Even when Ron Berkowsky screws up, he wins.
The fencer still remembers - with a twinge of embarrassment - a miscue during a 2005 championship match. His hand (with a foil in it) collided with his opponent's head. The opponent stopped, took off his mask and started spitting blood. He got a root canal the next day; Berkowsky went home as the national champion for his age group.
"People still joke about it," the senior said.
Berkowsky's introduction to the sport was far less dramatic. He was eight years old when he and his younger brother watched The Three Musketeers. He remembers being mesmerized by the swashbuckling ways of the movie's heroes.
"We were both at the age where we were trying every sport," Berkowsky said. "I mean, we were trying swimming, baseball, softball, karate, soccer. [Fencing] was just another sport that was tacked onto the long list of things we were trying."
Thirteen years later, after pursuing "just another sport," Berkowsky, of Sicklerville, N.J., is a three-time first-team All-American and one of the country's top fencers. His collegiate win-loss record is 128-13. He missed winning the 2007 NCAA foil championship last spring by one point, or "touch," with just a few seconds remaining.
"Ron has shown that he is clearly at least in the top four [collegiate fencers]," Penn coach Dave Micahnik wrote in an e-mail. "Ron has been the rock on which we have built a very strong men's foil team."
Berkowsky credits his parents for allowing him to try a variety of sports to find the one that best suited him. His father, who earned varsity letters in high school track and soccer, even tried to learn fencing alongside Ron when he was a teenager.
Both parents were relieved when Ron and younger brother, Jonathan, a sophomore who is also on Penn's fencing team, did eventually choose different weapons. Both originally chose foil, but Jonathan switched to sabre.
"My parents were always afraid we would have to fence one another in a national competition," said Berkowsky, who is ranked 12th in the country.
Berkowsky said the best fencers require a balance of mental and physical preparation. Some fencers, he says, are "very, very" athletic.
Others are not athletic at all.
"But they are very smart, and they are able to figure out their opponent before they even start fencing. The best fencers have a combination of the two qualities. I think that's what is most appealing to me," he said.
"He leads by example, training more than anyone else, even though he is already the best," Micahnik said.
"You're done for, if you go out on the strip, thinking you're already beaten," said Berkowsky, not exactly an imposing physical presence himself at 5-foot-10 and 165 pounds.
But he said that he has taken the advice of his coaches, who told him to have confidence in himself regardless of his athletic abilities.
Those talents aren't in doubt now. And his focus is for the Quakers to win the Ivy League championship this spring.
"We have a very real shot of taking the men's Ivy League title, as well as the women's title," he said. "That's my goal this year. We've come so far, and have gotten so close."
He should know. In addition to his second-place finish last season, Berkowsky placed third nationally as a sophomore and fourth as a freshman.
