So, it was no surprise to Shelley Sumner when her son, Eric, showed interest in a fencing class being offered by the Lyceum organization as one of its enrichment seminars for intellectually gifted children.

"You know, boys and swords, they just go together," the Almaden Valley mother said.

Eric Sumner took his first fencing class when he was 10 and was hooked. Fencing discipline dictates that fencers must first learn all three weapon styles; foil, epee, and saber. Epee carved its place in Sumner's soul.

"Foil sucks. Competitively, I hate it," he says, referring to the point and scoring system, which differs in the three events.

He turned 14 two days after the New Year and recently competed against mostly older, more experienced fencers from across the country and Canada in the North American Cup Division 1 and Junior Fencing/Olympic Qualifying last weekend at the McEnery Convention Center Civic Auditorium and Parkside Hall in San Jose. Hosted by the U.S. Fencing Association, the NACs are key national-level competitions.

In the Division 1 men's individual epee event, where he faced men of varying ages—some as much as three times his senior—and skill level, with most having entered the tournament with higher earned rankings, the youngster outwardly appeared poised and controlled when he was eliminated in the first-round pools.

In Sumner's final bout of the Division 1 event, he went in knowing he had no chance of advancing to the next round. His coach, Alexandr Maximovich, from the Fencing Center of San Jose, said he wanted to see Sumner just enjoy that event and not worry about winning or losing. When it was evident he was out of the running, Sumner relaxed and fenced to victory. Shelley, who attends every tournament with her son, saw the look on her son's face, read his body language, and predicted the victory.

"It didn't matter if he won," she said. "And see, he won."

It seems only fitting that this polite young man is drawn to a sport steeped in history and rich with etiquette. He is well-spoken and articulate, and at almost 6 feet tall, appears more mature than his 14 years. As he customarily salutes the referee before the bout, and shakes hands with his opponents at the end of the bouts, his face shows little emotion.

On the sidelines, Shelley tries to do the same.

"You need to relax," says Nataliya Maximovich, to Shelley. "He can feel your negativity." Nataliya, the center's fitness and conditioning coach and Alexandr's wife, was coaching Shelley on how to help Sumner during the Junior Fencing/Olympic Qualifying men's individual epee event.

When Sumner advanced from the pools and won his first bout in the next round, beating Stuart Small from Texas, Shelley was visibly relieved, letting go a long-held breath and releasing a smile. The next round he was pitted against a top competitor, Enej Bajgoric, a Canadian who had earned a tournament ranking of eighth out of more than 100 competitors. Sumner, who was tournament-ranked at 57, lost, but scored an impressive eight touches to the winner's 15.

Sumner, who may have inherited his competitive nature from his marathon-running mother, keeps his schedule full of activities beyond fencing, which occupies two to three hours of training each day. Following the Division 1 match on Saturday afternoon, when Maximovich told Sumner he wanted to meet for a lesson the following day, the left-hander rolled his dark eyes, smiled, sighed and nodded his head. Sunday was no day of rest for Sumner, as he met his coach at 8 a.m. to prepare for the next day's match.

Maximovich, a native of the republic of Kazakhstan, has a long list of accomplishments as an athlete and a coach, including competing for the Soviet Union in the modern pentathlon—a five-event sport that includes swimming, running, shooting, horseback riding and fencing—and coaching national, world and Olympic-medal athletes.

The interlocking Olympic rings dangle in front of Sumner's eyes like a carrot.

"I'd like to go to nationals first, then the Olympics," says the straight-A student.

His coach would like to see that too.

"I hope Eric can be good enough for the Olympics," Maximovich says. "I'm not a magic coach. It is my job to prepare him. It is a lot of hard work."

Maximovich says he believes he is preparing his students not just for fencing, but for life.

"I know I'll that I'll have to train harder than I do now," says Sumner of the sport that is sometimes called "physical chess" because of the strategy involved in its movements.

Sumner lives in two worlds, Shelley likes to say—his school/home world and his fencing world. In his school and home world, he is an eighth-grader attending Almaden Country School and lives with his mother and 17-year-old brother, Ben, who attends Bellarmine College Preparatory (the boys' father died when Eric was 3 and Ben was 7). He also plays basketball, soccer, and flag football and runs track.

His favorite subjects in school are math and science. Jean Delwiche, the principal of Almaden Country, says she and the staff have enjoyed watching Sumner develop as a student and as a fencer.

"He's very good and he doesn't have a big ego with it," Delwiche says. "He's a bit of a role model for other adolescents."

In his fencing world, his name is becoming recognizable. The U.S. Fencing Association ranks him sixth overall in the Youth 14 division, and he is holding his own among many older athletes in the Cadet division, ranked 35th overall.

"In California he's got an incredible reputation," says Lisa Milgram, co-head coach for the Stanford fencing team. "You don't want to come up against him. You don't want him in your pool."