Experience Does Not Equal Success

One of the biggest talking points of this year’s Democratic presidential nomination campaign has been the issue of experience—who has it, is it important, and what does it mean for this country? Some pundits believe that experience is crucial to success not only in the White House, but also on the campaign trail. Others maintain that experience is overrated and that it does not necessarily correlate with victory.

When it comes to experience, I find myself in the overrated camp and believe that in the same vein, experience has proven overrated for Columbia’s best sports team—the 2008 Ivy League champion men’s and women’s fencers.

Heading into the 2007-08 campaign, the biggest question surrounding the team was whether or not the youth would be able to compete with more veteran squads from Harvard, Penn, and Princeton. Those questions were answered emphatically as the Light Blue went undefeated with its closest match being a 15-12 contest against Penn’s men’s squad. Additionally, the average margin of victory for Columbia over the two-week event was an astounding 13.9 points, or 20-7 in terms of bout scoring.

Of the 16 Lions who earned All-Ivy honors, only three were seniors while all four freshmen women for Columbia picked up first-team accolades. On the men’s side, half of the team’s All-Ivy honorees were upperclassmen, while the other four were sophomores.

Last year’s NCAA Championships ended with a third-place overall finish, the best such performance from Columbia since the expansion to include all three women’s disciplines. At the conclusion of the NCAAs last year, head coach George Kolombatovich made specific note about how the graduation of seven seniors, including four All-Americans, would have a huge impact on the program.

“It’s going to be hard to come back and top what we did this year,” he said. “I’m losing seven starters here today, but we had three other fencers qualify for this event and couldn’t come because of the NCAA limit, so that shows some of the program’s depth.”

That depth shined brightly in New Haven and Princeton. With the inclusion of four of the most talented Ivy fencers this year in sabrist Jackie Jacobson, foilists Nicole Ross and Abby Caparros, and epeeist Martyna Urbanowicz, the Lions have put themselves back in contention to make a run at the NCAA title.

After dominating the rest of the Ancient Eight, Kolombatovich made specific mention of how well this team has come together in such a short span of time.

“There’s something about this group and this chemistry,” Kolombatovich said. “While it may be fair to state that there was more talent on last year’s team, this squad has something special in the way in which they work together and compete on the strips.”

What makes this lineup especially devastating is that Columbia is missing arguably its top two fencers in junior epeeist Dwight Smith and junior sabrist and defending national champion Daria Schneider. Both are currently competing to qualify for the United States Olympic team to represent the country at the 2008 Beijing games.

Even without these starters, both Lions teams are nationally ranked in the top-five after strong showings in both the Ivy League Championships and the NYU Duals. This weekend’s Intercollegiate Fencing Association Championships, to be held in Dodge Gymnasium, will provide Columbia with another opportunity to flex its muscle in a tune-up event before heading to the NCAA Regionals in Poughkeepsie two weekends from now.

At the beginning of the season for Columbia, the likelihood of qualifying the maximum of 12 fencers for the NCAA Championships was not very high, but it is a scenario that is becoming ever more likely these days. And when talent and chemistry are apparent, the emphasis on experience falls by the wayside.