At a celebration marking Nikki Franke's 50-year coaching career at Temple, generations of her fencers gathered to honor their beloved coach.
With around 100 of her former and current student-athletes in attendance, each "era" got on stage and spoke about Franke's impact. Smiles were shared over the same traditions, laughs and nods of recognition at the well-known "Nikki look," feigned exasperation that they couldn't get away with anything because the coach always knew the happenings on campus.
The women shared tears, laughter and joy for the coach who changed their lives.
"It really was very moving," Franke said. "Over the years, it's still the same. The stories they told and the things they remember, it really made me feel like, 'OK, I've done my job because they still have good feelings about their time here.' That's the most satisfying thing about coaching."
Franke is the 2026 winner of the NCAA Pat Summitt Award, an honor recognizing a coach who has demonstrated devotion to the development of college athletes and made a positive impact on their lives. She will be recognized at the NCAA Convention in January alongside the other NCAA Honors recipients.
Franke's resume reflects her legendary status as a coach. As a fencer in her own right, Franke earned National Intercollegiate Women's Fencing Association All-America honors, earned a spot on two Olympic rosters and was inducted into the Brooklyn College Hall of Fame.
As a coach, Franke is the all-time winningest women's athletics coach at Temple, amassing 898 wins and the 1992 national women's foil team championship. Under her direction, the Temple program perennially ranked in the top 10, with 37 fencers earning 66 NCAA championships selections and 25 fencers earning 35 All-America honors. She was a four-time U.S. Fencing Coaches Association Coach of the Year and was inducted into the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame.
Yet the generations of Temple fencers who have found athletic, academic and personal success through Franke's mentorship and "labor of love" are what the coach relishes most.
Before Franke changed others' lives through fencing, the sport changed her own life. In Franke's senior year of high school, a physical education teacher started a fencing club. A native of the Harlem neighborhood of New York, she had never heard of fencing but decided it looked cool, so she picked up the foil and stepped onto the strip.
She had fun, then found success, then decided to pursue fencing collegiately at Brooklyn. As a Black student at a predominantly white college in the late '60s, fencing provided a home.
"Being on the fencing team gave me a safe space and a welcoming space, which was not necessarily true everywhere at the college at that time," she said. "It helped me grow as a person, helped me understand the importance of team and supporting each other and being there for each other, which is how I try to run my teams."
Her coach, Olympian Denise O'Connor, saw potential in her, developing Franke from a novice to an Olympian in her own right.
"I still talk to her to this day," Franke said of O'Connor.
It was O'Connor and Franke's mother who conspired - "I mean seriously conspired," Franke said - to get the fencer to consider a graduate assistant role at Temple to earn a master's in public health.
At Temple, Franke discovered men's fencing was a varsity sport, while women's was only a club sport.
"All I had ever known was a team," Franke recalled. "So I went into (Temple Women's Athletics Director Barbara Lockhart's) office, and I said, 'Why do the men have a team, but we only have a club?' And she said, 'Well, should we have a team?' and I said, 'Well, yeah, we should. That's what we should be doing.'"
Lockhart agreed, and the Temple women's fencing program began.
"I was not a trailblazer. I was just naive and didn't know any better," she said. "Not many places would ever have let an African American woman just out of college start coaching a Division I program. It would be unheard of. But the opportunity that Temple gave me was phenomenal and started something. Here we are 50 years later, from a club to a nationally ranked top 10 program with 900 wins."
Franke's half-century at Temple came to an end with her retirement in 2022. During her tenure, she earned her doctorate in public health, becoming a professor in Temple's College of Public Health. Franke leaned into the intersection of teaching and coaching.
"Coaching is teaching," she said. "My job is to teach and teach lessons that are not just on the strip, but lifelong lessons."
Jessica Reo, executive senior associate athletics director and the nominator for the award, said Franke's "labor of love" approach to coaching created a nurturing environment where student-athletes felt valued and motivated to reach their full potential. Franke's leadership, coupled with her emphasis on education, inspired Franke's fencers to excel in their lives.
"Her fencers consistently go on to be successful in their chosen professions, earning advanced degrees and rising to leadership positions in their fields," Reo said. "Along with this commitment to professional excellence, they find their own mentorship opportunities to inspire and support those less fortunate. Former Temple fencing athletes stay engaged in service, whether it is volunteering to teach fencing in underserved communities or embracing other aspects of servant leadership. Coach Franke's example and expectation is a Temple fencing tradition."
Some of Franke's prodigies include 1988 Temple fencing captain Catherine Humphrey-Bennett, who obtained her law degree and spent her free time founding a fencing club to encourage youths to try the sport. Another alum, Diana "Pixie" Roane, now a middle school teacher, created an after-school fencing program, leading some students to eventually compete in Division I fencing programs. Additionally, over 20 of Franke's former athletes have become college fencing coaches.
"Coach Franke's legacy lives on through them," Reo said.
Anna Novoseltseva, a fencer on Franke's last team before retirement, said the coach has shaped her morals, influencing the way she approaches challenges and opportunities.
"She always guided everyone through setbacks. Nothing was ever a failure. Everything was a learning experience," Novoseltseva said. "I was only with her for one year, but she shaped my experience all four years of my college experience. To this day, I still use things she has taught me in my everyday life."
Muna Bitar, a member of the 1992 team that won the national women's foil championship, said Franke's "tough as nails" mantra set the table for perseverance on the strip and in life.
"She always said we are tough as nails, and that just kept us moving forward. I've dealt with a lot of adversities throughout my 30 years being in this corporate world. The mental toughness that I developed through fencing and with Coach Franke's leadership has allowed me to overcome those adversities and to persevere and to fight," Bitar said.
Bitar said Franke created a long-lasting sisterhood built on a shared mental toughness and positive competition that empowered her team members to develop confidence as young women.
"We were all afraid of her," Bitar said. "She was amazing. She had that toughness and that nurturing. She had this strong authoritative approach that pushed me and my teammates to really excel. She fostered a sense of trust, fostered a feeling of being part of a family."
Franke cherishes the growth and maturation of each fencer who comes through her
program. Franke, who has children of her own, often refers to her fencers as her daughters and treats them as such. She said she enjoys staying in touch with her former fencers, many of whom call and text her on a monthly basis.
"You bring in these teenagers and then you're at the senior dinner and you see, four years later, these are women that are getting ready to go out into the world and contribute," Franke said. "That's been one of the most satisfying things about coaching, just feeling that you had something to do with that growth, with that maturation. It's a very, very good feeling."
But Franke didn't limit her impact to just her fencers. She and her Temple colleagues Tina Sloan Green, Alpha Alexander and Linda Greene founded the Black Women in Sport Foundation. They held conferences to discuss key topics in careers, mental health and livelihood for people of color. Then, they took it one step further.
"We felt it was very important to expose youngsters from the inner city to nontraditional sports," she said. They taught lacrosse, soccer, tennis, rowing, golf and, of course, fencing.
"I just happened to be at a school that had fencing, and that's why I'm here today. But someone exposed me to it. We're trying to teach them to not be afraid to try something different, to try something new."
Franke believes if you can see it, you can be it.
"For young girls to see what I've done, it's important that they've not just looked through a window, but they also look at the mirror sometimes and see themselves in some of these positions."
Franke defines a trailblazer not as someone who is the first, but as someone who opens opportunities so as not to be the last.
"What are you doing to help other people be there and show them the door?" she explained. "You crack the door, but someone needs to bust through. Being a trailblazer, really, is about cracking that door and maybe putting a doorstop so someone else can come in, too. Otherwise, what's the point?
"Without opportunity, nothing can be accomplished," Franke said. "We always have to be looking, asking how we can give people opportunities to be their best person."
