Nikki Franke is the 2026 winner of the NCAA Pat Summitt Award, an honor recognizing a coach who has demonstrated devotion to the development of college athletes and made a positive impact on their lives. 

It was not until her senior year at New York’s Seward Park High School that Nikki Franke first encountered fencing after a new physical education teacher came to her school and started a fencing club. 

“I was like, ‘What is fencing?’” said the Harlem native. “I had never seen or heard of fencing, but it looked like fun, so I tried it and found I really enjoyed it.”  

Remarkably, Nikki Franke, CPH ’78, ’88, went on to build one of the most successful fencing programs in the country as head coach of the Temple women’s team for 50 years.  

Most importantly, she found her passion for coaching student-athletes and making a lasting impact by teaching life lessons in hard work, education and resilience. Her success as a coach recently earned her national recognition: the 2026 Pat Summitt Award, which honors individuals within the NCAA who have demonstrated devotion to the development of college athletes and made a positive impact on their lives.  

She will be honored at the Temple’s men’s basketball Whiteout game against the University of South Florida on Jan. 31 at the Liacouras Center. 

“I was very honored and quite surprised to receive this prestigious award. I didn’t even know I had been nominated,” she said.  

“The award epitomizes what Pat Summitt was about for many of her athletes, from hearing them talk about the influence she had on the trajectory of their lives. So, I hope it means that I have also had a positive effect on the athletes who have come through our program at Temple.”  

As Temple’s all-time winningest women’s athletics coach, Franke compiled 898 wins and led the Owls to capture the 1991–1992 NCAA Women’s Foil Team Championship. Under her leadership, the program became a fixture in top 10 national rankings, with 37 fencers earning 66 NCAA championship selections and 25 fencers earning 35 All-America honors.  

“Nikki Franke embodies everything the Pat Summitt Award represents—an unwavering commitment to excellence, leadership and the holistic development of student-athletes,” added Temple’s Vice President and Debbie and Stanley Lefkowitz ’65 Director of Athletics Arthur Johnson. “For five decades, Coach Franke not only built one of the nation’s premier fencing programs, but she also shaped generations of women through mentorship, education and opportunity, leaving an indelible legacy at Temple University.” 

Growing up in the Harlem neighborhood of New York, Franke spent her time mostly playing tennis, basketball, volleyball and soccer as a teenager. After discovering the foil, she competed in fencing competitions, where she was encouraged to pursue the sport at Brooklyn College in 1968, which was known for the strength of its fencing program under Olympian Denise O’Connor.  

“Fencing changed my life from the time I was introduced to it,” said Franke, who was a first-generation college student. 

After college, she wanted to pursue a career as a health education teacher. Her mother and Coach O’Connor encouraged Franke to attend Temple for a master’s degree in public health after learning the university was seeking a graduate assistant to teach its fencing classes.   

“While student teaching, I found I truly enjoyed teaching health aspects more than physical education, and I felt it was where I could make the biggest difference in people’s lives,” she said. 

While Franke pursued her master’s in public health at Temple University, she discovered that men’s fencing was a varsity sport, while women’s fencing was only a club sport. At the age of 21, determined to change that, she walked into the office of Barbara Lockhart, former Temple women’s athletic director. Franke convinced her that she could build interest in the sport at Temple and was named the volunteer head coach of the Owls women’s program in 1972, becoming the first Black woman to lead an NCAA Division I fencing team.  

“I was a young African American woman straight out of college with no coaching experience,” said Franke. “Temple took a chance on me and gave me the opportunity to build a program from scratch that I don’t think any other Division I program would have. It ties into their mission of giving young people opportunities, which I strived to do for others throughout my coaching and teaching career.”  

A trailblazer, Franke built the program from scratch by initially recruiting women from her classes, who also encouraged their friends to join. Most had no fencing experience, and this all took place before the 1972 implementation of Title IX, which prohibited sex-based discrimination in education programs and activities. 

Even while coaching, she continued to compete in fencing at the highest level, earning a spot on the 1976 and 1980 U.S. Olympic teams and winning the United States Fencing Association’s National Foil Champion titles in 1975 and 1980. 

While she carved her own path, what mattered most to her was the lasting impact she left, mentoring generations of women and creating opportunities for them in college athletics. In 1992, she also co-launched the Black Women in Sport Foundation to encourage more Black women to become leaders in the world of sport at all levels. 

“We built our program at Temple on young women who wanted to work hard, be committed to each other, and were coachable and willing to learn,” she said. “I never grew up wanting to be an Olympian, but I always wanted to be a teacher. So, when recruiting, I always emphasized to these young women and their families that their first priority was their education and second was their sport, because they were here to get an education.”  

Beyond academics and teamwork, Franke also made herself available to her athletes on a personal level. 

“I always had an open-door policy so they could feel comfortable talking about anything,” she said. “I was at Temple long enough that I knew people everywhere, so the standing joke was my eyes were everywhere on campus, and I would know what was going on, which surprised a lot of them. To this day, some of them still come up to me and laugh about it, but they knew we set a high standard for our expectations and held them accountable.”  

After a half-century at Temple, Franke retired in 2022, having earned her doctorate and served more than 30 years as an associate professor in the College of Public Health. 

“I will forever be grateful for Temple, because it allowed me to do the two things that I loved most, teaching and coaching,” she said.