Fencing is a very personal endeavor. Each fencer who picks up a sword brings his or her entire being to the field of play. The rules of the sport can be read in a book. The techniques employed to protect oneself from the opponent's attacks and to score against them have been written about and expounded upon from before the sport of fencing was made into a sport with the advent of the bendable blade; back to when warriors and the citizenry at large learned to fence because it was the way of the world. Everybody who was anybody knew how to fence and wore a sword for personal protection.

But, who it was who had taught them how to use their sword would have made a tremendous difference in how well any particular swordsman handled him or herself in combat. That was and is still true today.

It might be thought that superior fencers or swordsmen would make superior fencing teachers. But, that would depend on how good a teacher the teacher really was; how well they had learned their lessons; how broadly their skills had been tested in the arenas of the fencing world; how able they were at expressing their knowledge to their students and, perhaps most important of all, how much they cared about their students and the depth of sincerity they had for success of their students.

Arthur Tauber fenced at the highest levels. His skills were unmatched. His understanding of the sport of fencing was perfection itself. And, he cared deeply for his students. He knew what they went trough to even be able squeeze in the time to take a lesson. He knew their work load in school and what it meant to be a Yeshiva College student. He knew they came to him with absolutely no fencing skills; none.

Yet he was able to introduce the sport to a select number of students each season from 1951 to 1986 when he retired. He was able to fire their enthusiasm in the various weapons and mold teams from year-to-year that competed impressively against college varsity teams that had attracted athletes who had been fencing in some cases from childhood.

Some "Taubermen" fenced well after their college fencing careers had ended. Some fenced in general competitions. Some taught fencing to summer campers, in their graduate school communities and, in one instance of which we are aware, a “Tauberman”, Drew Kopf, became a fencing coach and passed the Arthur Tauber School of Fencing and Life on to students Coach Tauber may never know but who benefited from his great abilities in a direct line of succession.

Dr. Tauber served as the Coach of the Yeshiva College Fencing Team from 1949 to 1985. Click on a year below for that year's Fencing Team record, individual records, photographs, a summary of that year in fencing and a roster of that year's Fencing Team members. They are the "Taubermen." If you know of anyone who we may have inadvertently omitted from this list, or if you have any photographs or other memerobilia that you would care to share, please contact us with the details so we may perfect this presentation.