NEWARK, NJ – Yefim Litvan, who has coached internationally for the United States in two Olympic Games and who recently completed a highly successful tenure as a college head coach at Rutgers University, is the new head coach of the men’s and women’s fencing teams at New Jersey Institute of Technology.
Litvan, who was honored as 2007 Coach of the Year by the United States Fencing Association, entered college coaching in 1990. Since then, he has guided championship-level teams and individuals in both men’s and women’s fencing and in all three weapons of the sport–sabre, foil and epee.
An émigré from the former Soviet Union, Litvan became an assistant at the University of Pennsylvania in 1990, remaining there until being named head coach at Rutgers in New Brunswick, NJ, in June 1994. He was head coach of Rutgers until last month and now joins the NJIT staff.
He joined the United States National Team program in 1995 and was a coach in the 1996 and 2000 Olympic Games. Litvan, who also coached in the World University Games and in the Pan American Games, was on the US coaching staff for the fencing World Championships from 1995 to 1999.
In addition to his college and national team work, Litvan has coached at the New York Athletic Club since 1995 and worked with three fencers who have combined to compete in five Olympic Games, while combining to win six United States national championships.
In 13 years as coach at Rutgers, Litvan led his teams to 11 berths in the NCAA national championships. The teams consistently finished in the top 15 and made the top 10 in seven NCAA tournaments.
In the March 2007 NCAA national championships, Litvan guided his team to a 12th-place finish. It was the final varsity fencing competition for Rutgers, which announced last year that it was eliminating six varsity intercollegiate sports, including fencing.
In 2003, under his tutelage, women’s fencer Alexis Jemal, who had not competed interscholastically prior to college, captured the individual NCAA championship in the women’s sabre. In 1996, Litvan’s Rutgers team won the NCAA team championship in another weapon of fencing, the epee.
In four years at Penn, Litvan coached three All-Americans and two Ivy League team champions. The Penn women’s team was second in the 1994 NCAA championship and the Penn sabre team was second at the NCAAs in 1993 and third in 1994.
Litvan’s coaching career began in the former Soviet Union in 1959, when he was based in Ukraine. Before immigrating to the United States, more than 20 of his protégés achieved the rank of Master of Sports in the former USSR.
At NJIT, he will assume leadership of a sport with one of the longest, richest traditions at the school, with records dating back to 1935-36 on the men’s side. A separate women’s program was founded in 1982-83 and competed until 1990-91. The women’s program was re-established in 2003-04 and continues as a Highlander varsity sport.
The person most identified with fencing at NJIT is the late Paul Hausser, who was a beloved teacher and coach at the school until his retirement in 1991. He headed the fencing program from 1953-54 through 1984-85, compiling more than 200 wins while winning more than 78 percent, including two North Atlantic regional championships. Professor Hausser was widely respected in fencing circles and served on numerous advisory boards for the sport, including the NCAA Fencing Committee.
Starting in 2007-08, NJIT will be the only public institution in New Jersey sponsoring fencing as an intercollegiate varsity sport. Additionally, the school will be the only one in New Jersey offering athletic scholarships for both men’s and women’s fencing.
(picture courtesy of Rutgers Athletic Communications)
