“What did they want to know?” I asked, trying to keep my voice neutral, careful not to show my little sister that I actually cared what other people said about me behind my back.
“They told Mommy that they were surprised she let you travel all over the world by yourself. And they said you should be traveling with your father or brother at least. They made it sound like Mommy and Abu were doing something wrong by letting you go to your competitions instead of focusing on a career and marriage prospects.” Faizah’s face registered her annoyance.
I shook my head. “I don’t expect people to understand my journey, and I’m not going to let their opinions cloud my vision.”
I didn’t want Faizah to think that being a Muslim meant living a restricted life. I was thankful for the peace Islam brought to my life when things proved too painful or chaotic. It was frustrating that I didn’t always have the support of the people around me, but I really felt guilty that my mother had to deal with that nonsense, especially at the masjid where she liked to spend much of her free time. My whole family made sacrifices to help me on my fencing journey, and the last thing I wanted to do was cause anyone pain or embarrassment.
“Did Mom say anything back to those women?” I asked my sister, scrolling through my mental files trying to guess who had been talking about me. It was probably the same women who gave my parents grief for sending us to public school instead of a private Islamic school. It was like they couldn’t wrap their heads around the fact that my parents didn’t raise their children in the exact same way as other Muslim parents. For some people, seeing my sisters and me actively engaged in sport was a challenge to their beliefs.
Faizah smirked. “You know Mom just did her usual and ignored their questions and changed the subject.”
We both laughed. Our mother was our greatest role model and fiercest protector, and I was going to take a lesson from her; ignore the haters and the naysayers and just focus on being my best self.
My mother and younger sisters met me at the airport with a bouquet of flowers and a single balloon that read “Sweet 16.” I was coming home from Tunis in triumph. For the first time ever, I cracked the top sixteen and came home with a twelfth place finish. Just seeing my name nearing the top of the list at the end of the competition, with Akhi by my side, I’d felt so proud. We’d done this together. And here was my family sharing in my joy.
Now that Faizah was fencing, she could help my parents understand the intricacies of competitions and explain that making the round of sixteen at an international competition was a huge achievement. Initially my father didn’t see what everyone was so excited about when I’d made the call from Tunisia to tell them the good news. I’d heard Abu in the background when I called.
“Twelfth place?” he asked, sounding perplexed. I knew my dad didn’t intend to be mean, but to him, with very little knowledge about the sport, he understood fencing from the perspective of winning and losing. His reference points for sports were the more common football, basketball, and baseball; fencing was still new for him. But I knew he was proud that I was working hard for something I believed in. And truth be told, I appreciated my father’s high expectations that I should shoot for being number one. It motivated me. According to Abu, I could do anything I put my mind and energy to, and I was only too willing to prove him right.
More success was just around the corner for me. Because of my twelfth place win in Tunisia and my earlier gold medal finishes in the domestic tournaments, my national ranking had improved significantly. Some fencers keep close tabs on their rankings; they calculate their standing themselves even before the official rankings are announced. Sometimes they’re a little off, but for the most part they know exactly where they rank at all times. I’m a naturally competitive person, but I wasn’t so obsessive that I had to know what my ranking was going to be every single second of every single day. That would be an added layer of pressure and stress I didn’t need. When the final standings went up, I’d find out with everyone else where I ranked. And that’s why, when the news broke that I had qualified for my first United States National Team, I was shocked. I knew I was getting close, but wasn’t expecting to make the team so soon. But the numbers don’t lie. It was now official; I was one of the top four women’s saber fencers in the entire United States, earning me a spot on my first national team. At age twenty-four, after working with Akhi for only a year, I had done what most people would assume was impossible. The seed Coach Mustilli had planted in my mind was sprouting into reality. I was on my way to going all the way.
CHAPTER 11
We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.
—PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA
The whispers preceded me into the room. People stopped what they were doing when I walked into the foundation on a Saturday morning after the announcement had been made. Suddenly the space erupted in applause, and people started shouting their congratulations. I laughed and let the tears slide down my cheeks without even bothering to wipe them away. I had made my first national team and would be representing the United States of America at the World Fencing Championships. As an official member of the team, the majority of my competition expenses like airfare, food, and hotel would now be covered. This meant that some of the financial burden of fencing would finally be off my plate, and I could quit teaching and focus the majority of my time on training. As far as I was concerned, I could now say that I had a “career” in fencing.
Technically I wouldn’t be earning a salary—instead I received a training stipend from USA Fencing, the official organizing body of fencing in the United States. My stipend was a predetermined amount of money—based on world ranking—to defray the cost of training expenses. Since I lived with my parents, my training stipend—which turned out to be almost the same amount as my teaching salary—would be just enough to subsidize the costs of my personal trainer, gym membership, massage therapist, fencing equipment, and countless other expenses associated with staying in peak physical condition. I decided to keep coaching at Columbia High School because I had developed a close bond with the students there and really grew to love them. And the extra money would also come in handy for unexpected expenses.
Standing there in the doorway of the foundation with my real fencing family surrounding me in applause only made the moment more real. After all my hard work trying to make it, this was the first time since graduating from college that I felt like I had finally achieved something meaningful. I was no longer chasing rainbows; I was looking at my pot of gold and everyone at the foundation had witnessed my fight. They knew how significant it was that another one of us had made it; it was like one more step toward diversifying fencing. Our unwritten foundation motto was, “When one wins, we all win.” Peter started the process and opened doors and we, his students, proudly kept marching through. Peter came over and gave me a big hug. He then asked for everyone’s attention. There were more than 150 kids on the floor for their Saturday morning lessons and dozens of other adult students and coaches, so it took a moment for the noise level to die down. When it did, Peter started to talk.
“I want everyone here to take a look here at Ibtihaj Muhammad. She has just qualified for the United States women’s saber team and will represent our country at the World Championships. She got there with hard work and because she never gave up.” Peter paused and looked at me. “Did you ever give up, Ibtihaj?”
I felt awkward with all eyes on me but managed to squeak out, “No.”
“That’s right,” Peter said. “She never gave up, and neither can you if you want to be successful. In fencing and in life. If your coach is telling you that your parry isn’t right, don’t give up, fix it. If you keep falling short in your attack, don’t give up, keep trying until you land that attack with your eyes closed and one hand tied behind your back. And most of all, don’t ever give up because someone tries to tell you that you don’t belong because you don’t look the part. Ibtihaj didn’t listen to any of that
nonsense, and she stands here in front of you triumphant.”
The whole room erupted in applause, and a small group turned to congratulate Akhi, too. I was still in awe of all that he and I had accomplished working together for only one year. My friend Candace still hadn’t qualified for a national team, so I truly recognized what an accomplishment I had achieved. I owed much of my newfound self-confidence and knowledge, both on and off the fencing strip, to Akhi. So many people, like Sam, didn’t believe in me and doubted my potential. Had I listened to the chorus of male voices at the foundation, I might have given up. I might have bought into their belief that I was too old, not strong enough, or lacked the requisite talent. There were a lot of young women who, over the years, left the foundation because they hadn’t felt supported or encouraged to keep going. One of my biggest challenges has always been to see past other people’s doubt and negativity so I could define my own path. In the meantime, it didn’t make sense to me to hold on to any grudges or focus my energy on the people who hadn’t believed in me. I was standing in gratitude, thankful for the ability to see past other people’s low expectations for me and fully embrace the future. I smiled at everyone in the room and blushed from all the applause and cheers.
Then everyone started chanting Akhi’s name. “Akhi! Akhi” They wanted him to make a small speech. We locked eyes across the room, and he smiled. “I don’t have time for speeches,” he said with a grin. “Just because I helped Ibtihaj get onto the national team doesn’t mean I’m done. Our work has just begun.”
And with that pronouncement, Peter sent everyone back to training. I went to the locker room to get changed, and Akhi told me to meet him on the strip.
My spot on Team USA definitely carried with it a new level of respect at the foundation. I was no longer walking around with a giant question mark over my head. Since coming back from Duke, I’d been treated like an afterthought; now all of the coaches saw real potential in me. The upcoming 2012 Olympics were even being mentioned in my presence. But I couldn’t let it get to my head. Like Akhi said, making the team was hardly the moment to slack off. Now that I was going to wear red, white, and blue in competitions, I felt even more pressure to elevate my skills and become the best fencer I could.
Like gymnastics, or track and field, fencing is still an individual sport, so even though I had qualified for the United States National Team, I would fence both the individual and team events during competitions. When it was all said and done, I was out on the fencing strip alone, with nothing but my name and country on my uniform. Most international competitions had two distinct parts, the individual event and the team event. So, during the first two days of a competition, it was every woman for herself, and depending on how the bracket was configured, two people from the same team could wind up fencing against each other in the direct elimination rounds. But then on the day of the team event, we competed as a unit—all for one and one for all. That kind of setup made for an interesting team dynamic, because it meant I had to look at my teammates as both my opponents and my lifelines. Luckily, I didn’t have to deal with that dynamic on a daily basis.
Qualifying for Team USA didn’t mean I stopped training with Akhi. I continued to train at the foundation in Manhattan and lived at home with my parents in New Jersey, but I would compete representing the United States as a member of the national team. There was a national coach for the team, but most team members traveled to competitions with their personal coaches as well. The competition season ran from January through October, with about ten international competitions per season. Theoretically we were supposed to have at least one World Cup in each zone of the world—the Americas, Africa, Europe, and Asia—but due to a lack of resources or sometimes political instability, the competitions were predominantly held in Europe, with a few held in Asia. In between the World Cups, we also had four domestic competitions (NACs) held in different cities around the United States. Those competitions would occur in January, April, October, and December. Every season culminated with World Championships, unless it was an Olympic year. The points accumulated from all of these competitions would make up the US national rankings, and the top four finishers qualified for the national team for the following season.
Since fencing legends Becca Ward and Sada Jacobson retired from the sport in 2008, two women had become staples on the national saber team, and I’d been following their careers since graduating from college. They had consistently been ranked in the top four for years and formed the nexus of the team, leaving the other two spots open for wildcards like me. The anchor of the team was a woman named Mariel Zagunis. Tall, blonde, and the child of Olympic rowers, Mariel was the most decorated American fencer, male or female, and had been fencing since she was ten. She’d won individual gold medals at the 2004 and 2008 Olympics and had been on the national team since 2000. Dagmara Wozniak, a Polish immigrant to the United States, with mousy brown hair and a sturdy frame, had been fencing since she was nine years old and had been the alternate on the women’s saber team at the 2008 Olympics and been on Team USA since then. Even though Mariel and Dagmara had been fencing for far longer than I had, we were all around the same age: Mariel was twenty-four like me and Dagmara was twenty-one. The third member of the team in 2010 when I joined was named Daria Schneider. Daria was a strong fencer who had just missed a chance to compete in the 2008 Olympics but who had done really well on the college circuit, competing for Columbia University. All told, my new teammates were part of an elite group of athletes who had been raised to become fencing champions. It was awe-inspiring to join such a talented team of women. I promised myself I’d prove myself worthy of my spot on the squad.
Our first competition as a team was World Championships in October. Akhi and I had been training overtime, and I felt as ready as I ever had to get on the strip. Because all four team members lived and trained in different parts of the country, we arrived to the World Championships, held in Paris, France, separately. I was so excited to be at my first World Championships and representing the United States that I must have seemed like a puppy on Red Bull; my eagerness showed all over my face. I was so looking forward to bonding with Mariel and Dagmara. Two athletes I had admired from afar were now my teammates. These were women who, like me, understood the level of intensity and sacrifice required to reach athletic excellence. Though we lived separate lives, training in different clubs and in different parts of the country, we were all on the same page trying to find enough time in the day to eat, sleep, and drink fencing. It was understood that we were on the same mission.
The national coach for the women’s saber team was the highly respected Polish saber fencer Ed Korfanty. Coach Korfanty had had an illustrious fencing career in his native Poland before immigrating to the United States and starting a career in coaching in Portland, Oregon. Not only had he coached Coach Mustilli’s elder daughter when she was on the US women’s saber team back in 2000, he was also Mariel’s personal coach. Ed didn’t show much emotion upon my arrival in Paris. He didn’t act like he cared very much that I was the newest member of the team. For that matter, none of the other team members greeted me with high levels of enthusiasm, either. It certainly wasn’t the welcome I’d been hoping for or expecting, but I tried not to let the lack of warm smiles and encouraging words from my teammates deter me from my mission. Besides, I had brought my own cheering squad with me.
My sister Brandilyn and my mom came with me to Paris because this was my first time competing for Team USA, plus it was Paris! The excitement of being in Paris and competing at this high level was intoxicating. They say everything is better in Paris, the food, the architecture, the romance; I found even fencing belonged on that list. I had traveled to a handful of other countries to fence, but this World Championship felt magical. The entire experience felt like something out of a Disney movie.
The competition took place at the historic Grand Palais, an exhibition hall normally reserved for art and cultural exhibits. The grandeur of the ornate glass structure, b
uilt in the Beaux Arts style in the early twentieth century, makes one think it must have at one point been a playground for royalty. I was used to fencing in convention centers or sports arenas, so this was on a whole different level of spectacular.
Mom, Brandilyn, and I toured the Palais the night before the competition. If Akhi had been with us, he would have been leading this mission, but he hadn’t been able to make it to Paris.
Stepping foot in the historic glass palace with vaulted ceilings that offered unobstructed views of the dark night sky was a sight to behold. It was so gorgeous, we stood in awe, drinking it all in. Not a single word passed between us. And then I broke the silence.
“I am going to love fencing in here. It will truly feel like a fairy tale.”
“You are so corny,” Brandilyn joked. “But this place is gorgeous.”
Mom just shook her head, too overwhelmed to put into words what she was feeling. Finally, she just smiled and said, “This is truly a blessing to be here.”
The next morning, I headed over to the venue early while my mom and Brandilyn went off to sightsee. I wore my national team warm-up and headed out the door of our hotel. Right before I reached the Grand Palais, a young Muslim girl in hijab stopped me.
“Excuse me,” she said with a thick French accent. “Can I have your autograph?”
I gave her a funny look. “You want my autograph?”
“Because you are the famous American fencer wearing a hijab. We have read about you in the newspaper. I want your autograph because I look up to you. I want to be an athlete like you.”
I had no idea that the few small articles that had been written about me back home had made it all the way to France.
I didn’t want to tell the girl that I wasn’t actually a celebrity, but I signed her paper and wished her good luck. She thanked me profusely and ran off. Before I could process the interaction, another hijabi girl and her mother approached me, and before I could even get to the doors of the Grand Palais, I’d signed three more autographs.
Proud Page 16