Judy Cummins, an active fencer and a coach in the sport for over two decades, has served as a coach for the Yeshiva University women’s fencing program since August, 1999 – and as the head coach since 2001. She teaches as a part-time fencing coach and instructor at the Brooklyn Fencing Center, a position she has held since 2004, and has been certified as a Moniteur des Armes by the US Fencing Coaches Association. Cummins is also certified to coach all three weapons from the United States Fencing Association.
Cummins has coached numerous NCAA Regional Championship participants in every year since the Maccabees fencing program has been affiliated with the association, and her YU squad was the recipient of the EWFC Roi Green Memorial Team Spirit Award in 2008-09, 2017-18, 2018-19, and 2019-20. Under her tutelage, Alison Leitman was the 2002 EWFC Saber Champion, and placed 10th at that winter’s NIWFA (national) Championships. Another of Cummins’s countless EWFC All-Star performers was Elizabeth Penn, who won the EWFC’s Individual Epee Title in 2011 and garnered its Denise O’Connor Epee Fencer of the Year award as a result of her accomplishments.
In 2020-21, the women's fencing team had five fencers who achieved USFCA All-Academic team honors and four of them earned the prestigious Scholar of Distinction recognition. That year, the Maccabees had a combined team GPA of 3.71, the seventh highest in the nation.
In 2021-22, the women's fencing program had seven fencers who earned USFCA All-Academic team accolades with four of them being selected as Scholar of Distinction honorees. The Maccabees produced a team GPA of 3.55, the fifth highest across all three NCAA divisions and ahead of other prestigious fencing schools such as Columbia University, the University of Notre Dame, The Ohio State University, and Northwestern University.
In 2022-23, the Maccabees had eight fencers who earned USFCA All-Academic team kudos and six of them were honored as Scholar of Distinction winners. The program produced a team GPA of 3.72, the fifth highest in the nation. YU earned USFCA Team All-Academic honors for the third straight year.
Cummins, who attended Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Carnegie Institute of Technology, and the School of Visual Arts in perfecting her craft as a recognized freelance graphic artist and illustrator, has garnered over 50 fencing medals at the local, regional, and national levels. She is a five-time USFA Metropolitan Section Saber Champion and a National Veterans Saber gold medalist. Cummins also placed fifth in the 2006 Veterans World Championships in the saber discipline in Bath, England.
The Western Pennsylvania native has also served her sport as a previous member of the United States Fencing Association’s Metropolitan Division’s sectional board of directors, where she was on the scheduling committee from 1993-2001, and as its bout committee chair from 1998-2001.
Cummins has taught fencing at all levels at New York University, Borough of Manhattan Community College, The Fencers Club, The Ramaz School, The Berkeley Carroll School, and Yeshiva of Flatbush. She resides in Brooklyn, N.Y. with her husband, Michael, and their sibling cats - Cowboy and Romeo.
