Nzingha Prescod OLY, Brandon Smith win USOPC community awards

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Fencing rarely hears its name called when the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee hands out its community awards. This year, it heard it twice.

Parafencing coach Brandon Smith received the Jack Kelly Fair Play Award, and two-time Olympian Nzingha Prescod OLY received the Rings of Gold Award for an individual. Both were honored Sept. 24 at an awards reception during the 2026 U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Assembly in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

The recognition puts two fencers alongside a list of honorees that includes Simone Biles, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Kristi Yamaguchi and Tamika Catchings. Smith is only the third fencing recipient of the Jack Kelly Fair Play Award in its 41-year history, joining Notre Dame coach Mike DeCicco in 1988 and Youth Olympian May Tieu in 2019. Prescod is the first fencer to win the individual Rings of Gold Award since the honor began in 1996.

"Brandon and Nzingha represent the very best of our sport," says USA Fencing CEO Phil Andrews. "One showed what sportsmanship looks like in a single moment. The other has spent years opening doors for kids who never thought fencing was for them. We couldn't be prouder to see them recognized on this stage."

The Jack Kelly Fair Play Award honors an athlete, team, coach or official for an outstanding act of fair play and sportsmanship. Smith's moment came at the 2026 Parafencing World Cup in Bradenton, Florida.

There, Smith noticed a fencer from Kenya who needed help getting ready to compete. He stepped in, fitting her with an epee skirt and body cord and walking her through the salute to her opponent and the referee. Then he stayed. Smith coached her from the side of the strip for her entire bout and congratulated her on her performance when it ended.

She was not his athlete, and Kenya was not his team. He helped anyway.

Smith coaches at San Francisco Fencing Academy, where he has spent more than a decade teaching epee, foil and parafencing and has coached Paralympians.

The award was established in 1985 to honor the late John B. "Jack" Kelly Jr., a former USOC president and 1956 Olympic bronze medalist in single sculls rowing.

The Rings of Gold Award for an individual recognizes someone dedicated to helping children develop their Olympic or Paralympic dreams and reach their highest athletic and personal potential.

Prescod knows what that help can mean. She grew up in Flatbush, Brooklyn, where competitive sport was often out of reach for families because of cost and distance. Her path into fencing ran through the Peter Westbrook Foundation, itself a past Rings of Gold Award recipient.

From there, Prescod built one of the most decorated careers in U.S. fencing history. She competed at the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games, became the first Black woman to win an individual medal at the Senior World Championships with bronze in 2015 and helped the U.S. women's foil team win its first world title in 2018. She was inducted into the USA Fencing Hall of Fame in 2024.

After an injury ended her competitive career, Prescod went home to Brooklyn. In the summer of 2020, she launched Fencing in the Park, a free outdoor program for neighborhood kids. That program grew into the Prescod Institute for Sport, Teamwork, and Education, or PISTE, a nonprofit that offers fencing instruction, tutoring and leadership experiences to New York City youth at no cost to families.

PISTE now runs a year-round competitive academy, a summer introductory program and partnerships with New York City schools. In 2024, Prescod took students to France, where they watched the Olympic Opening Ceremonies in Paris.