Maestro Aleks “Olek” Ochocki

CO-Head Coach, Founder of AFFA

Maestro Aleksander Ochocki founded “AFFA” in 2013 to share his knowledge of the sport to his local community and give children the opportunities and life lessons the sport provides. He currently is the US Women’s National Team Head Coach in charge of leading the team to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, as well as assistant coach at New York University (NYU).

In 2017 he served as Assistant Coach at The Notre Dame, where the Fighting Irish won back-to-back NCAA Championships before returning to the club in 2019 to prepare athletes for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Aleks is the 2013 U.S National Champion, Pan American Team Champion and 2014 Summer Nationals Champion. He brings first hand international, national, and collegiate experience at an elite level winning a total 7 US National Championships and 7 NCAA Championships as an athlete and coach.

As an athlete, he served as a member of the United States National Team on all levels; senior, junior and cadet and Member of the Olympic Developmental Program. Aleks has won a National title in every age group starting from Youth 12 all the way through seniors.

Ochocki received a full athletic scholarship to Penn State University, where he was coached under the watchful eye of Maestro Wes Glon (92 & 96 US Olympic Coach) winning the NCAA Individual Saber Championship at Penn State in 2009 and 2012 and was an 1st Team All-American in all four years of his college career. In each of his seasons in Happy Valley, Ochocki advanced to the Final Four of the individual saber competition. The Nittany Lions also captured two team NCAA titles in Ochocki’s time there, and he served as Penn State’s captain in his final two seasons on campus.

Aleks started his fencing career with Coach Janusz Mlynek, after having almost immediate success Aleks transitioned to 6x Olympic Coach and Hall of Famer Yury Gelman (’00, ’04, ’08, ’12, ‘16, ‘20) at the age of 13. The transition lead Ochocki to qualify for his first National Team in 2004. He started receiving numerous national and international accolades including a Bronze medal with Team USA at the 2010 Junior World Championships and Gold at the 2013 Senior Pan American Championships. Aleks had numerous years of coaching experience at many levels. Prior to his departure to ND, Maestro Ochocki was the head saber coach at Steven’s Institute of Technology from 2013. His students have gone on to win numerous national championships, NCAA, ACC, World Cups and World Championship medals.

Aleks holds a Bachelor of Sciences in Sports management with a Business Minor from The Pennsylvania State University. Aleks is also fluent in Polish.