Why should a national governing body encourage teams and athletes to aspire to elite levels of sport?
The obvious reason is to field better national teams. But does an organization such as USARFU also have an obligation to promote activities that are not in its direct interests? Does it have a practical stake in doing so?
Lee Smith, a renowned rugby thinker who has held posts with both the New Zealand union and the International Rugby Board, recently asserted that one adverse effect of professional rugby is the national union's (and franchise owner's) increased incentive to pursue only those progams which immediately benefit its financial health. In practice, this amounts to the scouting, selecting, training, and monetizing of national teams (or pro clubs).
Smith labels the condition that of a 'hollow frontier' because while the top (i.e., professional levels) look to be advancing, in fact the condition of the settlers -- the recreational clubs which supply players and coaches -- is unstable and may be deteriorating. Links between the top and bottom are severed, and yields diminish.
Smith is primarily thinking of leading unions like New Zealand, but as his experience includes time working in the Pacific Islands, his thoughts are applicable to the developing countries like the United States. The full paper is here. Below, a few of the more interesting passages:
§ Historically the game has been one that depends on mass participation and grassroots involvement. The pyramid goes something like this.
Schools and clubs do what they do best, but when there is a need to have a collective purpose they form a collective body called the local rugby union, to which they send representatives. When they find there are opportunities that they have a collective need for, the rugby unions form a co-operative for that purpose, the national union, and so on up to the world governing body. Each level has its own niche and is responsible for that niche. It is bottom up and not top down. When it is top down you lose support because there is no longer local input to the same degree.
The structure runs into difficulties when each level assumes a role that infringes on those below. In the professional game this has become prevalent especially when it comes to competitions. The effect is to channel money and time away from amateur rugby. This has resulted in the financially weak having less say. This is the vast majority of the people involved in rugby. The effect is to narrow the base of the pyramid making it unstable.
§ What we are looking for is a game for all that supports life-long involvement in a number of roles. It is not a sport with the best playing and the remainder watching. It is part of a healthy lifestyle in which all can find a niche for themselves in a variety of ways that is embedded into the fabric of society and not just one part of it as an entertainment.
§ Rugby has the dilemma of being morally obliged to levels of the game that are a financial cost to run. Some may see this as an investment in many ways. Rugby as part of an ongoing healthy lifestyle is one. With these levels of the game viewed as a cost, rugby has a problem but team owners do not. Their problems are solved by buying in the talent developed by others, frequently, with no return to those who did the developing.
§ [Traditionally] Players from lesser unions within the country could achieve international status. Each union had its niche and potential for a place in the sun. Each could be supported by amateur effort committed to the game as part of their way of life. The game could be measured in a quantifiable sense by the numbers playing but, more importantly, it could be measured by other criteria be they subjective. These criteria were community spirit, camaraderie, loyalty and a code of behavior and ethic that tied the unions together to create the game as part of the national identity.
Obviously the last observation is particularly apropos of the pending disbandment of the college all-star championship. The competition is inefficient and certainly lacks many features of the higher-level All American program. Yet its passing not only feels like narrowing opportunities for collegians at a time when their numbers are growing; but also as if the national union is eliminating one more connection with the folks who provide the players and foot much of the bill.
Smith has some high-level ideas about reconnecting local, regional, and national bodies. Are they applicable to USARFU's formative setup (geographic unions, college conferences, high school states)?
In US sports the "links between the top and bottom" are the colleges. With a void of college leadership at USAR, the leadership in each of the college conferences is well positioned to define a new way forward. A College Rugby Association consisting of college rugby coaches and administrators could present a unified front and manage USAR and develop an improved elite player pathway that improves the quality of rugby in each conference and provides a deeper and more talented national player pool. The colleges are the center piece in US sports, recruiting from high schools, developing players at colleges, and providng players for the next level of competition. The colleges conferences should tell USAR what to do including who to hire in the USAR College Director role. Or they could wait for the USAR Congress and Board to tell the college conferences what to do.
Posted by: sevens | 30 January 2012 at 13:41
Sevens - how many colleges do you feel have the capabilities to do this?
The recent history - the last 4 years of organizing and re-organizing competitions only proves that they - along with everyone else - have no clear idea how to proceed.
Why go and blindly trust this development to a loosely based group?
Posted by: who cares? | 30 January 2012 at 17:28
The college club leadership has had some success in making changes at USAR and in he college game - not all perfect but improvements have been made. College conferences now control their own money and their own destiny. USAR can help set standards but clearly USAR can not be trusted in execution. The colleges are the only hope. We will see if the colleges can step up.
Posted by: sevens | 30 January 2012 at 17:56
"What we are looking for is a game for all that supports life-long involvement in a number of roles. It is not a sport with the best playing and the remainder watching."
There are an awful lot of people (not me) commenting on this site who are absolutely opposed to that idea. They absolutely want only the best playing and the remainder watching and believe it is the only way forward for success at the international level.
Posted by: Don't Play Rugby! To the couch you go! | 30 January 2012 at 18:35
National US level players unfortunately seem to waste their most productive years chasing their rugby goals.
By the time they return to the USA from overseas clubs, they are not qualified for much in the way of work. Entry level jobs when in your 30's is a tough adjustment.
I understand the love of the game, but reality bites hard. I have seen it with club mates of mine, both tose that played pro level and the others that just don't seem to want to grow up. That is the price of many with "life long involvement".
Posted by: Skinner | 30 January 2012 at 19:35
Elite/professional players will always screw up their lives over playing a sport, as the bankruptcy rates of retired NFL players shows. But that is not the same as lifelong involvement...those are the people that everyone else watches.
But if rugby is basically someone's hobby and they pursue it to the exclusion of actual responsibilities...well, it is not rugby and the ability to remain intimately involved that I would hold responsible. Leaving aside the fact that it was these individuals who made a choice, not the game itself, someone who would have made such a choice would almost certainly have found another way to not grow up if rugby had not been available to them. I don't see any evidence that those of us who have been bitten by the "lifelong participation in rugby" bug are any more or less likely to screw up our lives/careers than the general public that never happened to get involved in the game.
Posted by: Don't Play Rugby! To the couch you go! | 31 January 2012 at 07:09
I would think "life-long involvement", as a term, is more usefully defined as those people who after college (typically) stay involved in the game one way or another through coaching, alumni involvement, playing for clubs, performing support roles for teams (youth, hs, college, club) etc.
Limiting the definition to those who pursued semi-pro or pro careers makes Skinner's point obvious but not very useful. We want people to be invested in rugby in this country for their entire lives. Investment leads to growth and success at whatever team or level of rugby they are involved in.
Posted by: college | 31 January 2012 at 08:56
We all make choices - if the player has not prepared themselves for life after the game, it's no one's fault but their own.
As for coaches/admin - we have to make the local atmosphere conducive to form that bond for lifetime involvement.
Quality people pursuing a long term goal with solid standards is probably the best way forward.
Sevens - I think the collegiate programs are still in their infancy to hand them another program. Get their house in order first. Then let actions spring from a solid program.
Posted by: who cares? | 31 January 2012 at 12:09