Player Bio: Nikki Franke :: Women's Fencing

Nikki Franke

Event:
Head Coach

Experience:
36th Season

Hall of Fame coach Nikki Franke is entering her 36th season as Director of Fencing and women's foil coach at Temple University with an impressive 542-137-1 (.797) career record. In the 2005-06 season she captured her 500th career win which added to her Temple coaching legacy. Franke, Temple's women's fencing coach since the program began in the 1972-73 season, has led the Temple fencers to 34 postseason appearances. Last season the Owls finished with a 24-6 record and finished 12th overall among all the women's teams competing at the NCAA tournament.

On October 21, 2002, Franke was inducted into the International Sports Hall of Fame, which was established by the Women's Sports Foundation. She was one of only three women to be inducted that year and was chosen based on her impressive coaching, playing, teaching and community service records.

In 1995, Franke was honored when she was inducted into the Temple University Athletics Hall of Fame. She was also inducted into the United States Fencing Association Hall of Fame in 1998.

Testimony to Franke's coaching ability was displayed in the 1991-92 season as she guided the Owls to the NCAA Women's Foil Championship. In the 1993-94 season, the Owls' fencing team tied the school record with a .955 winning percentage (21-1) and finished third at the Mid-Atlantic/South NCAA Regionals and sixth at the NCAA Championships.

Franke received the United States Fencing Coaches Association Women's Fencing Coach of the Year honors in 1983, 1987, 1988, and in 1991, when she led the Owls to a third-place finish at the 1991 NCAA Championships with just one senior, three juniors, a sophomore and four freshmen.

The Owls have been a force to be reckoned with at the NCAA Championships since the team first qualified in 1976. The Owls won the championship in 1992; finished as runner-up in 1987 and 1993; took third place in 1985 and 1991, and took fourth place in 1983, 1984, 1988 and 1990.

A world-class athlete herself, Franke possesses a vast array of national and international accomplishments. She was a member of the 1976 ad 1980 U.S. Olympic teams and was the United States Fencing Association's (USFA) National Foil Champion in both 1975 and 1980. She was the runner-up in the national finals in 1978 and finished third in 1976, 1977, and 1979. Franke was a member of the U.S. Team which placed fifth in the 1973 World University Games in Moscow, as well as the American squad that competed in the World University Games in Bulgaria in 1977.

Franke's international experience continued when she was a member of two U.S. delegations that competed in the 1975 and 1979 Pan American Games. She captured a silver medal in the 1975 individual foil competition and a bronze in the 1979 competition. On both occasions, she helped the United States team to a third-place finish. A New York City native, Franke graduated with honors from Brooklyn College in 1972. At BC, she was a four-year letter winner, placing third individually at the 1972 NIWFA National Championships and was named an NIWFA All-American. Her collegiate efforts were rewarded when she was inducted into the Brooklyn College Hall of Fame in 1979.

Franke, who is currently an Associate Professor in Temple University s Department of Public Health, received a master's degree in Health Education from Temple in 1975 and completed the doctoral program in 1988.