On and Off the Fence

Scoring a Triumph 

Meinhardt took a year off for his injury and a year off to train for the Olympics. So six years after he entered Notre Dame, he could still compete in collegiate fencing as an MBA student. In early 2014, he found himself ranked #1 in the world in men’s foil fencing—the first U.S. men’s foil fencer to achieve the top ranking. So the pressure was on to win an NCAA championship. 

His girlfriend, Lee Kiefer, is also a Notre Dame fencer. She, too, found herself contending for an NCAA national championship. Both competed in Columbus, Ohio, at the end of March. Kiefer won her final match, narrowly beating her teammate and close friend Madison Zeiss to win her second straight championship. 

The pressure ratcheted up for Meinhardt. Intensifying it even more, his competitors included defending NCAA champ Alex Massialas of Stanford and 2013 runner-up David Willette of Penn State. They knew each others’ weaknesses expertly. All three had long been coached by Greg Massialas, Alex’s dad, at the same gym back in San Francisco. 

In fencing, points are scored by touching opponents with the weapon. Electronic sensors in their clothing beep for touches too fast and light to be seen. Battling Willette in the final match, Meinhardt got down by several touches. He channeled his discipline. “That kept me calm and determined to keep coming back touch by touch,” he says.

The triumph ended with a bus ride from Columbus back to South Bend. Meinhardt was glad to have won, but swiftly got back to business. “It was a great feeling to finish off my NCAA career—a long career, since I came in 2008,” he says. “I think I celebrated by not doing that much homework that night.” 

More than a month later, Meinhardt and Kiefer still hadn’t done anything special to commemorate their twin wins. As a pre-med student, Kiefer works hard, too—they often study together, and often travel to tournaments around the globe. “I don’t think we know how to celebrate very well,” Kiefer says. “We’re always on the move.”

Angling for More 

His collegiate competition days are over, but Meinhardt still has a year left for his MBA. He’ll volunteer as a Notre Dame fencing coach next year while training for the 2016 Rio Olympics. 

To this day, the only time he brings up being a fencer without being Googled or asked about the sport is with potential employers. Deloitte has already signed him to a post-graduation business analytics position, with a part-time schedule to allow for training back in San Francisco. 

Even with a job locked down, Meinhardt still feels driven to get high grades. The night after his national championship win, he slept only four hours. It was a combination of preparation and nervousness for a speech in his Management Speaking class the next day. “The presentations take a lot of effort for me,” he says.

His professor, James S. O’Rourke IV, director of the Fanning Center for Business Communication, says he’d never know it, since Meinhardt seems self-assured. “He’s very low key, quiet, smiles a lot, and has a command of the room,” O’Rourke says. “I’ve heard him say that he’s nervous, but there’s no evidence of that.”

Yet what really strikes the professor is the way Meinhardt follows up outside class to make sure he’s on target. “Only a fraction of my students will do that,” O’Rourke says. “This fellow is humble enough to say, ‘Do I have it right?’” 

Meinhardt may always be less comfortable speaking in a suit than running down a fencing strip in full mask, weapon in hand. Will he make it to his third Olympics? His coaches know he’s injury-prone, but they’ve seen him steel himself to come back before.

“Gerek can go as far as he wants to go,” Kvaratskhelia says. “He’s said his goal is Rio. If he’s healthy, he will be there.”