The varsity team was established in 1935 with the arrival of Haverford’s first Maestro, Henri Gordon. Gordon was a protégé of the famous Yale coach Robert Grasson, and was Haverford’s coach for almost 50 years, passing the torch to Maestro James Murray (currently of UNC) for another 20 years. In 2002, when Olympian Dave Littell took the reins of the program, the Haverford teams began their climb to the top of NCAA Division III, as the men’s team won the conference title twice under his leadership. Current coach Christopher Spencer, a protégé of Soviet Olympic coach Pavel Zelikman, has since led the men to three conference titles apiece during his time coaching at Haverford.

The men’s team has won five total MACFA championships. Recent victories against Brandeis, Brown, Boston College, Johns Hopkins, NYU, Sacred Heart, Stevens, UNC-Chapel Hill, and Vassar have helped the team establish itself as one of the best D-III programs in the country.

Highlighting the most recent achievements was the epee squad’s bronze at the 2011 Weapon Squad Nationals, garnering All-American status for Haverford fencers for the first time in a half-century. Haverford epee has dominated the Temple Open as well, with teammates Andrew Bostick ’12 and James Nieuwland ’13 earning back-to-back gold medals in 2010 and 2011. Eric Gardner ’17 continued the tradition of strong epee at Haverford with two individual conference golds.

Haverford has always had a strong fencing squad, beating colleges many times its size. Roger Jones ’52 was perhaps the outstanding performer of the Gordon era. Roger Chin ’74 and John Bracker ’84 were esteemed fencers who won Haverford's highest athletic recognition, the Varsity Cup. Nathan Doty ’99 was an NCAA regional competitor and winner of an NCAA Scholarship. A two-time Verizon Academic All-American, Asa Hopkins ’01 also was the co-winner of the William Ambler ’45 Award as the top scholar-athlete in his senior class. Chris Flanders ’06, who led the Fords to a Middle Atlantic College Fencing Association Championship (MACFA) in 2004, finished 15th in men's sabre at the NCAA Championships in each of his first two years at Haverford and was 16th his junior year.