Notre Dame has seven Heisman Trophy winners. It won't be long until he has several fencing gold medals.
The third came at the Tokyo Olympics on Sunday, where Lee Kiefer defeated defending champion Inna Deriglazova of Russia 15-13 in the women's foil final.
Kiefer tore off his mask after the final point and shouted, "Oh my God!"
Marielle Zagunis, also a Notre Dame graduate, is the only other American fencer to earn gold, having won the women's saber events in Athens in 2004 and Beijing in 2008.
Kiefer's gold is the first in Tokyo by an athlete with an Indiana connection. The Indiana Olympian won 19 medals in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
Kiefer, 27, a four-time NCAA champion and three-time Olympian, is a medical student at the University of Kentucky. Her husband, Gerek Meinhardt, won a team bronze in foils in 2016. Notre Dame instituted the Lee Kiefer/Gerek Meinhardt Award in 2018, in honor of a fencer taking selflessly and humbly time in training.
Kiefer is so small — 5-4, 110 pounds — that it can be difficult to identify his sport in the Olympic Village.
Marathoner? gymnast? coxswain?
"People probably think I'm a guest," she once said.
He took lessons in horse riding and piano before devoting himself to fencing. During the pandemic, she trained at a fencing bar, which she helped build in her parents' basement.
She finished fifth in the foils in 2012 and 10th in 2016. Until 10 years ago, her bronze made her only the second American female fencer to win a medal at the senior world championships.
"It's such an incredible feeling that I share with my coach, I share with my husband, with my family, with just about everyone who has been a part of it," Kiefer said. "I wish I could cut it into small pieces and distribute it to the ones I love."
Fencing has been taken over by his family.
Her father, Steve, was a fencing captain at Duke. Her older sister, Alex, was an NCAA champion at Harvard. Her younger brother, Axl, has competed in the junior worlds. Kiefer said he was inspired by his father.
"Before I left, my dad wrote me a card, and he said we were on this trip. We tried our best and as we went on, our pot of gold was full and just stay here top," she said.
“I just feel so loved and I have so much to give back to everyone. My dad pushed me from the start. We used to bang heads all the time because we are both so competitive and demand excellence, But here we are. Thank you, Dad."
The 31-year-old Deriglazova won world titles in foil in 2019, 2017 and 2015. He won team silver in foils at the 2012 Olympics.
She was disappointed later.
"But from the start I made some mistakes so I started losing, he started winning, and at the moment I was not so confident," said the Russian. "I started making more mistakes, to be quicker, when I didn't have to. I feel like I missed the opportunity."
Keefer was 5-0 on Sunday.
She registered a 15-4 win over Singapore's Arnita Berthier (another Notre Dame fencer); 15-13 over Canada's Eleanor Harvey, 15-11 over Yuka Uno of Japan; 15-6 over Russia's Larisa Korobennikova (RUS); 15-13 on Deriglazova.
Kiefer's mother Teresa is from the Philippines. The fencer is one of a collection of prominent Filipino American athletes that includes baseball pitchers Tim Linskaum, football players Teddy Bruschi and Roman Gabriel, basketball players Nate Robinson, figure skater Tai Babilonia, gymnast Kayla Ross and cyclist Corinne Rivera.