Nikki Franke, Title IX and the power of opportunity

A chance opportunity propelled Nikki Franke on a career path that she never dreamed would happen.

Franke, who retired last August after 50 years of being the women's fencing coach at Temple, grew up in Harlem and had never participated in the sport until her senior year of high school. Needless to say, becoming a collegiate All-American, a college coach and an Olympian and leaving her professional home with legendary status after five decades was an unimaginable journey. 

Franke graduated from Brooklyn College in 1972, which is the same year that Title IX legislation passed. The landmark federal law prohibits gender discrimination in educational programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance.

Before Title IX became a law, Franke competed in basketball and tennis. Fencing entered the picture her final year of high school when a new teacher started a fencing program.

Franke decided to give the sport a try, and she found a new passion.

"Fencing changed my life from the beginning," Franke said. "I had some luck with it, and from there, I started going to tournaments outside of school."

The fencing world took notice of the novice in the sport, and she received advice that she should explore attending Brooklyn College to further her development. While competing as a college student-athlete, Franke was coached by Denise O'Connor, who competed in the 1964 Summer Olympics. 

Under O'Connor's tutelage, Franke started her development into becoming a world-class fencer. The two would later become teammates on the 1976 U.S. Olympic fencing team.

"It was kind of neat to be on the same team as your coach," said Franke, the United States Fencing Association's national foil champion in 1975 and 1980.

Philadelphia bound

Franke decided to pursue a master's degree in public health after graduating from Brooklyn, and Temple became her school of choice. The 21-year-old planned to keep competing in local and national fencing competitions, but more was added to her schedule when she was approached about coaching the Temple women's fencing team, which at the time was a club sport.

The school had separate programs then, and women's athletics ran through the school's health and physical education department. Franke asked the women's athletics director why things were set up that way because all she had ever known at Brooklyn was that her sport was a varsity program.

Her curiosity convinced Temple it should make fencing a varsity sport led by a 21-year-old who had just graduated a few months earlier.

"This had no correlation to Title IX because at that time we weren't really sure what it all meant," Franke said. "This was about the athletics director being open to providing an opportunity to women student-athletes."

It also dawned on Franke that in a five-year period, she went from a novice high school fencer to an All-American to a head coach in a sport that she had never contemplated being involved in.

When Franke started coaching the program, she was teaching the fencing class in the kinesiology department. She would ask people in the fencing class to join the team and told them to feel free to invite friends. Other Temple student-athletes would try the sport after their primary seasons had finished. 

Despite her youth and not having any coaching experience, Franke embraced the challenge of building the program.

"I was able to use my passion for teaching and coaching at the same time," said Franke, who guided Temple to the NCAA women's foil championship in the 1991-92 season. "I was taking beginners and teaching them the sport. Today, the only sport where you could do that is rowing or crew."

While Franke coached the Owls, she continued to work on her master's degree in public health, which she completed in 1975. She also continued to train for individual competitions under Lajos Csiszar, a legendary fencing coach known as "the Maestro" at the University of Pennsylvania.

As the years passed, Franke felt the impact of the Title IX legislation when Temple began offering fencing scholarships, which she estimated to be in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Franke was able to recruit prospects who were deeply involved in the sport.

Franke received United States Fencing Coaches Association Women's Fencing Coach of the Year honors in 1983, 1987, 1988 and 1991. 

She was also a tenured professor in Temple's College of Public Health.

"If you told me all of this was possible when I was in high school, I would have laughed at you," Franke said. "I grew up in New York, and all my family was there. That was home. I never imagined living anywhere else. Philadelphia is home now. Temple was the right fit for me."

Having firsthand knowledge of women's collegiate athletics through the past 50 years, Franke confidently said things would not be where they are today without Title IX. She said the federal law has increased the number of women in sports. 

She can point to her pre-Title IX experiences as a prime example of what being given an opportunity can lead to. 

"I was exposed to fencing, and I want that for others," Franke said. "You never know what you will be good at. When people are exposed to different things, you find those diamonds in the rough. We must continue to do this as a society so people can be the best at whatever they choose to be involved in."