Sada Jacobson - Ivy@50

At the 2004 Summer Olympic sabre competition Sada Jacobson made history. She and teammate Mariel Zagunis became the first American women to medal in fencing when she took the bronze medal and Zagunis (daughter of Penn rower and 1976 Olympian Cathy Menges Zagunis) the gold. Yet for Jacobson, the first step towards this achievement may have happened at Yale some 34 years before.

David Jacobson, Sada's father and then a freshman at Yale, "peered through the door of the fencing room," according to an account in Yale's 2000-01 Fencing Media Guide. Yale's new fencing coach, Henry Harutunian, "grabbed Jacobson and invited him into his salle (fencing room)." Jacobson became Harutunian's first All-American in 1974, and led Yale's sabre team, with Steve Blum and Edgar House, to a bronze medal in the 1974 U.S. National Championships.

Jacobson graduated, and set aside fencing as he went to medical school and settled in Atlanta, Ga., where he is an endocrinologist. At the 1996 Atlanta Olympics Harutunian, who came for the Olympics, visited and revived Jacobson's interest in fencing. Two years later Sada Jacobson tried fencing. "I'm sure I never would have become involved in the sport if he had not introduced it to me -- I just never would have thought of it," she says.

Her ascent was rapid. In 1999 she was a member of the U.S. team at the first Women's Sabre Cadet/Junior World Championship. When it came time to choose a college, the choice was pretty obvious. "I knew the Yale fight songs even as a little kid," remembers Jacobson. "I also had a relationship with Coach Harutunian and knew I would be happy fencing for him."

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