A Fencing Story: Remembering Vic Minton (1932-2024)

Coach Jeff Kallio read these words at Vic’s memorial service on September 6, 2024 in Chapel Hill, NC. May his memory be a blessing.

In the winter of 2009, I loaded everything I owned into the back of my jeep and moved to Durham. When I arrived at Mid-South Fencers’ Club, I walked down the stairs into the small basement training space on Broad Street. I saw our Head Coach, Jennifer Oldham, giving a lesson to this little old guy over in the corner. Up until this point, I had worked almost exclusively with kids, I didn’t have any context for working with adults, let alone “senior citizens”. Later on I asked Jen what was happening. She told me Vic was diagnosed with cancer and that he was taking fencing lessons as a way to move his body, but also to test out what he could do, and how he felt. It was a way for Vic to connect his powerful mind, and his body, to try and heal.

My mind was blown. I had never before considered that sport training, especially a combat sport like fencing, could be used in such a therapeutic way. It opened my eyes to what was possible, and also gave me my first glimpse into Vic’s indomitable spirit. It was there where I met David, Suzanne, and Carol in addition to Vic and this whole family, which was probably about ⅓ of the total membership of the club at the time. They welcomed me immediately, and made me feel like family. I was taken aback, and all of a sudden I had an instant friend network of these amazing people. Eventually children Joshua and Rachel arrived and joined our team too.

As the months went by Vic got stronger, and my own father was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer and passed away. Through that process I got to see just how difficult and brutal the process of cancer treatment can be. As the “new coach” or “new puppy” as we jokingly call any new staff member, Vic sought me out for lessons and I got a first hand taste of “The Vic” which is our loving categorization of all the wonderful and eccentric things about our friend. “The Vic” is defined by endless curiosity, his own patented sense of humor, his deep love for his family, his sense of the importance of community, a drive to help others, with a healthy dose of Brooklyn philosophy tossed in. From the beginning, Vic found many ways to help folks in our community that needed it. The only truly quiet part about him was in his generosity to simply help people, asking nothing in return.

And so we started doing lessons regularly, and Vic, having started fencing before I was born, already had a lot of skills, but things would just come out of his body during the lesson. Muscle memory from lessons he took decades ago would pop out, and he would exclaim in amazement about how he hadn’t done that particular technique in years. For the second time, Vic opened up my eyes to what was possible. I had never before considered how hard wired this type of body learning could be into the individual, and how important the role of any coach or teacher is. Our work is truly sacred, and we have a lasting impact on our students. So a big part of me coaching him became doing “archeology” of what he had learned before combined with helping him acquire new skills. Mostly out of my own curiosity, and also a bit to try and annoy him with as many questions as I could to give him a taste of his own medicine! I took what I learned from Vic and applied to every student I have had since.

Coach Jeff Kallio with Vic at the previous Mid-South Fencers’ Club location on N. Gregson Street location in downtown Durham, NC.

One of my favorite Vic moments is that during training he was fencing, and he tripped while going backwards. Luckily aside from fencing, Vic also had a background in Judo so he was able execute a perfect backwards judo roll. As he leapt to his feet like an Olympic gymnast, there was a collective groan from everyone in the club because we all had thought he had just severely injured himself. In classic Vic fashion, that was met by him with immense aggravation that we had the gall to assume that he would trip and hurt himself. I am pretty sure we were supposed to applaud him at that point.

When Vic was diagnosed the second time, Jennifer and I visited him at UNC hospital and I had thought I was saying goodbye to my student and friend… But Vic wasn’t having any of that, he wanted to walk around the hallway of the hospital to stay moving, of course we talked about fencing, and after we went about three full hallways past his ward, I was about 97% sure he was trying to trick me into busting him out of there. The back of his gown was hanging open as we strolled, and I said “Vic, your backside is hanging out.” He grumbled, “I am too old to give a shit”. I figured at that point, there was plenty of fight left in him.

When we resumed the training it was very different. That second round of chemo had been hard on his mind and his body. We had to start slow, Vic being the consummate gadgeteer, had a new apple watch so he was monitoring his health vitals during the lessons. Each lesson was based totally on how he was feeling on that day. Some days we moved a lot and he felt good, other days we just worked on balance and coordination. I was worried about him, and I was in uncharted territory in terms of navigating his training. There is no manual on sport training for a two time cancer surviving octogenarian in fencing. The brain fog that comes with the “chemo brain” aggravated him more than the physical parts. Many lessons we would just talk and he would ask about the fencing progress of his son David, of Joshua, and Rachel. He would share stories from his fencing past, or explore ideas for techniques he wanted to learn. His energy and drive was such that even after bouncing back from chemo, it was hard to get him to slow down. It was also during this time that Vic helped me put together my project for my Fencing Masters Certification. The best part was sharing a video of Vic taking a fencing lesson with over 100 coaches from across the United States and seeing their eyes light up in joy and amazement at seeing an athlete do what Vic could do. Vic was part of the pioneering group of athletes in the USA Fencing Veteran 80’s group, pushing forward our sports perception of what is possible. He also REALLY liked fencing on the big stage with his name in lights…

Vic Minton

It was also during this time that Vic took enormous hands-on interest in our community. Diversity, access to training for individuals who needed resources, supporting the positive growth of our team meant a lot to him. When he had ideas or opinions about what we should do, what we were NOT doing, or what we could do better, he wasn’t shy to share them. When my phone would ring at 9am on a Monday morning (usually our lessons were on Saturdays) I knew that Vic had been marinating on something and I was going to get an earful. Looking back now, I feel fortunate to have such a friend, student, and a mentor. 

As I got busier and the club grew, we hired more staff, and to be certain Vic wanted lessons from the new coaches. Instead of viewing it like “new puppy” curiosity or even just a drive to extract whatever knowledge or outlook form the new coaches, I began to see Vic as a community steward. He was getting to know these coaches, he was interviewing them and measuring their character. He was acting as a guardian for our whole team. It was also around this time he started calling me a “mensch”... I didn’t understand it at first, after a few months I was like “dude, I am from Minnesota, I have no clue what you are talking about”.
 
In March of 2020 the pandemic shut down our business. We had to teach online, outdoors, and we could not sustain our business. We lost our community space, and our team was completely fractured. The toll that this had on our entire community was undefinable. We were disconnected, we couldn’t be together or do what we loved, and most of us suffered some form of depression as a result of this. It was during this time that Jennifer and I were seriously considering just stopping, it was too difficult. Vic emerged and though we were still social distancing, he was in contact with us through regular phone calls… A lot.

He inspired us, but also he insisted that we not give up. He became our Coach. When Jennifer and I made the decision to relaunch our community, under the new banner of Forge Fencing Teams, Vic was absolutely instrumental in helping that dream become a reality. He coached us, he cheered us on, and through the generosity of Vic and Carol Minton, we were able to spearhead the fundraising resources to relaunch in a brand new facility. It is no understatement that our community and our team would not be where we are right now if it weren’t for Vic and Carol.

As of right now, we are a community of over 220 members. We have 11 staff, we serve multiple community outreach classes throughout Durham schools and we launched the non-profit organization called Forge Teams whose mission is: To build leaders and foster equity through community organizing, educational programming, and competitive sports.

We have a world class facility, the likes of which has never been realized in North Carolina before, and we are helping people daily. It is impossible to measure the impact, but at this point…I estimate Vic’s efforts to support this team has reached thousands of people, and those ripples of help and change I am positive reverberate to the tens of thousands and beyond…

In a nutshell, We are: 

In my final conversation with Vic, he lamented that the “one skill” he never mastered to become a true champion was a technique where you have to pretend to try and hit your opponent, to draw their attack, and then block it. I thought it was funny that he latched onto that particular tactical scenario, but as I was driving home from the fencing club the other night, it was all I could think about. I came to the conclusion that the particular tactic he was preoccupied with involved two opposing energies: the energy to put pressure on the opponent, and the energy of patience to wait for it to happen so you can block. I think Vic had a lot of both of those energies inside him - the pressure and the patience, but manifesting both at the same time was tricky for him. I also think he knew enough about himself to realize this, but that never stopped him from taking the journey.