The Justice

Media Credit: PHOTO COURTESY OF BRANDEIS SPORTS INFORMATION Fencer Tim Morehouse '00 poses in his U.S. Olympic team jacket. Morehouse, who will be traveling to Beijing to compete in the Summer 2008 Olympics, will become the first Brandeis athlete to compete in the Olympics.

The U.S. Men's Olympic fencing team missed out on a bronze medal in the saber division by just one point at the 2004 Summer Games in Athens, and there wasn't much Tim Morehouse '00 could do about it, even though he watched it happen. As an alternate, Morehouse traveled with the team, but was not able to fence in the tournament.

Four years and one appendectomy later, Morehouse will return to the Summer Olympics, this time as a starter. In doing so, he hopes to put the U.S. saber team over the hump as Brandeis' first-ever athlete to compete in the Olympics.

"We're in a pretty similar position as when we headed into the Athens games, so we're pretty excited about our chances to win a medal in Beijing," Morehouse said. "We all know that we can win a medal, and we all feel like we have some unfinished business."

Morehouse's path to the Olympics separates him from his teammates. He started fencing at age 13, but he did not make junior and cadet teams like many of his teammates. While most of his peers took college scholarships for fencing, he did not start coming into his own until he arrived at Brandeis.

"In that regard, I'm like the guy who played for the development league basketball team and made it to the NBA," Morehouse said. "I'm the guy who's not supposed to be there, but I worked really hard and had supportive people around me."

As a senior at Brandeis, Morehouse broke onto the national scene by compiling a 21-2 record at the NCAA Championships. The performance was not lost on his head coach at Brandeis.

"He went 21-2 in a strong field of saber fencers, and he was constantly getting behind and coming back to win every bout," coach Bill Shipman told the Justice in April. "It was quite a performance of not only skill, but also determination and enthusiasm, and he did it for two days straight."

After qualifying as an alternate in 2004, Morehouse received enough rolling qualification points from April 2007 to March 2008 for his performances in international and domestic fencing competitions to earn a spot as a primary fencer on the U.S. Olympic saber team. While Morehouse awaited the phone call from the U.S. Olympic Fencing Committee to secure his bid to Beijing, he suddenly felt ill and subsequently discovered he had appendicitis.

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