Hamza has a plan to lead Rice’s fencing team to success

Hamza has a plan to lead Rice’s fencing team to success
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BY DAVID MEDINA
Special to the Rice News

Maher “Mauro” Hamza wants to dominate the world with the thrust, pull and parry of a few swords. Judging by his recent accomplishments, the Rice fencing coach may well hit his mark.

Hamza was selected head coach of the 2001 United States Junior/Cadet national fencing team. In April he led his team to Gdansk, Poland, where the United States won — for the first time ever — the World Championships.

His team competed against 72 countries and took four gold medals (two individual and two team), three silver and two bronze. The feat was nothing short of amazing. When Hamza took over as coach two years ago, the United States was seeded 32 in the world. A year later the team moved up to the fifth seed and this year won the top prize.

Hamza said he did it by working with the right athletes from around the country and then infusing them with experience. He took the 40-member team around the globe to compete against the best.

“Our biggest problem was that our members didn’t believe they were good enough,” he explained. “When they started to believe, they became world champions.”

Remaining a top contender while everyone is trying to cut you down to size is not easy, Hamza said. But he is undeterred and even plans to take the team to a higher level. “I want to rule the world,” he emphasized. By the 2004 Olympics, he said, “the United States fencing team will be hunting for medals.”

Hamza knows about winning Olympic medals. He was born in Cairo, Egypt, and took up fencing at 16, a late age, he admitted, but he quickly developed into a star and was selected to represent his country in the Olympics of 1988, 1992 and 1996.

While excelling in fencing, Hamza received a bachelor of science degree in 1987 from the Higher Institute of Cooperative and Managerial Studies in Cairo. He joined Rice in 1995, after coaching a year at Texas A&M.

Soft-spoken and standing upright, Hamza is as aggressive with his goals as he is with fencing. He has big plans for Rice: He wants to create a varsity fencing team to compete in the NCAA. The current fencing program is offered to students as a physical education credit.

To start, Hamza wants to establish a women’s fencing team in three sword categories, the foil, épée and the saber, and compete against regional schools such as Texas A&M, The University of Texas at Austin and The University of Texas at El Paso. As the team develops, Hamza said, he will expose them to the better fencing programs in the country, which include Harvard, Stanford, Columbia and Princeton.

“If I can take a 32-seeded team and make them world champions in two years, I can take a team from scratch and make them champions in the NCAA,” he said.

His reputation as a coach, Hamza believes, will attract good fencers to Rice. Hamza owns a private school in Houston called “Salle Mauro,” where, he noted, he has trained legions of adults and children, and many of them have received college fencing scholarships. “There are many good fencers who want to go to a good school such as Rice,” he said.

At Rice, Hamza has strong support from his students and is known for being extremely accessible. Said Rice junior Kijana Knight, “I think this makes him great because as first-time fencers, we didn’t have a clue what we were doing.” She added, “He brought the seemingly lofty sport down to our level so we could grasp it, but then made us work to perfect our technique.”

But fencing is more than just a physical sport, Hamza emphasized, and good fencers must use their brains as well as their skills. “Think about fencing as physical chess,” he explained. A fencer always is trying to find an opening, how to attack without being hit. “You have to train your body to always think ahead,” he said, “to always think forward and think about your next move.”

Hamza exemplifies that philosophy. He always is planning his next move, and his next move is to conquer the college fencing world.

— David Medina is senior editor of the Sallyport and the Minority Community Affairs director.