Princeton University Athletics
Zoltan Dudas Named Head Fencing Coach
March 23, 2006 | Women's Fencing
Zoltan Dudas, a five-year assistant coach at the University of Notre Dame, has been selected as the next head men's and women's fencing coach at Princeton University, Director of Athletics Gary Walters announced. Dudas succeeds Michel Sebastiani, who last summer announced that the 2005-06 season would be his last after 25 years of service to the program.
"It is very exciting," Dudas said of taking the reins of the Princeton program. "At the same time it is a little bit bittersweet. I worked at Notre Dame for five years and [the UND fencers' reaction to his departure] was very touching. Princeton is a nice program and it will be a big challenge to compete with the other programs at a high level."
Dudas, a native of Hungary, helped guide a Notre Dame fencing team that finished a combined fourth of 29 teams at the 2006 NCAA Championships in Houston last weekend. Six Irish fencers competed at the national meet, with Mariel Zagunas winning a gold medal in women's saber and Patrick Ghattas a national runner-up in the men's saber.
Dudas inherits a Princeton program that sent 13 competitiors to the NCAA Mid-Atlantic/South Regional this year, eight of whom return, and six fencers to the NCAA Championships, four of whom return.
A 1992 graduate of Juhasz Gyula College in Hungary, Dudas came to the United States in 2000 after serving as a physical education teacher at both grade school and high school levels for 10 years, first as a student teacher and then as full-time staff. As a physical education teacher at Szechenyi Istvan High School, the handball team he led won the National Handball Championship in 1999, topping more than 250 teams. He also coached fencing at the Szegedi Postas Sport Club from 1985-1999. Once in the U.S., Dudas was a fencing coach at the Saturn Fencing Center in Cleveland, Ohio, from 2000-01 before moving to the Notre Dame, Ind., area. Before becoming a full-time assistant at UND in 2002, he served as a consultant to the Fighting Irish program while heading up the fencing program at the Indiana Fencing Academy in Mishawaka, Ind.
While at UND, Dudas helped direct the men's and women's program to combined team titles in 2003 and 2005. Focusing his tutelage on the foil and epee competitors, the Irish had 29 All-America finishes and 34 NCAA Championships appearances in those disciplines.