Meet Nicolas (Nico) Giotis, a senior foil fencer for the Wayne Valley boys’ fencing team. He has won eighty-two career wins (excluding tournament wins), a record for the team, and has been captain for two years. On January 25th this year, he won first place at the Passaic County Championships and placed eighteenth out of forty-two at the 2025 NJSIAA Individual Fencing Championships on March 1st. How did Giotis arrive where he is?
It started with his mom suggesting Giotis play a sport when he was a freshman. She suggested fencing since her brother had played it. Giotis describes, “Then she kinda forced me to do it, and then I just did it.” He found that he enjoyed the sport, and says his family is, “…always supportive of [his] endeavors.”
To be a top high school fencer, he practices with the team for about two hours after each school day during the season and attends the Masters Fencing Academy on Monday and Wednesday nights throughout the year.
In Giotis’s time fencing, he has changed a lot. He describes his freshman year fencing: “I realized I was kinda horrible.” Coach Camb of the fencing team already knew his twin sister, Athena Giotis, who he coached in soccer in the fall, so when Giotos joined the team, Camb already knew him decently well and has seen him grow since. Camb explains that Giotis grew “a tremendous amount—his freshman year… he only had two wins, and now he’s… way up there on the win list, he’s closing in on the most wins in Wayne Valley history… but he’s always been the same determined, motivated kid throughout the entire time.”
In talking about why Camb selected Giotis for the captain, he praised Giotis’s organizational skills: “He thinks, not just… one move ahead, he’s always a couple days ahead.” He calls Giotis “one of the best [captains] we ever had.”
Senior sabre fencer Andreas Rehberger also agrees that Giotis is a good captain. Rehberger enjoys the duality of fencing in that “One person can’t do everything themselves, but… you’re not relying on other people to do your own job.” In discussing Giotis, Rehberger holds his diligence in high esteem: “I always see him, he’s looking at film [of the team fencing], he’s always productive at practice, and… he’s always the last one out, he’s making sure nothing’s left out.” He summarizes Giotis as “a really good leader.”
He does not know where he will go to college yet, but he plans to go into an engineering major. Since there are many options in engineering, he has decided that, once his applications are approved, he will pick a major that works well with the schools he is accepted into. He plans to continue fencing in college in a division program or a club.
Giotis is also an Eagle Scout from Troop 130. Last year, he built a Gaga pit inspired by the one built at Camp Lewis Scout Camp. He improved the design by making the bottom of his pit out of sand rather than gravel to prevent injuries.
Giotis has a great affinity for leadership roles as he is also the president of Model UN and the captain of the Quiz Bowl team. As president of Model UN, he does a lot of work running meetings, helping newcomers get accommodated, and running parts of the conference with Wayne Hills. In previous years, he has taken the role of Australia. To Giotis, Quiz Bowl is when “I can flex my useless knowledge.” He helps the team with his knowledge of history and the arts. As captain, he is preparing the team for a tournament at Colonia High School at the end of the year.
Giotis shows that hard work and versatility can lead to leadership and success. Though things may seem tough at first, Giotis shows that with practice, success is possible. After four years of fencing, Giotis realizes that he is “definitely a lot better than [he] once was.”
Overall, the team has had a tough year. It has won only three of its games, the final one against Passaic Valley 21-6. On Saturday, January 25th, at the Passaic County Championships, épées and sabres both took third, while foils took fourth. Giotis won 1st place for foil individuals. The next day, the team did not do as well, but Giotis once again qualified for the District 2 Boys Foil Individuals on March 1st.
