Herbert Cohen (fencer)
Herbert Morris Cohen is an American Olympic foil fencer. He is a two-time NCAA foil champion, a U.S. national champion, a team Pan American Games champion, and a two-time Olympian. Later, as a coach he led New York University to an NCAA national championship. He fences left-handed.
Early and personal life
Cohen is Jewish, was born in Manhattan in New York City, and grew up in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, New York, where he attended public school. He has also lived in Holmdel, New Jersey. His elder brother was the Olympic épée and saber fencer Abe Cohen, who competed for the United States in the 1956 Summer Olympics.He married in 1961, and the couple adopted a child five years later. After he graduated from college, starting in 1962 Cohen worked as an elementary school teacher.
Fencing career
High school and college
Cohen started fencing at the age of 15, and fenced at Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn, New York. He was captain of the fencing team, which included his best friend, future singer Neil Diamond.He then was recruited by and attended New York University. There, he fenced for the NYU Violets alongside, among others, Neil Diamond and future Olympian Eugene Glazer. In 1961, he went undefeated during the year and won the NCAA foil championship. Fencing for NYU in 1962 he won his second straight NCAA Championship in foil, winning 31 of his 33 bouts, and was also named national college Fencer of the Year. He was a three-time All-American.
Maccabiah Games, Pan American Games, and U.S. nationals
He fenced for the Fencers Club in New York, and was coached by French-American Olympic coach Michel Alaux. He competed at the 1961 Maccabiah Games in Israel.Cohen won a gold medal in team foil and a bronze medal in individual foil at the 1963 Pan American Games in São Paulo, Brazil. In 1964, Cohen won the Amateur Fencers League of America US National Fencing Championship in foil, while Olympian Albie Axelrod took the silver medal and Olympian Eugene Glazer took the bronze medal in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Olympics and philosophy
Cohen competed in both the individual foil and team foil events at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan, at the age of 24, and in both the individual foil and the team foil events at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, Mexico, at the age of 28. At the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, Team USA defeated Romania and Argentina but lost to France, and did not advance to the semifinals.As to his philosophy of fencing, Cohen said: "I always fought as if my life depended on it."