On US collegiate training

Last summer after the USA’s upset win over France in the Beijing Games’ 4x100 freestyle relay, Gainline ventured a post on Michael Phelps’ qualities as an athlete who makes everyone around him better.

Yesterday the New York Times revealed another vital angle: At the last minute, French officials changed the team’s lineup because they did not want the anchorman to be an American-trained athlete.

To swimming fans, that is a tactical error of historic proportion, since it helped Phelps claim one of the two precarious wins in his eight-medal haul. Of more interest to this audience is the reminder that some of the best athletes in the world come to America to plug into our university system, and yet domestic rugby continues to hedge.

The swimmers’ plan was for [Frederic] Bousquet to anchor: ‘My teammates said: “We trust you. You have the experience and you know how to race the U.S. guys,”‘ he told the Times -- assuredly at some cost to the 28-year-old’s career.

Competing against the Americans had become second nature to Bousquet, who attended college at Auburn and won six N.C.A.A. titles. In the months leading up to the 2008 Olympics, Bousquet continued to train at Auburn, which he said the French swimming federation frowned upon.

He suspects his preference to remain in the United States and take direction from his college coach, Brett Hawke, played a role in the decision that was handed down shortly before the Frenchmen entered the pool to warm up for the 4x100 freestyle relay final.

‘Our federation was so confident of us winning no matter the order, and the picture of French swimming they wanted all the cameras to be put on was Alain’s face. I don’t think they did it against me. I think they did it for Alain [Bernard], who was their guy.’

Yes, I know that America’s domestic championships are afoot and two USA squads have been named, but strategy (and execution) are often interesting since they form the basis of performance in 2011 and 2015.

On that note: Italy, Japan and South Africa are bidding for the World Cup in either 2015 or 2019, while England is aiming solely for the 2015 championship. Bidding on the 2015 event had been a tenet of the USARFU’s all-but-dormant strategic plan.

Comments

[Point?]

What are you trying to say Kurt?

[AA]

Interesting issue, but not something relevant to 90% of the college rugby programs in America. If you noticed, San Diego State just lost their coach, Dan Payne, to Life University for the simple reason that Life is a paying job and State is a volunteer job. Very few programs can offer anything to the coaches, so coaches get burnt out and move on. Maybe that should a topic of one of Kurt's posts...

[M.O.]

AA,

I would be interested in that post as well. I wonder how many collegiate programs offer a salary (however modest) or even a stipend to their coaching staff.

[sacricketer]

Making info like that public might help up the ante at colleges around the country. Make everyone aware of what it takes to compete at a higher level, and they will start taking the necessary steps.

[TJH]

What does the fact that USA Rugby is no longer bidding on the 2015 World Cup have to do with the issue of collegiate training in America? To be honest, the idea of the US hosting the World Cup, or at least hosting it as soon as 2015, is ludicrous to me. The 3rd biggest sporting tournament in the world and the domestic media would barely cover it. If we could even sell out our stadiums, they'd be full of foreigners with hardly an American in sight. And there would be ZERO atmosphere of the type that made France 2007 such a success. The vast, vast majority of the country would have no idea the World Cup was even going on and would care even less.

[understand the post!]

TJH, understand the posting, Kurt is pointing out that most international athletes get what our administrators do not get, that our universities are a hotbed of high performance and that tapping them is worth the dollars - not academies, regions or the yet to be announced ARC.

Second, the 2015 RWC bid is what the current USA Rugby strat plan says, you put it very well why it may not work, well there are several over pieces/goals/ideas in that documet that are never could, never implemented or never wills. Point is we are not operating with a sound plan that you and I can understand let alone get behind.

Go to any other sport or unions website and you will see documents that are being followed and used, thereby getting the buy in from their constituencies etc.

Where is the USA in tapping our resources or operating with a clear direction?

That is the point of the post!

[Cult Rugby]

And these college rugby programs built at cult universities is not the answer, which is the point I made in the below post on a previous entry from Kurt.
_________________________________

College rugby is lost without a governing body that leads the majority of college clubs to a pathway of success. There are hundreds of collegiate clubs that are trying to replicated the Cal model, which is the most fundamentally sound and sustainable model for rugby to prosper at many universities and colleges for the long term with possible acceptance by the NCAA. This sensible collegiate model is the one that USA Rugby should be working on supporting. They should be providing coaches with the tools to sell a rugby program to a university administration, provide best practices for raising funds, establish frequent and professional coaching clinics and seminars, establish high school athlete recruiting standards and channels of communications, etc, etc, etc.

Then we have a very small minority of hybrid methods that are impossible to replicate across the country at 100s of campuses and whose sustainability is questionable. BYU and Life are examples of these hybrid methods which rely on atypical resources (i.e. access to LDS proselytized pacific islanders with rugby experience to attend your LDS university). Where do the acceptance of these hybrid models in college rugby lead to? Imagine a DeVry University rugby team that pools players from their campuses in 26 states, assembles a team for a period of time to qualify for the nationals in the TU that best suits them because they are in multiple TUs, and the result is a multi-state team with possibly 24 to 27 year old players. Sounds crazy, but it probably would meet the USA Rugby requirements and if DeVry put it together with funding it could happen. Let's be real about Life University. Life had its chiropractic accreditation revoked in 2002 for reasons that were not made public and did not get it back until 2005. The school has only been accredited for other degrees since December 2004. If you read about founder Dr. Sid Williams and his seminars and 8 Core Life Proficiencies philosophies, the place sounds like a cult (stay strong Dan!). Anyway, hardly the type of university history and pedigree that excites sponsors and broadcasters if they become the dominant team in college rugby.

If in ten years time the landscape of the top collegiate rugby sides is made up of 3 or 4 hybrid teams and Cal, everyone in the rugby community has to wonder why they went for short term gains instead of building a proper national collegiate athletic product.

[David C]

I must say, these are some of the better posts I've read since I heard about this website. Cult Rugby needs to be trademarked and made into a clothing line or something. Great name.
As a SDSU fan, I hope they can find a replacement soon. I wonder the $$ amount they offer DP.

[Flynn Hagerty]

Forget 2015. It was a pipe dream when the board announced it 10 years ago.

I think Kurt's point is that pride cometh before the fall, and that the French should have been pragmatic and put their best swimmer to anchor, and ergo USA Rugby should be pragmatic on what it can do.

Also, BYU is a cult university? Come on, if you've got a problem with Mormons just say it and stop trying to make BYU out to be something it's not. If people want to be angry that BYU had some older post-mission guys from elsewhere on the team or their style of play or their fans or their coach then so be it, but labelling a big D1 school a cult university is just redonkulous.

[Doug Lyons]

Regarding the WC - 2015 or any other year. At the conference that was held in England a yr or so ago (the name of the conference escapes me) ... the decision was made that the RWC windo would reside exclusively in the fall.

If this remains ironclad then you can basically forget the US ever hosting a WC. Besides the problem of stadium availability during collegiate and professional football season you also lose the potential audience that will be happily watching football on the couch or at the game.

It's not just US Rugby that lacks vision ... the IRB provide an excellent example!

[Flynn Hagerty]

Yeah, a guy named Flynn Hagerty is a Mormon. Are you high?

"It's not just US Rugby that lacks vision ... the IRB provide an excellent example! "

I think if the USA put up a credible bid it could work around that. Remember, it's not like France didn't have a popular game called football in season last time!

[Feldspar]

Next Mormon Mike will be telling us that St Mary's is a cult university, since Catholics have "holy water", incense and communion bread that turns into Jesus' body in your mouth. EVERY religion has something that seems patently absurd to outsiders. Besides, what are comments about religion doing on this site anyway?

Give it up, Mike. Of the standout players BYU had this year, only 3-year team captain (and 2 time All American) Steve St. Pierre has been chosen to be an Eagle (7s) so far this year. He's from Colorado and learned his rugby at BYU. I challenge you to walk up to him and tell him that BYU has a cult model for learning/playing rugby. I'd pay money to watch that conversation.

[Mormon Mike]

If he isn't wearing his magic underpants, I say bring it!

[BYU fan]

Feldspar you've been outed, didn't know you were in the LDS clan.

The Catholics don't ask us all to play on Friday because they won't play rugby on Sunday. Yet put a few zeros behind a number and they allowed to play in the NFL on Sunday.

BYU is a strange. The Mormon thing is strange. Good business, but strange church.

[Anon]

Ra Lawrence played hooker for BYU this year. That name may sound familiar because he was a devastating force in the 1999 HS nationals. That means he was stiff arming flankers when a solid portion of college players still has RECESS in school.

BYU has earned everything they have received and in an amature landscape resources will always be uneven. College teams must find a way to create their own advantages.

Just don't pretend 1 2 3 or 10 players in their mid to late 20's isn't an advantage.

[Cult Rugby]

My post was not an attack on BYU or Mormons. I used BYU as an example of a model of success that can not be replicated by the 100s of existing rugby clubs at colleges and universities across the country. If Dan Payne decides to hand out some scholarships to foreign players, it is his prerogative. However, again that is not the replicable and sustainable model for the rest of the country. Another strike against whatever Life does is that as a specialized university with little history it will be difficult to use their success to market the game to broadcasters, sponsors or to young HS rugby players planning their academic and athletic future.

Like Cal or not, the way they built their program can be replicated and is sustainable at many of the college clubs across the country.

A) Rely on alumni to fund the program, and then gain acceptance and resources from the university over time.

B) Develop local talent, and not bring in a bunch of foreign players.

C) Don't rely on scholarships. Cal gets kids that wouldn't be accepted into Cal, but they aren't handing out scholarships. This is why most their players are in-state kids paying reasonable in-state tuition.

As rugby grows across the country and the game is accepted at a critical mass of institutions than scholarships make sense.

If the top college rugby teams in the nation, some with no national recognition, are going to be mutant hybrid models of success full of foreign born over college age players, then we should all be ashamed.

[M.O.]

Cult Rugby,

How much funding from alumni does a collegiate team need each year to run a sustainable program? How large of budgets are we looking?

[College Coach]

I'd say $30-40,000/yr would do it.

[Cult Rugby]

That is a good question M.O. The college coaches that I know say that the biggest expense they have is going to nationals.

My opinion is that USA Rugby should be providing these answers. Establish action items and standards for colleges that wish to develop a program. They should take a franchise approach to growing college rugby. Many of these college clubs have been around for 20, 30, 40 or 50 years, so there is a well established relationship with the university (good or bad) and a pool of alumni. Imagine if a college coach could contact USA Rugby, complete a 10 question form, have a telephone interview and receive a guideline with how to grow the program. I just think there are so many coaches flying blind, that college rugby will never grow properly.

[M.O.]

It would also be interesting to compare what the various rugby clubs receive from the university in terms of money, field support, medical supervision and transportation.

I think the biggest problem is the lack of proper medical personnel pitch-side for a match. It's one aspect that needs to be corrected as rugby obviously is a high-contact/collision sport. It would be great if the universities supplied certified athletic trainers for matches, but I doubt that is the case with many clubs.

[Cult Rugby]

A trained athletic trainer on the sideline is cheap - 150 to 200 per match - and an emergency plan (ambulance #, parent #s, location of nearest hospital, etc) is free. The main expense for a rugby club is transportation and strength and conditioning coaches (assuming the guys coaching rugby are volunteers). Obviously the cost of a scrum machine, ruck shields, tackle bags, balls, cones, bibs, etc are not an annual expense.

[Go Life]

Just watched the college final. BYU was a disgrace. Shame on the ref. Shame on BYU.

I hope Dan Payne brings in a total foreign team at Life and kicks their ass.

[sacricketer]

I agree with everything you've said here Cult Rugby but want to add on to your last post about Cal. To your points B and C, develop local talent/recruit in-state atheletes, we must keep in mind that it certainly helps that Cal has arguably the most competitive high school rugby league to select from in northern California. That is an absolute blessing! Imagine if other states with strong public universities like Virginia, Michigan, and North Carolina had similar local high school rugby leagues... USA Rugby needs to put together a similar high school program package alongside what you are recommending they do for colleges. The packages would be practically identical so it's a no-brainer to push it to as many high schools as possible. Seeing the sport substantiated in universities around the country will only help it grow in the high school ranks.

[James]

OK a couple of comments on building a collegiate rugby program. To run a program that will compete against the top schools you need around $150k/year. This allows you to have full time coaches and cover all of the costs. The only way this is going to happen is if collegiate rugby clubs get their alumni organized and raise $2M. This is mainly going to need to come from bequests for most schools.

This is the Cal model. However Cal has a HUGE advantage over almost every school - they have over 100 years of rugby and therefore have had lots of people give. Yes there is the large donation of the Witter family, but really both them and Stanford have a large alumni endowment because they have a larger alumni.

It is only now that most schools (where rugby started in the 60s) will have alumni that can give substantial amounts. This is hard work but it is the only way the college game will develop. Bums on seats will not pay for it, and nor will TV.

[Flynn Hagerty]

James, I think it might be fitting for schools without large numbers of rugby alumni to go to other givers in the school. I'm sure there are people in many bigger state schools who give to athletic programs even if they didn't necessarily play for the team. It's not easy but a well organized team with plans for the future who can express that to a potential donor could get some money out there. Get organized. Considering Nike's interests in rugby in Europe it'd be really cool if an Oregon team got organized and went to Phil Knight - who has given buckets to various Oregon programs - and said hey, we want to make Oregon a national champion, want to help? This requires establishing a strong relationship with the AD and good conduct in order to make it abundantly clear that rugby will benefit the school's name, which obviously is a big issue for many people still.

[Rugby Fundraiser]

Great comments about organizing to "milk" alumni. Pretty much every school with an athletic department is ALREADY milking their donors every year and will challenge your right to interfere/intercept their process with large donors especially. At our school, we are careful to only pursue those with rugby association (alumni or parents) or small donors (less than 5k aggregate), since the "big fish" are already well know to the athletic department and have been declared "off limits" to us.

Get a list from the alumni association of those with a declared "rugby association", then involve them with team newsletters, etc., and not just requests for money. It's a very long-term process to raise enough money to fund a top-tier program. Patience is a prerequisite.
Just my 2 cents.

[NCRU]

North Carolina does a strong high school program. There are a number of players coming from there recently who have been with the Eagles age-grade teams: Jeff Lavasseur- now at LSU; Asher Thomas- heading to Cal; Jonathon Marshall- heading to Life; Joe Cowley- heading to Life; Matt Hughston- at ECU; Iain Joseph- at UNC-W.

Common thread with all of these players except for Asher Thomas...couldn't get into University of North Carolina. Cowley, in fact, couldn't get into any college other than Life.

[Dan Ransom]

Having worked for many years at a non-profit, I'm quite aware of how protective development officers (read: fund-raisers) are of their major donors. If the Oregon RFC went to their school admins and asked for contact with Phil Knight, they'd get shot down in heartbeat. Fundraising is a cutthroat business, and major donors are guarded carefully.

[Dan Ransom]

"Rugby Fundraiser" has it right. It's unfortunate, but true. Work the alumni with connections to the rugby team, but any University is going to keep you away from their big givers. It's just the nature of the beast.

[production problems]

I'm one of the 17 American households that gets ESPNU, so heres your report.

The camera man lost the ball several times. The camera then would follow the ball in the air with a tight shot only to lose what we needed to see in the reception area. The production cut away from the game only to return after the ball was already put into play. The graphics said ESPNU "game of the week" not the National Championship.

USA Rugby is getting worse at everything they do. The National Guard is paying for these productions as part of their USAR sponsorship and is getting fully ripped off.

This Tampa production company that USAR uses hasn't gotten better in the three years they have worked for USAR.

What a mistake Boulder has become.

The current Rugby Mag finally takes a swing at the USAR administration which was good to see. In any real rugby nation this administration would be kicked in the teeth daily.

How does this CEO and Board stay in power?

[P. Kane]

At Wake Forest we spent a full year trying to work with the school to allow us to set up a rugby endowment so that alumni could give directly to the rugby team, get tax credit for it, and get listed in the alumni giving magazine. We finally gave up and started a non-profit so our alumni who donate can at least get tax deductions.

[M.O.]

P. Kane,

What is the budget for the Wake Forest team to run their rugby program?

[Mark Mowery]

National Championship: I get over 100 channels--no ESPNU. All my friends--no ESPNU. I called a sports bar that had it only to find out on arrival that they carry ESPNU only during football season. I drove all over town and finally found a bar that carried it. It is time to change US Rugby.

[P. Kane]

I think we probably spend about $20,000 per year to run our program. That goes almost exclusively to union dues, referee costs, trainer costs, equipment and the biggest expense is of course travel costs. If we ever made the national playoffs the travel costs would probably double, but we haven't been that fortunate/unfortunate yet. All our coaches are 100% volunteer, we don't even get mileage reimbursement.

The vast majority of our funds come from donations and fundraising. This year we are going to receive $15,000 from the school, but we've already spent $10,000 of that on a scrum machine. So we have $5000 from the school to work with for the full 2009-2010 academic year.

[James]

In fact the major donations at Army and Stanford for their facilities came from non-rugby people. But rugby people were in a position to influence - Development for Stanford and the Commandant at Army played rugby while he was there.

[KCB]

Look into whether or not AT&T's U-Verse is available in your area... Setanta and ESPNU are available via their 200 channel package.

[Leksan]

As in other states, there is a tremendous pool of HS rugby talent in NorCal and throughout California. College admission is the number one issue for a lot of these student athletes. Without raising a single $, the quality - and parity - of the collegiate game in California could be improved dramatically if all UC's and State schools could 'Tag' incoming players and assist them with admissions. This is what Cal does and it works.

[TS]

Now, NCRU, how the heck could you possibly know that information. Do you take showers with these boys after their matches as well?

[Cal's Edge]

The talent pool of quality HS rugby athletes in Nor Cal is an advantage to all the college rugby programs in California, but Cal has something to offer the others can not. I am not talking about their excellent rugby program because that was built on this one advantage they have over the other California programs. Most the Nor Cal HS talent is coming out of private HSs where parents would be more concerned with academics over rugby. Many of these kids would be looking at going to private colleges, or the finest public colleges anywhere in the country. Since Cal is an excellent academic institution, comparable or better than many private colleges, it is an attractive option to these parents. The fact that in-state tuition is much cheaper is a plus too. However, the real edge is that Jack Clark can get a kid into Cal that wouldn't be able to without the rugby program sign-off on him. I have heard many coaches of California college clubs tell me that someone that they recruited couldn't get into their school because of academics, and low and behold end up in Cal playing rugby. The combination of excellent academic institution, in-state talent and a rubber stamp to admit talented rugby players is the advantage Cal has over the rest of the colleges.

[Leksan]

'Edge',

There are other 'excellent academic' institutions within the UC and Cal State systems that aspire to the Cal throne. The rugby programs at UCSB, Davis, UCLA and Cal Poly would all benefit if they had the ability to 'Tag' the top players for admission. Today's college admission standards are tough and the competition is fierce. Rugby players (and their parents) can use any assistance they can get.

We are presently producing more locally trained, top-quality HS rugby players than ever before; more than Cal can absorb into their program. I think our greatest opportunity to improve the parity of collegiate rugby lies in affecting the admissions process.

[Cal's Edge]

You are absolutely right that those schools are at a disadvantage because of admissions, and that Cal can not absorb all the talent. St. Mary's has more lenient admissions standards than the UC schools, plus I understand very cooperative rugby friendly admissions staff, so they have reaped the benefits too.

Admissions benefits are part and parcel of Cal being part of the Athletic Department and not a club sport, so unless other UC schools can get that same departmental status I am not sure they will ever have that admissions edge Cal enjoys.

[NCRU]

Uh, I know this information because I've talked to these kids, their parents, and their coaches. It's not like this stuff is a secret, or surprising for that matter. It is incredibly difficult to get into UNC and despite the rugby coaches trying very hard to get kids from the high school rugby programs into the school, they have not been successful.

[Tool Alert]

Look at the big brain on NCRU.

[NCRU]

Not big enough. I couldn't get into UNC either.

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