1934 Penn Sports Century 1960

Following a superb Penn career, Micahnik went on to compete in three Olympic Games. Qualifying for the first time as national epee champion in 1960, however, will always remain a special moment. Micahnik, a 1998 inductee into the Penn Athletic Hall of Fame, remembers that day well. · Dave Micahnik: It was July 3, 1960, one year after graduating from Penn. The Nationals were in New York City at the old Commodore Hotel. I was still being coached by the Penn coach, Maestro Csiszar. I had gone up to Camp Tecumsah with him between the close of school and the Nationals and trained up there with him. I took the bus back down to New York and it was one of those meets. Step by step by step, things fell into place. In the first round, believe it or not, I had to have a fence-off with two other guys to get out of the first round of the Nationals and I started to cruise after that. I didn't lose another bout until the semis. I was 3-2 in the semis and made into the final round of eight. There I was in a position to make the Olympic team. I figured if I made the top four or five, I'd be in. Maestro told me, "If you don't make the top three, it's not for sure." With two shots to go, I said, "I [better] get this one because you don't know what will happen in the next one. This guy had been on the last Olympic team in '56 and everything he did I knew ahead of time he was going to do. I just crunched him. I had the Nationals clinched with one more bout to go. I had it in my hand and then all of a sudden, the coach came up to me and said, "You've got your championship but you have to finish your last bout hard to win it, too. Otherwise, it's going to mess up the Olympic selection. You can't let up." So I said, "OK, I'll do my best in that one." In the last bout, I decided I was gonna go to win the bout but I was going to do it with a little bit of flair. In epee, the whole body's fair target and I was going to make all my touches on the guy's foot. Unfortunately, I only got four on his foot and I did win the bout 5-4. So there I was, undefeated in the national finals and national champion and on the Olympic team. It was very special. I wandered around that ballroom forever. The place was empty and I'm still walking around. It was the first time anybody from a newspaper had ever interviewed me and it was one of those moments.

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