3 minute read
REMEMBERING DAN DECHAINE
U.S. ARMORERS IRENE EDGERTON AND DAN DECHAINE
REMEMBERING
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The USA Fencing community remembers Dan DeChaine, who served as Team USA armorer at four Olympic Games and numerous Junior and Senior World Championships, World University Games and Pan American Games. He died on May 20, 2022, at the age of 87.
Dan Dechaine
BY JOHN HEIL PART ONE
I remember rooming with Buckie Leach and Dan DeChaine at the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Training Center for a training camp. Given the past year’s events, this is a particularly fond memory. Dan was “resting” in bed – with shoes and tie on, shirt buttoned. And Buckie was Buckie.
Dan was a most cordial and pleasant man who appreciated his work, a good cigar, a cool beer, the beat of fencing, the repartee of friends and his wife, Myra. I don’t remember the first time I met Dan, but it was a long time ago, which is a good fortune I share with many others.
I remember him as the wise gentlemen he was. But I also know of the young man who stole his wife, Myra, from music legend Kris Kristofferson (who is a Rhodes scholar, by the way).
Dan was not ordinarily inclined to talk of these things, but some beer, maybe even a cigar and a little prodding can go a long way. Speaking of cigars, you might be interested to know that Dan was something of a closet Cuban nationalist. In fact, he was something of a nationalist for anywhere there are good people in oppressive circumstances. No doubt this relates to his many friends around the world who are citizens of the fencing nation.
Dan saw a remarkably long tenure in this international game, which is no accident. To say he had been around the fencing world hardly makes the point. This is the guy who approved Richard Chamberlain (the hero of Shogun) for his college credits in fencing. Dan spoke several languages, although he was not sure where or how he learned them. In his classic manner of understatement, he told me of being at SEMI meeting (the FIE armorers’ group) and after listening to someone speak German for about 15 minutes it started to make sense to him, really.
TOP: ANOTHER ONE OF DAN’S ADVENTURES. BOTTOM: CALVERT DELMAR, CARL BORACK AND DAN DECHAINE
REMEMBERING
Bear in mind that Dan’s day job for years was at NASA. He worked on design projects and wrote technical manuals. I have never got around to asking if he was a “rocket scientist,” but it appears that NASA kept him busy for years doing one thing or another that rocket scientists needed. While sports science is not rocket science, I was pleased to have a rocket scientist on the Sport Science Committee.
Dan insisted for many years on traveling with a lot of gear and gadgets of all kinds, including an anvil vice. This once led me to be temporarily credentialed as his assistant armorer for the World Championships in Cuba. Traveling internationally with gear with all sorts of wire and gauges is a bit nerve racking, so Dan gave me I got a crash course on what does what and such, which I of course promptly forgot.
All this from a guy whose idea of heaven was wiring fencing blades. Dan, thanks for everything. You can take your tie off now.
DAN THE FENCER, DAN THE ARMORER, “DAN THE MAN”