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Pathways doubt after All-American post filled

Alex Magleby's quiet reappointment as Collegiate All-American coach is likely to be seen as another letdown for domestic coaching hopefuls.

Magleby, a Dartmouth All-American and 7s and 15s international turned head man at his alma mater, possesses well-established credentials but will not be helped by USARFU's yet-unannounced move. The AA program has become a flashpoint for unhappiness with Boulder's so-called pathways: Hundreds if not thousands of coaches work at the university level but have no defined route to top jobs.

Last summer all of the collegiate territorial coaches circulated a letter calling for coaching candidates to have advanced USARFU certification and rise up through an established process. The letter also lobbied for revising All-American selections and match scheduling as well as a coaches association.

Chief executive Nigel Melville responded by agreeing to hire a collegiate director while provisionally endorsing a 60-player training camp and a home All-American match. He reserved appointment of the 2010 AA coach to himself, however, according to notes from a September conference call.

Competitive applications were very much on the mind of the territorial coaches, who subsequently established a breakaway organization called US College Rugby Association. USCRA is scheduled to meet next weekend in Las Vegas in conjunction with the USA 7s.

The decision comes on the heels of Ric Suggit's controversial selection as coach of the women's 7s Eagles.

Meanwhile, the All-Americans' summer schedule has not been determined, and it seems apparent that standout students do not figure in plans for the USA 'A' team to compete in the 2010 Americas Rugby Championship. Last week, Eagles coach Eddie O'Sullivan indicated his preference for domestic Eagles, which suggests the fall tournament ought not be viewed as a pathway competition but a tuneup for established internationals.

Related:
    Territorial coaches call for sweeping college reform
    Collegiate reaction could loose broad changes   
    On sponsoring the All-Americans
    Canadian Suggit wins women's 7s post

Collegiate reaction could loose broad changes

Collegiate changes may be coming in spite of the leaders who are triggering them.

USARFU last season collected millions in dues and sponsorship dollars while student teams paid hundreds of thousands to compete in the game of the month, regional and national championship competitions, and on representative teams including the All-Americans.

The lopsided relationship triggered volunteer uproar and then well-publicized plans for a breakaway organization that's to convene next month in Las Vegas. While the US Collegiate Rugby Association's ambitions are unclear, the threat to one of Boulder's primary revenue streams is evident, prompting the incumbent body to announce in November it would hire a collegiate director.

The tumult's lasting impact could be to drive home the realization that collegiate teams themselves hold the keys to improving their lot.

Presuming USCRA gets off the round, the question of whether a club team may choose its affiliation or must defer to school authorities underlines that the university is pivotal to recognition as well as access to the many resources embedded within the campus environment. Thus teams previously oriented toward rugby's impecunious bureaucracy may learn to refocus themselves on those college officials who allocate fields, approve projects, and so on.

As another example, both groups have drafted strategic plans that dwell on 'governance' and administrative efficiency, hardly the sort of stuff to fire the imagination. Accordingly, important conversations about improved competition -- such as a 'collegiate super league' that would create exciting commercial opportunities -- have taken place among principals, outside official channels.

Political scientists hold that authoritarians yield to democracy not because emerging elements of society wish for representative government, but when expectations of civil conflict make self-rule the more pragmatic option. Witness Eastern Europe in 1989, the subsequent collapse of Soviet Russia, or South Africa in 1992.

USARFU has yet to hire a dedicated staffer, USCRA remains an unproven concept, and so the country's hundreds of college outfits have no collective voice nor practical means of holding the union's directors to account. All that is secondary to the ramifications of schools balking at the continued financing of Boulder's IRB-driven, top-down strategy, a development that would reverberate across every segment of the American game.

Coda: I am indebted to those Gainliners who last week reported key elements of this story, supported by primary materials, as well as to those who provided enlightening debate.

Huckaby succession as Arkansas St gains ground

Former 7s Eagle Matt Huckaby will be the next coach of Arkansas State, succeeding his father Curt, whose tenure enmeshed rugby in the Jonesboro school's fabric.

'Because of Curt’s dedication and hard work, Arkansas State University has enjoyed extensive positive exposure nationally and internationally for our rugby team’s achievements,' chancellor Robert Potts said in a prepared statement. 'We will always be appreciative to him for his efforts, and we are confident that Matt will continue to carry the program forward.'

Although ASU classifies rugby a club sport, in deference to the NCAA, to enjoy such a ringing endorsement is to be varsity in spirit if not in fact. The program's future, warranting a school-administered search culminating in yesterday's announcement, evidently has the attention of campus leaders.

More specifically, Arkansas State sees rugby as advancing its brand internationally, something that interests many American universities, which covet a broad base of students as well as students who pay full tuition. With a bit less than one-third of the squad coming from overseas, the sport effectively pays for itself, according to the school's release.

The elder Huckaby steps down with a record of 183-44-1 over 14 seasons, including runnerup finishes in the 2001, 2004, and 2006 division 2 national championships. Afterward, the Red Wolves stepped up to division 1, winning consecutive South territorial titles and falling last year to eventual champion Brigham Young in the round of eight.

Matt, who played for his dad, was an unheralded, 6'0", 200-lb flanker who competed 'much harder than most,' according to one contemporary coach. He nabbed All-American honors after the 2001 and 2002 seasons and would go on to claim a handful of Eagles 7s caps and invitations to several 15s assemblies, yet never quite managed full international honors.

Along with Dartmouth's Alex Magleby, BYU's Kimball Kjar, and San Diego State's Matt Sherman, the younger Huckaby is one of promising generation that has moved quickly from being All-Americans in the early years of the decade to coaching leading teams by its end.

Fifteen players have been named to the USA 7s squad competing in the January 21-23 Fiji 7s, an important precursor to February's Wellington and Las Vegas stops on the Sevens World Series.

Three will released before Al Caravelli's troops head to New Zealand, where another failure to score series points could raise questions about America's automatic qualification for the 2010-11 circuit. The roster includes Bennie Brazell, a 7th-round pick in the 2006 NFL draft; Kevin Swiryn, who missed the Dubai and George tournaments due to injury; and Paul Emerick, made available by his Italian club.

United States to Fiji 7s
Marco Barnard (Kutztown Univ.), Mark Bokhoven (Denver Barbarians), Bennie Brazell (Unattached), Nick Edwards (New York AC),  Dimitri Efthimiou (Mystic River), Paul Emerick (Overmach Parma), Matt Hawkins (Belmont Shore), Ata Malifa (Belmont Shore), Malenese Malifa (Belmont Shore), Leonard Peters (Gentlemen of Aspen), Mile Pulu (San Francisco Golden Gate), Trevor Richards (Univ. of Nebraska), Shalom Suniula (Pearl City), Kevin Swiryn (captain, Old Puget Sound Beach), Zack Test (Loughborough Univ.)

Dartmouth, Brown vie for regular-season Ivy title

Unbeaten Dartmouth travels to 5-1 Brown Saturday to determine the Ivy League's first fall, regular-season title.

The Providence, Rhode Island, game pits the 2 schools which have dominated the traditional springtime tournament. Dartmouth has captured 12 crowns, while Brown has earned 11, according to Ivy League Rugby's web site.

The contest will also determine seedings for a four-team Ivy playoff set for October 24. 5-1 Harvard and 4-2 Yale, which clash this weekend in New Haven, Connecticut, join Dartmouth and Brown in having already qualified for the knockout round, but home-field advantage is at stake. Next week's pair of winners gain berths in the eight-team Northeast union playoffs, which begin on November 7 and conclude a week later.

If the knockout matches are an unwieldy finish, the league's launch is notable for both self-initiative and the potential of a collegiate conference with a brand like no other.

Having gotten underway at a time when varsity sports at the elite Eastern schools are suffering significant budget cuts (see Bloomberg report), IVR legitimizes rugby within the athletic department because the essentially predefined match schedule mirrors the varsity. The same effect holds with sportswriters and even commercial interests.

The conference upends conventional union structures, however, in that Penn and Princeton are historically Mid-Atlantic schools while Cornell and Columbia have been outside the Northeast union's New England region. Additionally, the round-robin schedule has to be played in the fall. There aren't enough springtime weekends to contest a 7-game season as well as territorial playoffs before USARFU's title chase begins in mid-April.

Dartmouth, which has scored 400 points this fall while allowing just 17, is expected to prevail. The Big Green toppled Harvard 31-0 on October 3, a week after the Crimson downed Brown 69-11.

Territorial coaches call for sweeping college reform

A call to reform All-American selections and training has given unexpected voice to a more revolutionary view of collegiate rugby.

'All aspects of the college game (all divisions, select sides, tournaments and tours, the A[ll] A[merican] brand, 15s and 7s) must be independently managed and administered by a national college rugby association in partnership with USA Rugby,' according to an August 27 letter written by 2009's collegiate territorial coaches to chief executive Nigel Melville.

The far-reaching conclusion, timed to precede the coming weekend's board meeting, can been seen as a sign of confidence among university leaders who believe rugby is finding a home on campus as well as further evidence that the segment feels ignored by USARFU. The latter view is the more surprising since the territorial coaches are almost definitionally 'insiders'.

Indeed, within a week the group secured a September 3 conference call with chief executive Nigel Melville, who agreed some of the tenets, according to circulated minutes. But Melville deflected committing to a modest, guaranteed budget allocation for the All-American program or staffing a college director at the national office.

The coaching letter begins by making an establishmentarian case that territorial coaching hopefuls must have advanced USARFU credentials, in order to establish a transparent route to representative appointments. But the missive quickly turns to sponsorship and program funding, a sore spot because of the disparity between monies generated for Boulder and plowed back into the growing college segment.

Just last year USA Rugby informed the A[ll] A[merican] players that they had reached the point in their rugby careers where they no longer had to 'pay to play' yet on late notice this year's AAs were obligated to raise $1,000 per player. This reflects poorly on our union and the AA program and should not happen again.

In a section labeled 'In General,' the group calls for a collegiate coaching association and asserts that  'By establishing a[n] empowering, working partnership with college rugby programs and support networks, USA Rugby stands to gain an immensely powerful ally in every conceivable aspect of the [sic] rugby's growth.'

The corollary: 'Unless USA Rugby recognizes the inherent value of college rugby and acts to support and develop it to its potential, we feel the colleges will ultimately move to organize themselves with or without USA Rugby.'

The majority of USARFU's $2.7 million in (projected) 2009 dues come from collegians, and its leading commercial sponsor, the National Guard, is premised on reaching the university audience.

The call minutes note 'anticipate' the 2010 collegiate Inter-Territorial Tournament will be immediately followed by a weeklong 'academy' in Boulder, Colorado, for 60 players perforce named All-Americans, and observe that a collegiate manager in the national office 'would be a significant help promoting the game to athletic directors and the college community.'

There is no mention of the $200,000 thumbnail budget which the coaches estimated would suitably cover the territorial championship, the academy camp, and the annual All-American tour as well as operating cost for a coaches association. By way of comparison with a comparable national team feeder, the International Rugby Board has allotted approximately $150,000 to the USA's 40-man, 2-match program in the Americas Rugby Championship.

The signatories are Rich Cortez (Wyoming and West), Jonathon Griffin (Stanford and Pacific Coast), Greg Jones (Kutztown and Mid-Atlantic), Mike Hodgins (Northeast), Rich Pohlidal (Army and Military Services), Vince Atkinson (South), Ron Bowers (Ohio State and Midwest), and Jeremy Ognall (Southern California).

On sponsoring the All-Americans

There are two very different ways to view American International Media's ponying up to support the Collegiate All-Americans, which depart today for a three-game trip to South Africa.

The sponsorship is eminently sensible for the owner of the USA 7s, in that the 7s Eagles have made effective use of the collegiate all-stars and South Africa also hosts a World Sevens Series event. Still, it's far-sighted and even generous move for a business that is presently relocating to Las Vegas from San Diego.

For Boulder, the last-minute announcement raises searching questions about the here and now of fundraising and budgeting.

One of the chief objectives of 2006's reconstituting the board of directors was to bring 'rainmakers' into the game. Yet USARFU's principal commercial sponsors of the past three years, the National Guard pact, originated with a rugby man whose daughter plays. And when the All-American team needed cash for an annual trip, it reverted to pre-2006 techniques like hitting up senior clubs and asking students to stump up funds, before AIM stepped in.

The larger issue is how a union whose budget has grown due dues increases and International Rugby Board development grants could allow the situation to arise? Collegians comprise more than one-third of USARFU dues payers, creating something of an obligation to fund the team.

And save for Peter Thorburn's and Scott Johnson's squads, past All-Americans have comprised the plurality of Eagles. The pathway to the 7s Eagles has been still more pronounced.

But the Americas Rugby Championship rules out student players because it's scheduled for the start of the school year, raising further doubts about the union's commitment to the All-Americans.

Alex Magleby's squad departs from Denver, where the Under-20 and High School All-Americans also trained this past weekend.

In response to a recent post observing that 'youth and college segments ... are growing no faster than the start of the decade', Ed Hagerty wrote to point out that the high school segment has added 254 clubs since 2004 -- a robust growth rate of 46 percent.

I was referring to USARFU registrants (CIPP dues payers), not clubs, but the discrepancy suggests that either established clubs are decreasing in overall size as players fan out, or many high school (and Under 19) players are not registering with Boulder. That would suggest little value is perceived in Boulder's services.

San Francisco Golden Gate appears to be leading the national marketing of the club 7s championship, based on an email that circulated last week.

Typically the venue manager (host) has been responsible for local marketing, and USARFU handled national (including membership) promotion. But last year the union scheduled a 15s match against a French club side on the same weekend, and in the wake of several resignation, this season finds Boulder without a marketing or a competitions manager.

An Eagles 7s team competing in the World Games finished fifth of eight entrants in the multi-sport competition, 2-4 on the weekend.

Won by Fiji, the Taiwan event is something like the Pan-American Games, where rugby will debut in 2010 and the US will be expected to contend with Argentina and Canada for the title.

2009 All-Americans to South Africa
Forwards: Eric Barrett (Central Michigan), Paul Bester (Life), Joey Brown (Mesa College), Cameron Dolan (Life), Roland Evans (Arkansas State), Mike George (Wyoming), Richard Herbert (Cal Poly), Tom Katzfey (St. Norbert), Eddie McKenna (Cal State-Dominguez Hills), Chris Parker, Chris (Texas A&M), Tommy Pasque (Colorado), Brenden Purcell (San Diego State), Casey Rock (Metro State), Ross Silverman(UC - Santa Barbara), Steve St. Pierre (Brigham Young), Mike Su'a (Brigham Young), Nardus Wessels (Arkansas State)
Backs: Chad Clark (St Mary’s), Keegan Engelbrecht (UC - Berkeley), Kyle Grossheider (Life), Ryan Harris (UC - Berkeley), Colin Hawley (UC - Berkeley), Duncan Kelm (San Diego State), Hunter Leland (Texas A&M), Dylan Lubbe (Brigham Young), Benny Mateialona (Life), Aaron McMaster (Life), Dustin Muhn (UC - Berkeley), Brendan O'Meara (St Mary’s), Alex Ross (San Diego State), Blaine Scully (UC - Berkeley), Peter Tiberia (Arizona)

United States 7s to World Games
Marco Barnard (Kutztown Univ.), Corey Blair (Belmont Shore), Tai Enosa (Tempe Old Devils), Colin Hawley (Univ. of California), PJ Komongnan (NOVA), Ata Malifa (Belmont Shore), Jone Naqica (San Francisco Golden Gate), Thretton Palamo (captain, San Francisco Golden Gate), Leonard Peters (Aspen), Jason Pye (Gentlemen of Aspen), Blaine Scully (Univ. of California), Steve St. Pierre (Brigham Young Univ.)

On parity and commerce in college rugby

To acclaim Brigham Young's national championship win over perennial favorite Cal is to implicitly consider whether college rugby is becoming more competitive.

The matter is timely because next year the union hopes to introduce a university 'super league'. But uneven matches are unexciting and difficult to commercialize. More important: the union doesn't own rights to the competitors it would feature.

College teams are a leading source of elite players, and more readily marketable than any other asset in American rugby. Yet the forthcoming American Rugby Championships will exclude university (and high school) athletes because students can't miss the start of the school year, and USARFU’s playoffs, which piled four championships on top of one another this past weekend in Palo Alto, would seem outlandish to the mainstream.

BYU nabbed its first title by mounting consecutive comeback wins against San Diego State and Cal. But neither the Cougars nor the Bears were often stretched during the league season, and in fact both included Super League sides on the schedule.

Over the past five seasons, most playoff teams have been repeat qualifiers, suggesting there is little real competition, and Cal and BYU have met in the final four consecutive times. Accordingly, there shouldn't be much debate over who belongs among the elite.

Better scheduling is required but not sufficient for progress, as the Super League has demonstrated. A thoroughgoing plan will encompass as many aspects of the varsity system as quickly as possible. It will also offer the participants consideration, which USARFU has never done.

To date, there has been little planning among Boulder and the hoped-for principals, according to people familiar with the matter.

Brigham Young 25 California 22 (halftime: Cal 12-7)

Brigham Young Univ.
Tries: Kyle Sumison, Viliami Vimahi, Vito QaQa
Conversions: Shaun Davies (2)
Penalties: Paul Lasike, Shaun Davies

Univ. of California
Tries: Eric Fry
Conversions: Keegan Engelbrecht
Penalties: Keegan Engelbrecht (5)

Referee: Dave Ardrey (West and United States)
Attendance: 3,400 (comprising 4 matches)

Repeat qualifiers point to national college league

All but two of last year's competitors have re-qualified for the collegiate playoffs, maintaining the defined pattern of recent seasons.

Six of eight 2008 quarterfinalists are returning, with Colorado supplanted by LSU and Kutztown ousted by Navy, a perennial contender which surprisingly missed out a year ago. In 2007, seven of eight quarterfinalists made repeat trips. All of 2006's quarterfinalists re-appeared in 2007. And so on.

The consistent outcomes suggest that any discussion of regional or national collegiate leagues should be straightforward, at least regarding competitors. Not only Cal and BYU have separated themselves from the opposition.

A dozen or so schools have routinely been prevailed over the hundreds of other collegiate teams in America, even following the tournament’s mid-1990s expansion to 16 entrants. Although there are minor variances from year to year, promotion-relegation mechanisms would work out any wrinkles.

The broader imperative is to create hard, attractive matches every week, so players are prepared for pressure situations and teams can develop commercial operations. The thornier problems are likely to lie in administrative matters as well as expenditure. Here USA Rugby ought to provide leadership and funding.

The 2009 playoffs open April 17. Three of the four teams in Pool D have been reached the semifinals in the past six years, although Army has underachieved in recent seasons. In 2007's opening round, the Cadets were defeated by St. Mary's 31-27.

The United States captured the Shield championship of the Australia 7s, but the hosts reached the Plate finals and so have tied the Americans for 8th in the World Series standings. Kenya and Samoa have continued to pull away from the Eagles, who have not scored points since the San Diego tournament in February.

2009 Collegiate national championships
Pool A    Cal v. Minnesota, Air Force v. Cal Poly SLO
Pool D    Penn State v. Tennessee, Army v. St. Mary’s
Pool C    LSU v. Utah, Bowling Green v. San Diego State
Pool B    Navy v. Arkansas State, Dartmouth v. BYU

Should USARFU tackle college playoff costs?

As the 2009 collegiate championship field solidifies this weekend, structural problems are again evident.

Though the format has been modified over the past decade, playoff teams can end up traveling as much as Super League clubs in terms of airline mileage and on shorter notice. They are subject to the performances of year-ago qualifiers and yet entirely responsible for their own expenses. This year's form is irrelevant to seedings, and some students may cross the country twice in three weeks.

Travel burdens -- air and ground transport, lodging, and meals -- cannot be mitigated by regionalizing the qualifying rounds, because the approach skews comparative local strength. Last year's attempt at centralization took the competition off school campuses, where fan bases have been growing.

One way for USARFU to alleviate the 'tyranny of distance' would be to subsidize travel, as mainstream sports do. Since the union aims to commercialize the championship for its own benefit, it would treat transportation as an event cost.

Then too, college students pay a large proportion of dues and so could make some claim on growing expenditure beyond free jerseys, which do not seem to have spawned any sort of boom. As it stands, kids pay to play in the regular season and then pay again to participate in the postseason tournament.

Subsidizing travel is a burden that only Boulder can afford, which makes it worthy of a national governing body. The idea has been floated as long ago as Ian Nixon's administration, but despite advertised revenue gains Boulder has not made any moves in this direction, preferring to expand 'high performance' spending. 

More colleges attracting thousands of fans

College matches are increasingly attracting thousands of fans, outdrawing top club matches.

Last weekend's Brigham Young-Utah match in Provo drew more than 3,000 paying fans, BYU said in a press release, topping February's Cal-Univ. of British Columbia contest, estimated (by me) at 2,800 (counting onlookers). Also this month, smallish St. Mary's reeled in some 1,500 for a league game against the Bears.

By contrast, the Chicago Lions' home opener, which debuted Hope Field and featured the crosstown rival Griffins, was described as one of the larger crowds at a regular-season Super League game -- and came up well short of 1,000. Many big club games are played in front of no more than a couple hundred spectators.

The idea that college names are more marketable than standalone clubs isn't new, but growing crowds and USA Rugby's televised game of the month series lends hard data to the argument that universities are a superior commercial proposition. Few club sides can match school facilities, and now more and more school XVs are generating fan bases.

This Saturday's Army-Navy clash could go still higher, as it has in recent fall encounters. Also this weekend, the Denver Barbarians will host the Lions at the 18,000-seat Dick's Sporting Good Park, a top-line soccer facility owned by the parent company that also holds the Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche.

It is encouraging that senior clubs harbor such ambitions, but not yet clear they are well founded.