On the high performance era

Three years ago last Friday, I launched Gainline.us with the purpose of chronicling American rugby's trajectory in a new era.

What have we achieved since December 2005, when USARFU became one of the first countries to receive IRB 'high performance' grants? What have we learned?

Over the next four days, I'd like to evaluate the HP era according to three criteria: vision, execution, and commerce. I'll also review how my own thoughts have changed -- and thereby acknowledge the many valuable observations of Gainliners and the dialectical conversations you bring to the party.

First, let's begin with the November 28, 2005, post that launched it all:

“Whatever you dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic.”

                                                                                                --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I’ve always admired Goethe for his vision and energy. But Americans are a practical people too. Though we may strike a bold course, we are sure to plan, review, and revise as we progress toward our goals.

I hold a clear vision of American rugby, drawn from the finest players, coaches, managers, and rugby minds that I have known. The USA National Team is our sport’s growth engine, and its long-term success depends on harnessing domestic resources and know-how. I treasure the innate American genius first seen in our Olympic champions of 1920 and 1924, and without belittling the technical expertise (and warm friendship) of our international colleagues, believe our greatest purpose is adapt that genius to the modern context.

Gainline.us’s debut coincides with USA Rugby’s launching “high performance” programs for our best and most promising athletes, coaches, and officials. Never before have we had such a far-reaching opportunity to identify and train for the test arena. Underwritten by the International Rugby Board, the initiative is admittedly not the ideal blueprint, and will certainly suffer from growing pains. But what better chance to develop an enduring pipeline for the National Team?

As we know from past experience, meaningful change in American rugby requires enormous energy. And yet there is also some irony in invoking Goethe, the foremost representative of a literary movement known as Sturm und Drang, or “storm and stress.” There are many sharp and passionate minds in our game, and in developing the working mechanics of high performance rugby, we should not expect our task to be much less bruising than tackling on the playing field. Like competition on the pitch, the clashing of ideas is something good and something fun.

With that, it’s time for kickoff.

Comments

[scorecard]

I've been keeping score the least few years.

Three wins, all against Uruguay, in about 20 total Eagles about matches.

Lowest World ranking ever.

No wins at the U-19/20 level.

Nothing new at the AA level.

No new HP plans for coaches or players. No more assemblies, services or opportunities.

No new pathways, that didn't exist before.

Nothing really new on the domestic competition front. Tweaks at best.

No American crossover athlete plans.

Nothing new on the TV, marketing front. Thankfully a parent stepped forward with the NG sponsorship, or we would really have gone backwards.

Nothing new with our events.

It appears the major differences are:

We bring in more far more foreign players to play for the Eagles.

We spend most all the budget and employee focus on the Eagles.

We pay our CEO and Eagles head coach a combined half a million dollars a year.

We have the overall largest payroll and employee count in our history.

We no longer elect a Board, the Board now tells us who's on the Board.

We now have a major disconnect between the average USAR member and all forms of rugby administration, LAU, TU and national.

We have now spent millions of dollars on a single project, the Eagles, with nothing in return. We didn't build anything the first two season under Thorburn and Melville, we just chased near meaningless international results.

We have now started over under Johnson and Melville with even less success and directions. We do however now have a culture of excuse making, which should prove useful going forward.

The golden opportunity of millions of free dollars has been wasted on poor direction and leadership.

We are left to ask what will change over the next year or two?

As we approach RWC qualification will we spend less budget and focus on the Eagles? I think not.

Will a victory or two change anything in our situation or future? I think not, it won't even be reported in a mid-sized newspaper.

We need to change the leadership and direction of this rugby union now, while the IRB money still flows. We need to build this rugby union from the bottom-up.

Use the IRB funds and employee focus on helping to make rugby an American sport connected to the high school and college sport education system. The commonwealth imported sport model suits our Board and CEO better, but it hasn't and will never work.

We are being passed, by sports such as LAX because we haven't made the investment required into the American sports model. A imported, commonwealth, cult-ish sport will never work. We are sitting on gold, just dig like Americans you fools!

[Cool]

Kurt that is some great writing. I would love to be able to compose like that.

I am, like many club ruggers, looking forward to the next several review items. Let's take a look !

[Kyle Wittenbraker]

The IRB has acknowledged that the United States is a "sleeping giant." Perhaps they are afraid of the US realizing its potential and dominating international competition. Perhaps the money flooding in is an investment in purposefully undermining any meaningful progress we might have made on our own to ensure that we will never improve. Perhaps the foreigners are "sleeper cells" sent here to sabatoge any good ideas that may come up.
The increased dues without a board or congress that answers to the members constitutes no taxation without representation. We will not stand for this tyranny.

All kidding aside, I have decided to turn over a new leaf and cut all the negativity out. I will support rugby in the US as a whole even if I don't agree with every direction it is moving in. Especially the players. The national team guys whose sacrifices and efforts get a little lost in the politics of it all. And the average club players who are apparently spit on by the "elites" of the superleague and the national office who seem concerned with the national team.
Happy 3rd b-day gainline, here's to many more!!!

[wall became a pile]

It has been 3 years of throwing negative S_ _ t at the wall to see what sticks.
Initially it was an attempt to discredit the previous Arnot led administration to get Billups back as Eagles coach, and now it’s to retake back USA Rugby from the IRB & the foreign administration.

The wall is looking more like a pile. Keep throwing.

See you all in Denver for the Bledisloe Cup match between the Wallabies and the All Blacks for what will undoubtedly be the biggest showcase event ever held in the history of USA Rugby.

[Flynn Hagerty]

The RWC draw was today. If we qualify as Americas 1 (i.e. beat Canada), we would be paired with New Zealand, France, Tonga and Japan (the certain Asia 1). Which would be a good draw for the Eagles, maximizing publicity (NZ) with potentially winnable games (Tonga, Japan).

Should we lose to Canada but beat Uruguay and qualify as Americas 2 we would face Australia, Ireland, Italy and Europe 2, which would likely be either Romania or Georgia (judging by rankings at this time it would be Romania).

Should we repeat 2003 and qualify by way of the repechage, we would be grouped with Argentina, England, Scotland, and Europe 1, either Romania or Georgia.

[Review of Performance]

Common Kurt, a review of the performance since you started this blog based upon what was stated or infered...you are crazy, oh wait - never mind I thought I felt a twinge of corporate or business structure mixed with a little accountablity.

Game on, this should be fun looking at things that say we should do X by X date and seeing if they were accomplished, oh wait - never mind thought I felt another twinge of how a grading system or performance indicators are tracked.

We are the only rugby union in the world that does not review our plan in board or congress session but relies on a blog to do it for us...

Kurt for Chairman (you like Clark so...someone like Kurt for Chairman)

[Bourne Schizophrenia]

I fully expect to see an illicit sex tape involving Kurt, Dan Lyle, Scorecard and former Boulder employee Kim Brock surface in the next week.

Gainline has become like the National Enquirer of rugby blogs.

Congrats on reaching 3 years, may your faux online empire shine as bright as the future of Lehman Brothers.

[Quixote's Dead Horse]

I agree, Kurt to chair - dump "sissy shorts". Kurt, we await your Magnum opus....

I am truly disgusted by the predatory behavior of our leadership. I believe that they should be held accountable for their actions. This regime is rather like a Russian Oligarchy or something even more disturbing....

We, the "sleeping giant", have been been fondled by regime for three years now. Our appointed "step fathers" slowly gained our trust and lowered our self esteem. We did not know of their long term plan at the outset, eventually our mother turned a blind eye.

We were told the same story every single night, it had a happy ending.

In the few months, they have stripped us of the red, white, and blue pajamas and forced us to wear a sequine studded halter nighty with faux sheep skin collar.

We were paraded around the living room for all the neighbors to see, then told to go to bed early.

We were told the same story every night, but recently the story line has changed devoid of denouement. They now leave us hanging on whim and fancy.

Soon they will reach out to tell us "don't be afraid of the dark".

Then the lights go out....

[Bledisowhat]

An NZ test match in the midst of Football season is dodgy, let's hope they can pull the wool over their eyes and get this thing done.

Lets also hope these blokes outsource properly and check their egos at the door. This potential stepping stone may help elevate elevate their status to attempt to fleece some investors into thinking that they have the right answers.

If they do manage this, the timeline goes something like this:

April - Chairman Roberts punks Bruce McLane in digitally altered surveillance video, posts on youtube.

May - Scott Johnson arrives in the country from extended holiday to watch a Glendale/Snake River grudge match. Post match exclaims, "I have not seen any American rugby players that could wear Tyrone's jock".

June - Nige calls the newly revamped SL a failed League and Life wins another D1 Championship.

July - Eagles assembly contains 10 new foreign "pro players".

August - Rookie rugby dues double.

September - USA Rugby posts flyers for NZ match on telephone poles in downtown Boulder.

October - Match comes off without a hitch, but nobody saw it on ESPN Classic as the game was up against Notre Dame v. USC or Texas v. Oklahoma. Nigel flees the country.

November - New pro League folds,
Scott Johnson resigns after interim CEO Roberts' new kit policy: all coaches and players to wear boy-cut shorts and belly shirts on the sideline.

[Reggie Lewis]

That wins post of the year, hands down. Funniest thing i've read on this site

[Kurt Doctrine]

I can't wait to read the Kurt Doctrine. My guess it will be that everything has failed and all future funds should go into the creation of a Nor Cal Rugby Oligarchy so that Cal can win the collegiate championship for the next 20 years and that Clark and Billups control the Eagles till the 2035 World Cup.

YEAH KURT!

[Blogger]

What a bunch of Bull. Whenever USA Rugby is called out, it is tied back to Clark and Billups, how is that ?

Blogs are useful tools. Unfortunately this blog spends a ton of time on stuff that the Boulder clan has cocked up, but this isn't the way all blogs are or can be used.

My wife uses a professional blog to share technical information about how to save babies during child birth. She tells me that it has been a greater educational tool than nursing school.

So this blog certainly isn't that, but it can be used to improve the accountability of our governance. Don't try to drag the topics of conversation down to your name calling level.

I read Kurt's latest series as a review of what Boulder said they would do and if they have done it. Nothing to do with Cal, Clark, Billups.

Grow up or change sports.

[general custard]

I would imagine that the top minds of American rugby have read and/or posted here at one time. There have been hundreds of technical and informative posts in this blog. While our CEO and Chair are busy selling babies on their blogs, Kurt is busy saving babies.

Our leadership, it seems, have missed the donut completely, by looking through the hole. Now that they are on the other side they are busy packing it with something that looks like chocolate custard?

You can sell it to someone else, but we all know what it really is. Thanks to Kurt.

When these guys are gone someone will have to take a big bite of that thing and tell us what it really is.

Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.

~Andre Gide

[Mike Lee]

Kurt,

I think it is also important that you ask yourself, where would we be without the IRB money?

[truth will set us free]

Very interesting exercise if I understand it correctly.

Kurt is going to review what the IRB consultants and current USAR leaders said they were going to do with the millions of dollars of grant proceeds given to USAR over the last three years, and compare it with what they have actually accomplished. Their (USAR) plan, their words, their execution, their accomplishments.

Why would this exercise so trouble a vested Gainline contributor that he would invoke Jack Clark's name? What does a review of what is happening 9 years after Jack last coached the Eagles and 5 years after he last managed the national team program have anything to do with a review of the last three years?

The word is, new software at ERN and GL allows them to track closely the original of all contributors. It will one day be interesting to learn the identities of those vested interest individuals offering comments intended to shift the focus of these types of discussions.

I'm sure we will all look forward to hearing how well our planning, spending and achievements have aligned in the last three years.

[Kurt Doctorine]

Anything opinion Kurt has needs to be looked at through the Cal prism because he has continued to use Cal's program and th people tied to it as the standard for what he considers success. Kurt lives with Cal colored glasses on, and that makes his opinions humorous and typically obvious.

[Theo]

It's sad, but I dare to say that we'd be in about the same place if we didn't have IRB HP funding. We'd just have a heck of alot cheaper help running the office.

Without the funding, our national teams would certainly suffer under the strains, but would the lack of IRB funding have cost us any wins? Probably not.

One could argue that we might actually have been better off. Without the free handouts from the IRB, USA Rugby would have had to focus on cheaper routes to international success. Such as improving our domestic competitions and focusing on the grassroots. Kind of like the other nations around the world that are passing us despite getting much smaller stipends from the IRB.

I'm defintely not against receiving funding from the IRB. If they're giving out, why not take it. The IRB just needs to see the bigger picture and realize that the money might be better spent in other ways.

[Mike's answer]

Mike,

Let me guess where we would be. The Eagles would be 3-20 over three years and the juniors worse.

The Eagle program and the poorly conceived NA$ is where 95% of these funds are directed, along with a healthy percentage of CIPP and other proceeds and this is what it has got us.

Mike, I think you accidentally make the point. These funds have been so poorly allocated that they haven't made a difference at all.

Had these funds been spent on building a success rugby union as opposed to chasing test victory, these funds could have create a platform for on going success.