April 18, 2004                  

She'll return to hometown minus sword

MOOR OR LESS

By BILL MOOR
Tribune Columnist

Destanie Milo, with her movie-star name, may work in an art gallery after graduating from the University of Notre Dame later this spring.

In nearby Chicago?

"I imagined myself moving to Chicago," she admits.

But she has another plan for now.

Destanie is returning to her hometown of Knox, where her mother has started her own gallery. 

"Yep, in Knox," Destanie says. "That's probably a shock to some people -- an art gallery right there on U.S. 35 going through town."

Knox, after all, is Down-home, USA, a spirited Hoosier town in the middle of mint fields and cornfields.

Cosmopolitan? Nope.

Comfy? Well, sure.

"And I do think that a fair amount of people appreciate an art gallery -- Jonquil Design -- in a town like Knox," Destanie adds.

This is her old stomping grounds, after all, and she is happy to return to it for a while -- a breath of fresh air for her and maybe for the town, too.

She will bring along her majors in sociology and computer applications as well as her expertise in fencing.

No, not the kind of fencing familiar to the farmers in the area. Destanie has been a two-time captain on the Notre Dame women's fencing team, including last year when the Irish won the NCAA championships and she placed sixth in the country in the sabre competition.

"Believe me, I've heard all the jokes about helping out with the fencing (on the farms), probably from my own family as much as anybody," she says.

She usually just smiles.

"Actually, I have been fencing almost nonstop for eight years," she says. "It's nice to take a break and have a little time to look at my options."

So how did a girl from Knox become a nationally ranked fencer?

She started on the fencing team at Culver Girls Academy, where she went to high school. "I didn't want to go there at first," she admits. "But then I really didn't want to go to Notre Dame, either. I ended up loving both. It's funny that what turned out to be really positive for me, I fought."

Destanie is a fighter, for sure.

A talented athlete, she quickly excelled in fencing and soon was attending the Indiana Fencing Academy in Mishawaka under the tutelage of current Irish head coach Janusz Bednarski.

"My parents (Max and Angelique Milo, who also have two younger children) used to pick me up after school at Culver and drive to Mishawaka while I would did my homework in the car," she says. "Then, after a couple of hours of practice, they would drive me back to Culver while I ate Burger King on the way. I would finish the day with more studying."

At meets, it was as if Destanie became a different person. "I would get so competitive that my mom wasn't sure when she could talk to me after I competed. She learned that it just took a little time for me to turn back into myself again."

Was all the practice and sacrifice worth it?

She placed third in the nation as an under-19 competitor and then became an All-American at Notre Dame.

Sure, it was worth it, although for a few moments a month ago, she might not have thought so.

She lost out to her talented teammates freshmen Valerie Providenza and Angela Vincent at the NCAA regionals in Evanston, Ill. Even though she had the same number of losses as Valerie, the latter was able to advance to the NCAA championships because of her higher seeding.

"If I had won just one more time, I would have gone instead of Valerie," says Destanie, a 3.2 grade-point average student who also served as vice-president of Notre Dame's Student-Athlete Advisory Board. "But then Valerie went on to win the NCAA title. So how awful would that have been if I had bumped her out and she hadn't gotten her chance."

Spoken like a true teammate -- and an unselfish captain.

She is done with fencing for now after accumulating a 166-36 record during her collegiate career.

"So what do I do now for a sport?" she says. "Wake boarding or kickboxing, maybe. Something extreme."