Fencing
- Title:
- Head Coach
- Email:
- anthony.329@osu.edu
Donald K. Anthony Jr. was named head coach of the Ohio State fencing program in June 2018, joining the Buckeyes after serving as the USA Fencing chairman and president. Anthony is also vice president and an executive committee member of the International Fencing Federation.
Through his first six years at the helm of the Buckeyes, Anthony led the program to Midwest Fencing Conference and Central Collegiate Fencing Conference titles and four Top 6 NCAA Championship finishes. In his first season (2019), the team won the MFC and placed sixth at NCAAs. In 2020, Ohio State captured the MFC men’s and women’s titles (no combined champion was crowned). The maximum 12 Buckeyes were selected for the NCAA Championships before the event was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2021 Buckeyes won the CCFC men’s title and were the women’s co-champions. The 2022 and 2023 campaigns saw the Buckeye men’s and women’s programs win their respective CCFC titles. Twelve Buckeyes earned a spot at the 2022 NCAA Championships, where Ohio State finished 12th. The following year, 11 Buckeye qualifiers paced the Buckeyes to a fifth-place finish. In 2024, the Buckeye men claimed the CCFC crown and Ohio State was sixth at the NCAA Championships, with nine Buckeyes competing at the event, hosted by Ohio State in Columbus.
Anthony was named the CCFC Men’s Team Coach of the Year in both 2021 and 2022. Over the last six years, Ohio State fencers claimed 11 weapon titles at the MFC Championships, seven CCFC individual titles and two NCAA men’s epee crowns. In the first four years of CCFC competition, the Buckeyes captured 19 squad championships. Buckeye fencers have combined for 224 Ohio State Scholar-Athlete accolades and 161 Academic All-Big Ten honors during Anthony’s tenure.
Anthony was named to the Big Ten’s Anti-Hate and Anti-Racism Coalition in June 2020.
He is a world-class fencer who represented Team USA at two Senior World Championships and has been a perennial U.S. National finalist. He won the silver medal in Porec, Croatia, at the 2010 Veterans World Championships, placed in the Top 8 at the 2012 Veteran Worlds in Krems, Austria, and won the U.S. National Championship in Veteran Men’s Sabre (50-59). Anthony attended Princeton University where he was an Ivy League champion and NCAA finalist.
An international sports executive who has been involved in the sport of fencing for more than 30 years, Anthony has focused on making the sport accessible to diverse populations.
Anthony is founder and president of SwordSport LLC, a leading promoter of fencing in the world, president and chairman of the board of USA Fencing and vice president of the Féderation Internationale d’Escrime (FIE), the international fencing federation. Anthony’s work with SwordSport includes producing livestream and broadcast programming for NBC Universal Sports and ESPN; documentary films including “Black Blades” – the evolution of African-American fencers; marquee events including Arnold (Schwarzenegger’s) Fencing Classic and serving as a broadcast analyst for NCAA Fencing Championships on ESPN and the New York Fencing Masters and the Korfanty Sabre World Cup on NBC.
Anthony is president and CEO of the Warrior Group, Inc., a management consulting firm he founded in 1996 that specializes in organizational transformation, leadership development and strategic planning. Anthony is a founding member of the nationally acclaimed Peter Westbrook Foundation that uses the sport of fencing to teach life skills and improve the academic performance of disadvantaged youth in the greater New York City metro area.
Anthony is a native of Cleveland, Ohio, where he discovered fencing at Karamu House (an inner city cultural center) at the age of 7 and developed his passion for the sport. After graduation from Princeton (1979), he moved to New York City and worked for IBM for 10 years in sales and marketing. While there, he received his MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School where he studied entrepreneurial management and finance. He launched his entrepreneurial career in consulting and promotion in 1989 after leaving the firm.
Anthony and his wife Karen reside in Columbus, Ohio, and have a daughter who lives in New York City.
| Season | Conference Finish | NCAA Finish (National Champions) |
|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | 1st (MFC) | 6th (Oliver Shindler, men's epee) |
| 2019-20 | M: 1st (MFC) W: 1st (MFC) |
Championships canceled (OSU had 12 qualifiers) |
| 2020-21 | M: 1st (CCFC) W: t-1st (CCFC) |
Did not compete |
| 2021-22 | M: 1st (CCFC) W: 1st (CCFC) |
5th (Gabriel Feinberg, men's epee) |
| 2022-23 | M: 1st (CCFC) W: 1st (CCFC) |
5th |
| 2023-24 | M: 1st (CCFC) W: 2nd (CCFC) |
6th |
