Caitlin Bilobeau - Ivy@50

The 1983-84 Columbia fencing media guide set the bar high for freshman foil fencer Caitlin Bilodeau. "One of the most significant athletes ever to enter Columbia" it announced, which is fairly encompassing statement when one thinks about it.

After all, Lou Gehrig was a Columbia athlete, as was NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Sid Luckman and longtime NBA star Jim McMillian. Even among fencers there's six-time Olympian (and bronze medalist) Norman Armitage, and John Northrop, a superb fencer who also won the 1946 Nobel Prize in physics, among dozens of Olympians and professional athletes who were also Columbia athletes.

Of course, there were strong indicators of future greatness. Bilodeau, who comes from a family of nine children, started fencing at age 11 when "my two elder sisters were fencers and my mom gave me a dollar to go join them." She quickly blossomed as a fencer, becoming National Junior Champion twice in high school as well as a member of the U.S. team for the World University Games and the Junior World Championships. She was also a high school All-America in lacrosse and all-state player in soccer (and would play soccer her first to years at Columbia as well).

She learned about Columbia from Lisa Piazza, a friend from high school who went to Barnard and a fencing career that would later earn her induction in the Columbia Athletics Hall of Fame. Coach George Kolombatovich "let it be known through other fencers," according to Bilodeau, that "he was interested" in her coming to Columbia.

But she chose to attend Penn, after getting admitted to both schools. Then "about 8-10 days before orientation began" Bilodeau met Aladar Kogler, who had just accepted a coaching position at Columbia. "I thought 'this guy's amazing,'" she remembers, and switched to Columbia.

For Stephen Eschenbach's full story, please visit Ivy@50.