCAA never shows anything about it, the Olympic Games coverage never shows it, there's no pro league. It's one of these things, like so many other sports, that you only see every once in a while."

Of the 22 NCAA championship sports, fencing is one of the least sponsored. According to the latest statistics, there are 36 men's teams, 43 women's teams and three mixed teams. Those statistics count only varsity teams. Skiing has the same total number of teams as fencing, and only rifle has fewer teams than both of those sports.

Yet, some fencing experts say the sport is growing in popularity, especially among children, even if that hasn't been borne out in the number of teams.

"It has really taken off among young boys, 8 years old to 12, 13 years old. Our classes are packed, even doctors are recommending it to kids. It's unbelievable," said Stanford University's Lisa Milgram, who coaches the Cardinal men's and women's fencing teams. "I think some of that has to do with the mass media, the media's attention on sword play, like 'Pirates of the Caribbean.' They actually use the term 'footwork.' They use some of our terms in some of the fighting scenes. 'The Mask of Zorro' came out a few years ago, we had 'The Three Musketeers'...the fact is that kids see these and we market with them."

Stanford also sponsors fencing camps each year, including a "Pirates" camp for about 150 youngsters that introduces them to fencing and sailing and is taught, in part, by student-athletes from the varsity fencing team.

"It hooks the kids and they end up coming to our meets, they end up coming to local tournaments and that's how we try and get people to come out," said Milgram. "We usually use the media. The media picks up on something and we jump on its back."

Sherry Posthumus, an assistant athletics director at Stanford, said one of the selling points of the sport is that fencing student-athletes can come right out of physical education classes, having never been trained in the sport before attending college.

"It's something you can pick up and do right there in college, which is remarkable," said Posthumus, who also serves on the fencing committee. "You can't do that with a sport like swimming. You can't take a non-swimmer and make him or her into an NCAA champion, but you can do that with fencing."

Schiller said that at Northwestern, they set up a stand during orientation week and do demonstrations to attract students to fencing. Students will then come to meetings, he said, and a few stick around and join the team. Schiller said Northwestern, which has a women's varsity team and a men's club team, usually attracts between 12 to 15 walk-ons a year to the programs.

"A lot of the kids I get now are kids that have just either never done a sport and thought it would be neat to do something, or, a number of my good athletes did another sport in high school and they don't feel they're good enough (to compete at the college level) or they don't want to continue it anymore," he said. "A lot of times it's just an interest in doing something different, an individual sport."

Funding decisions

Schiller said that interest in fencing is growing in this country, especially at the junior level. Americans are placing higher at international competition. The problem, he said, is that this is not translating to more fencing programs at the collegiate level -- a problem he attributed, at least in part, to the decisions institutions make to ensure their athletics programs comply with Title IX.

He said Title IX had something to do with the men's fencing team at Northwestern being dropped.

"Big Ten fencing was destroyed by Title IX because institutions had to find some way to increase numbers of women and rather than adding women's sports, they dropped men's sports," he said.

In fact, he said, after the Big Ten Conference stopped sponsoring fencing, 15 teams formed the Midwest Fencing Conference. However, most of the schools in that league are not eligible to compete for the NCAA championship because they are club teams.

Schiller said the ripple effect from this also has hurt his women's team, and likely others. At the fencing championships, which include schools from all three divisions, the overall national champion is determined by combining the scores from the men's and women's events. Since Northwestern has no men's team, the school will never win a fencing national championship, though its women may win individual titles.

"Even if we won every bout, we couldn't win a championship," he said.

Posthumus said some fencing programs also are dropped when a coach retires. It can be difficult to find new fencing coaches, she said, because there are not enough people skilled in the sport, and at many schools it's only a part-time position.

According to the latest data, 17 women's fencing teams in all divisions were lost between 1988-89 and 2001-02. During that same period, 23 men's fencing teams were lost. These figures take into account the number of teams added during that period, as well as the number of teams lost, to come up with a net change in the overall number of teams.

"We would like to see it growing more on the collegiate level," said Cohen. "This may be one of the sports where Title IX has worked the reverse of its intention in that if schools are trying to find ways to do more for women, just for women, they're dropping men's fencing or they're dropping fencing altogether and using that money for other things."

The fencing committee, Cohen said, has discussed the problem, but he said it is a difficult problem to rectify.

"I have no idea how to do it," he said.