COACH OF THE YEAR: Peter Brand

Sunlight streams through the trees on the lawn outside the Malkin Athletic Center, and the Harvard men’s and women’s fencing teams are out in force, laughing as they pull poses and pretend to fight over their multitude of trophies for a photo shoot. With not only the Ivy League Championship but also the NCAA Championship under their belts, they have something to celebrate.

And at the edge stands the man who made it all happen.

Peter Brand, head coach of the Harvard fencing program since 1999, has overseen an almost miraculous turnaround in the sport’s fortunes at the University. When he arrived in Cambridge, Harvard fencing was a relative nonentity on the national map.

Now, however, thanks to a mix of Brand’s canny recruitment of both fencers and deputy coaches and his own coaching style, the team is not only unquestionably dominant in the Ivies but even beat out traditional powerhouses of college fencing Penn State and Ohio State to take first place nationally at the March NCAAs.

But Brand is not about to let success go to his head.

“I feel very privileged to be able to have some input into what happens to these kids ultimately,” he says. “I think my proudest moment is when I hear my players starting to talk about not just winning for themselves but winning for each other.”

He aims to instill some of this team spirit and his own values and sportsmanship into the students he coaches—the idea that “they will only do well if they step out and help and make some sacrifices” for the good of the team.

He adds that this was a characteristic he focused on in his recruitment of prospective fencers.

“I look for those few people who have the potential to function as team players,” he says. “I will bypass a great athlete in favor of someone who will contribute something to this team. That ultimately determines whether we have a winning program or not.”

Brand is a native of Israel who came to the United States at 13, and he says that the “passion” he has for his adopted country and his desire to see its “values and qualities” replicated have shaped his coaching style.

Sophomore world junior bronze medalist in epee Benjamin Ungar says that Brand was “definitely” a “positive factor” in his decision to join the Crimson team.

“I think he really gets people who are good fencers but who are also really good team players and work well with everyone,” he says. “And everyone really does mesh really well.”

Brand explains that the rise of U.S. fencers in the past decade and the power of the Harvard name have also helped with recruiting.

“In the old days, the Penn States and the Notre Dames were able to get the foreign fencers, the European fencers,” he says. “Whereas in the past, we just didn’t have the resources to go overseas and look for the players... now you don’t have to go overseas to find some really good players.”

“And certainly everybody wants to come to Harvard. That’s a big plus for us,” he adds, using as an example world champion foilist Emily Cross, “who turned down a full scholarship” to Stanford to come and fence for the Crimson.

“That’s huge, the fact that somebody’s willing to bypass a full scholarship to a very good school like Stanford to come to Harvard,” Brand says. “Obviously, she felt that our fencing program was on its way up, and she could do something here too to further her fencing career.”

He gives credit to the Harvard Athletic Department as well, saying that it has been “very, very supportive” of the program.

“Being at other universities, there’s no comparison, and fencing really highlights that,” he says. “They will give you the tools you need to succeed. That’s something Harvard has that many universities don’t, [and] that’s what sets us apart.”

The fencers themselves laud Brand’s team-building style.

“One thing he really does well is if you lose a bout, [he reassures] you that it doesn’t matter, that it’s about having fun, and that the winning will come if you enjoy yourself,” says Anne Austin, co-captain of the women’s team. “And he recognizes that fencers are coming in with [different] backgrounds and is very good at trying to work with what people have.”

Agrees Ungar, “He has a really good balance of being a coach and as an authority figure in that sense but also stepping back and letting us have our space and freedom. I would say there’s probably very few, if any, programs that really have this same balance. A lot of the coaches are European and from the Communist bloc and have a very different attitude about it.”

Cross adds that Brand “really tries to work with” the fencers in terms of other commitments as well and tailor their schedules around them.

“He’s very supportive of me missing some non-essential meets for individual competitions,” she says. “He’s very much a part of the team—he’s an authority figure but at the same time everyone feels like they can trust him and they can talk to him.”

Austin adds that Brand’s ability to recruit associate coaches with “great technical experience” is a trait that “separates him from other coaches in the U.S.”

“He’s definitely one of the best coaches I’ve known,” freshman sabre Craig Gorin says. “He somehow built this team up to be extremely cohesive. We’re definitely the coach’s team, out of anyone in the Ivies, probably even in the country.”

—Staff writers Alex McPhillips and Karan Lodha contributed to the reporting of this article.

—Staff writer Alexandra C. Bell can be reached at acbell@fas.harvard.edu.