All American coach on tap next month

The next All American coach is to be named in February, USARFU has pledged, half a year after Alex Magleby bowed out with a series win over New Zealand Universities Under 21.

Matt Sherman of Stanford and Kevin Battle of UC Santa Barbara, both of whom were part of World Cup management team, are thought to be leading candidates.

The collegiate opening is pregnant because the senior team has started a new four-year World Cup cycle, while last year's decision to sanction fall as the school 7s season has transformed the university calendar into the longest of any American segment. The recent world championship pointed up the comparatively short US playing season.

Regardless of whether they compete for Atlantic seaboard or midwestern teams that traditionally play 15s in autumn, most leading university players are now training from September or October through April, with a modest winter break. This positions the All American program to leverage development work done on campus, something that school-age and senior programs structurally cannot match.

America will not have a senior representative competition in 2012, USARFU officials have said, while the 'A' team that competes in October's Americas Rugby Championship is really a trials camp punctuated by a pair of matches. Domestic-based Eagles, many of whose clubs are out of season, essentially compete to make a November squad lately predominated by overseas players.

USARFU stages annual December assemblies for high school and under-19 players, something it does not do for the collegians who are generally far closer to making the senior squad. But the camps do not surmount the shorter, typically springtime seasons of scholastic players.

The 2008 All American tour proved vital to the USA's 2011 World Cup squad by advancing six new players (seven, counting an injured forward who missed the New Zealand tour). The 2011 All American assembly, which lodged a 2-1 victory over the Kiwi students, was among the best since the 2001 trip to Ireland.

The 2012 All American schedule has not been announced, though the union has spoken of playing in England. The students' match program typically requires more active groundwork than the senior or U20 schedules, which take their cues from the International Rugby Board.

Comments

[very interesting]

Sherman and Battle...interesting.

[sevens]

Do the new college conferences name "All-Conference" Teams? Do these teams compete as a group or is it just an award?

[What time is it?]

Again, this all seems a day late to me. We don't have an Eagles coach and it is almost Feb. Magleby has been gone for months and yet no AA coach has been named yet. Wow, the Boulder office must be swamped with mining sponsorship opportunities?!

Oh wait, no sponsorship has been generated by Melville and his staff (for years).

Geez.

[who cares?]

parading out the usual suspects . . .

[USA Rugby = Village Idiot of World Rugby]

USA Import Shames the Nation!

http://rugbymag.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3157%3Apaterson-pinged-for-pain-killer-use-at-rwc&catid=39%3Ausa-men&Itemid=194

[College Conference]

Don't be a dick - this is not steroid use. It was a mistake and the kid owned up - blame the doctors not him.

[Nathan Bedford Forrest]

The physician is clearly at fault here. But, let’s take a look at the quote from Melville in the article -

“Trust is at the center of this issue, and James was acting on the trust he had in the medical staff. Unfortunately, the blame lies with the player rather than the doctor who made a serious error.”

Nigel has gotten so good at deflecting blame that now he's happy to pretty much do it for anyone. In this case it is probably warranted but since we've all seen plenty of Melville's scapegoating over the past few years I am immediately skeptical when he begins the finger pointing. What a talent this guy is... I can see why the board thinks so much of him.

[College Coach]

It's up to the conferences to name All-Conference teams. The better run ones will do it. There is no plan for these to be anything other than an award, like in real college sports. Hopefully the All-American playing side will be selected from a selection camp of 50 or so invited players. There is no need to put together regional rep sides to play in a two day tournament that served neither as a selection vehicle nor a developmental tool yet cost participating players and Territorial Unions in excess of $100,000.

[sevens]

Agree a national tournament of regional select sides is not needed. Regional elite development camps and select side games against nearby teams would be a more cost effective way to develop talent and identify players for the national AA camps. Rugby camps and combines continue to grow around the country. There is clearly demand and parents and players are willing to pay for these camps. More elite camps are needed. Serevi just formed a partnership with USAR. Serevi run elite camps for each college conference could be useful in improving the player pool and talent identifcation process. Each camp needs elite standards for talent identification to be shared with national coaches. Money is better spent flying a few talented coaches in to region rather than flying players out to national tournaments. If each college conference develops their own pool of 50-100 players, the national pool will improve.

[who cares?]

the first thing you are told - or should have been told when you are an elite athlete is:

it is your responsibility to notify all MD's, trainers, etc, that you are an elite athlete subject to drug testing.

Simple - it's your body - police what drugs, supplements, etc. you ingest or have injected.

for fun only - order of blame -

1. athlete

2. athlete's governing body (USAR) for not educating player(s)

3. MD only on list if not told athlete was subject to drug testing.

[I care.]

Dude, it was a USA RUGBY DOCTOR who prescribed it for him.

[who cares?]

I Care - still the order

- player decides what goes in

- USAR hired MD and is in charge of policy and procedures

- MD did not check banned substances

What don't you understand about the procedures?

[Jefferson Davis]

You pay the expenses of a doctor to travel with the team to New Zealand, you expect him to know rules on banned substances like Oxy. Not necessarily disagreeing with your order but come on - national team doctor prescribed Oxy? Really? This wasnt a case of the player going into a walk in clinic. Huge fail.

[who cares?]

They don't say when the player took the drug- did they? Nor did they say when the player was prescribed the drug.

so - again, as I said earlier - for fun -

1. player
2. organization
3. MD

switch them around any way you want.

If you have ever attended an elite player talk on drugs and nutrition, as I have. The teams all have these talks. It is made very clear - you are responsible for anything that you put into your body.

Period.

And the players are told repeatedly - you are the one that will be judged. No one else.

He had the prescription, he had access to the database, http://www.keeprugbyclean.com/en/resources/

These players are not living in a bubble.

All failed, but no one forced him to take it.

[Doctor Who?]

From the Head Coach to the Assistant Manager the Eagles management is all either cronyism or favors handed out. Why wouldn't you find the doctor making massive errors? How many NFL, Olympic or any teams has he treated with international standard drug rules and regulations? NONE!

[what the?]

Well the NFL MD's - to be fair, is cronyism. no real MD's go after that position - it's a hack job for publicity.

That being said, there is really no drug testing in the NFL.

As for other teams / organizations - well judge for yourself.

If the USA MD in fact prescribe the Oxy during a testing period, shame on all three - player, admin and MD. They should all have known better.

Melville has to understand it is his fault in the end. He has no idea how to run a national program and that fact is showing itself with every test - on field or off.

He should go - but oh, the money is so good.

A better man would have resigned by now - but his personality of being above Americans - you know he feels the US would be worse off without him. Same with Roberts, the Saatchi and Saatchi, fella. They would be nothing in rugby without the American Rugby/IRB teat.

We have Melville and Canadian rugby gets Mike Chu, the former head of NZ high performance. We are falling behind, and now more than ever, at a very fast pace.

[Richard Nixon]

I'm sure Melville will figure out a way to throw some staffer under the bus and all things are good as we continue to fall in love with the game.

[Melville is killing US rugby daily]

Epic fail by every member of USAR's high priced staff. The fail begins and ends with Melville. The business side of USAR has never realized any success under his leadership. The playing side of the game is where his skills are supposed to lie, but our win/loss record, coaching turnover, HP management (like unnecessary failed drug test) are all racing backwards under Melville.

It is no longer a question if USAR is worse off under Melville and Roberts. The only unanswered question is how much damage will they inflict before they move on.

[college admissions counselor]

I am pulling for Kevin Battle for sure.

[who cares?]

I'm not

[Anon]

The Eagles' summer slate has 4 games, which is worth mentioning. Home & Away vs. Canada, Home vs. Italy, and Home vs. Georgia. The IRB has promised to fill the void left by the Churchill Cup with lower-grade Tier 1 nations and upper-grade Tier 2 nations.

[Anon]

I think it's interesting that so many people judge Melville based on what the men's national team does. Personally, I've been happy to see the game continue to grow - especially at the youth level. And I've been told Melville had a big role in pushing things like Rookie Rugby, which has been an IRB-awarded success.

I have virtually no positive expectations for the Eagles if they can't develop key position players (scrumhalf, flyhalf, fullback) from an early age. Traditionally, we haven't been able to do this. Moving forward, it looks like me might be able to.

[I vote Battle]

I think Kevin Battle has an excellent chance to do for the AA team what he has done for UC Santa Barbara, take them from being one of the top teams in college rugby to being a team out of the top division, not capable of beating Claremont Colleges. He sounds like a perfect candidate for USAR.

Also that rugby academy at the beach concept hasn't worked out so well for anybody other than Kevin, who charges the community college students for bad rugby lessons.

Maybe Battle can run the AA academy for USAR, this might complete the circle of ignorance and greed.

[@anon]

Anon,

I think you about have it. US rugby has paid Melville a couple million in salary for him to promote this thing called rookie rugby. Rookie rugby has no real retention value so it won't help grow US clubs much less the Eagles.

We should forget the department of labor is ready to fail claim. The business of USAR is in shards. We have no sponsorships. The Eagles are getting worse not better. The average USAR member has fallen away from the organization. Dues have increased with membership services decreasing. Melville is getting ready to hire the forth Eagle coach in 5 years. Zero financial accounting and transparency with the membership. USAR is an organization living on IRB largess and taxes from kids. Melville has played fast and loose with these dues and grant funds.

In the words of Chairman Kevin Roberts "making us fall in love with rugby", we have fallen completely out of love with USAR.

Melville has failed the majority of his duties as Chief Executive Officer and President of Rugby. Yea rookie rugby!

[Anon]

^I can't help but disagree. As a bartender, I used to be puzzled about why people would watch crap like darts and bowling on television and not rugby, until a very astute customer pointed something out to me one day. "Because everybody's played darts and bowling - they roughly know the rules, know what's going on. I don't know anything about rugby except it's 'football without pads.'"

The familiarization of the game with mass audiences is key if we ever expect advertisers or media companies to pay attention to us.

Moreover, Melville's doing far more than just Rookie Rugby. USAR pushing the SBRO model has been great, and having people like Kurt Weaver fly out and help SBROs with their organization (being 501(c3), having a baord, etc.) has been tremendous. And even if the kids who play Rookie don't grow up to keep playing, if they show up at some of my men's club games, that's an audience that didn't exist before. Youth rugby isn't always about building a huge membership base - it largely serves two functions as far as I'm concerned:
1.) Developing key-position player depth not previously available, and
2.) Introducing the game to more people, which only helps the collegiate, senior, and national team brands

[more required]

Well that is a nice take on rugby's future, however US rugby needs to get more out of a $300k CEO. Handing off youth rugby's responsibilities to the volunteers and claiming ownership of touch rugby just won't get it.

[craig]

it still is so hard to comprehend what our ceo makes in compensation, i would think his travel exp. is in addition... its just crazy how far out of whack this really is. 300k, just hard to look at everytime its posted.

[Anon]

@more required:

"Handing off youth rugby's responsibilities to the volunteers" is incorrect if you're involved at all. USAR has sent out 2 different youth department employees to assist our SBRO, with the goal of making it self-sustainable. Some groups can already manage this, but others have struggled tremendously. That's sort of the nice thing about having full-time staff to help. That, and collective things like certificates of insurance, which would be very expensive to do without such a large pool to use as leverage. Even USA Sevens is dependent upon USAR for its certificate of insurance.

Also, whether Melville is overpaid or not for what he's accomplished, I have little doubt that his pay is probably roughly in line with CEOs of other rugby unions.

[more required]

"his pay is probably roughly in line with CEOs of other rugby unions"

Do you mean the other real CEO's of world rugby? The individuals actually making decisions and running the business of their unions?

This is the point of the discussion Anon. Melville does next to none of the duties of the CEO role. He is pretending to be the CEO, for $300k a year. He's about $2m into our pocket and doesn't have anything to claim as a success.

[who cares?]

anon -

check around - that is not a Rugby Union CEO average pay.

He and Sullivan's are and were - way over the top for level of team.

and let's not forget - Melville never ran a Union before he came here. Not even a local - he was a coach and dir of a team.

He won in an era of amature/pro. The clubs may have been pro - but only, really in the last 5 years have these clubs come close to a professional level.