Draft:Michel Sebastiani

Michel Sebastiani is a French fencing master (maître).

Sebastiani grew up in Algeria in the 1940s, and after his family was exiled from Algeria during its civil war, they moved to Corsica in the Mediterranean Sea. He earned two master's degrees from the French National Institute of Sports (INSEP), in Paris. He was a member of the French National Modern Pentathlon Team for the 1960 Summer Olympic Games. He joined the French Special Forces, and was part of a military coup meant to restore Pieds-Noirs to Algeria, and was also an officer in the French Foreign Legion paratroopers in the West Algeria War in 1960. A clarinet player, he played with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band in New Orleans, Louisiana.

He earned his Maîtrise d'Escrime M.A. Fencing Master degree from Ecole Superieure d’Escrime in Paris. Sebastiani then coached at Cornell University, New York University, Brooklyn College, and Princeton University. He was also an Olympic coach for Team USA. He twice won the U.S. Fencing Coaches Association's Schreff Award, given yearly to the most outstanding college fencing coach of the year. Sebastiani was inducted into the U.S. Fencing Hall of Fame in 2015.

Early life
Sebastiani is a native of France. He grew up as a young boy in Algeria in the 1940s. His family was exiled from Algeria during its civil war, and moved to Corsica in the Mediterranean Sea.

He earned two master's degrees from the French National Institute of Sports (INSEP), a training institute and center for excellence in sports that trains elite athletes, in Paris, France. In 1957, Sebastiani earned a Master of Science degree in Health, Physical Education, and Sports from INSEP. He also graduated from the Ecole Superieure d’Escrime of INSEP, France's top fencing school, where he also earned his Maîtrise d'Escrime M.A. Fencing Master degree.

Sebastiani was a member of the French National Modern Pentathlon Team in 1959, and the French Modern Pentathlon Team for the 1960 Summer Olympic Games in Rome, Italy.

He joined the French Special Forces, and was part of a military coup meant to restore Pieds-Noirs to Algeria. Sebastiani was also an officer in the French Foreign Legion paratroopers in the West Algeria War in 1960.

A clarinet player, Sebastiani played with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band in New Orleans, Louisiana. He also played clarinet in the 1960s with banjo player Walt Koken and others in the Muskrat Ramblers Dixieland Jazz Band.

Cornell University
In 1963, Sebastiani came to the United States as assistant men’s fencing coach and as head coach for the women’s fencing team at Cornell University. His women’s team won the Intercollegiate Women's Fencing Association (NIWFA) National Championship in 1967, 1968, and 1969. In addition, one of his Cornell fencers also won the NIWFA individual title in 1968, and another won the NCAA men’s épée title 1968.

New York University
Sebastiani next coached fencing at New York University.

Brooklyn College
At Brooklyn College from 1971-77, Sebastiani was the head fencing coach of the men’s fencing team, as well as an assistant professor of Health and Physical Education at the School of Sciences. Among his fencers was Matt Israel, whom he coached to the semi-finals of the 1973 Junior World Fencing Championships. During this time he also served on the coaching staff for the United States Team at the World Fencing Championships in Buenos Aires, at which two of his Brooklyn College fencers competed. In total, he served as U.S. coach for the World Fencing Championships three times.

Brooklyn College fencing team captain Stewart Weisman recalled that "The Maestro was a specimen above mere mortal men. Six feet tall with a deep Corsican accent, [he] could read and write in French, English, and Arabic. It was said he was the youngest officer in the French-Algerian War. [He] could run a marathon, do a one-armed hand stand, and perform advanced gymnastics. He was a pentathlete, who excelled in running, swimming, horseback riding, pistol shooting, and one-touch épée fencing... It was said he knew a thousand single attacks in the épée alone."

Houston, Texas
In 1978, Sebastiani founded and headed the Sebastiani Fencing Academy in Houston, Texas, the top fencing academy in the country. Sebastiani also taught and coached at Rice University in Houston.

Princeton University
Starting in 1982, Sebastiani was the head fencing coach of the Princeton University men's (starting that year) and women's (starting in 1988, when he founded it) fencing teams for 25 years, through the 2005-06 season. The men were (213-89; a .705 winning percentage) and the women were (141-88) during that time.

The Princeton teams won nine Ivy League championships (the men in 1994, 1995, 1997, 1998, 2000, and 2001, and the women in 1999, 2000, and 2001), and six Intercollegiate Fencing Association (IFA) National Championships. The Princeton men finished in the top four of the NCAA or IFA 16 times, and had 19-straight winning seasons. They had a winning record 11 of the last 12 years. The Princeton women won two National Intercollegiate Women’s Fencing Association team championships, in 1993 and 1994, making Sebastiani the first coach to have his women's teams win the national championship at three schools, in his case Cornell, NYU, and Princeton.

Sebastiani coached three NCAA individual men's champions. One was NCAA épée champion, and future two-time Olympian, team épée world champion, Pan American Games champion, national champion, and Hall of Famer Soren Thompson ('05). Another was an NCAA individual women's champion. Another of his fencers was Maya Lawrence, who won a bronze medal in team épée at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, and was a national champion. Thirty-six of his male fencers and 25 of his female fencers won All-America honors while fencing for him.

Sebastiani twice won the U.S. Fencing Coaches Association's Schreff Award, given yearly to the most outstanding college fencing coach of the year as voted on by their peers, in 1994 and 2006. The Schreff Sword is an engraved silver Glamdring broadsword resting on a red velvet cushion.

Author and former Princeton fencer David Treuer wrote "The Fencing Master," in which he described meeting Sebastiani, and learning to fence from him.

Maître Sebastiani was bustling about in that odd way of his I would come to know so well. He was perfectly bald on top, with a fringe of severely short hair circling the back of his head from ear to ear. His face was sharp – thin, pointy nose, tight, close-set mouth, small eyes that poked out from underneath his sharp brows. He wasn’t that tall but he had a powerful chest and strong arms – an old-fashioned strongman’s torso, which tapered down to very small, almost dainty feet. His eyes were severe, searching, as if his whole being were concentrated in a point about three to four feet in front of him, much like the weapons he trained people to use....

‘So you never fence before? Never? No one has coached you?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Not once.’

He nodded at me gravely. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Very good. American coaches know nothing. They know one trick. Or two tricks. They don’t see –’ he made a full circle with both hands, ‘the whole. They see only one thing or one other thing. They fill you with bad habits. But you come here. You come to me without any bad habits. You come with no habits at all. This is good. I will train you to be a world champion. It is simple. Come back in fall when you arrive. And you will fence for me.’

US Olympic Team
Sebastiani coached the US Fencing Team at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California.

Sebastiani Fencing Academy
In November 2001, Sebastiani opened a fencing academy in Princeton, New Jersey, the Cercle D'Escrime de Princeton-Sebastiani (Sebastiani Fencing Academy), which as of 2023 had 200 members. There, he is Head Fencing Master and coaches Olympic fencers and others down to the novice level in the classic traditional French school of fencing, in foil, epee, and sabre. Gabrielle Roux, who was trained by Sebastiani, is an instructor and owner.

Hall of Fame
Sebastiani was inducted into the U.S. Fencing Hall of Fame in 2015. Asked why he loves fencing, he said: "It's very simple. If you love something and someone asks you why, if you can answer, you don't love it, you just like it."