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High school yearbook tells the story

I like American rugby stories, so Gonzaga College High School's 2009 yearbook is a welcome addition to the collection.

Among my favorite features are a list of alumni at top college teams (including Cal, Penn State, and Tennessee), player profiles that identify where the seniors are heading next (last year's tri-captains were to enroll at Harvard, Navy, and Virginia Tech), and an honor roll of youngsters who have played for local representative teams. These are the details that bring to life the Washington DC school's prodigious achievements.

One could argue that 100-page, photo-filled yearbooks are a byproduct for a team that's won 2 consecutive MAVRC titles, 10 straight Potomac crowns, and 5 Mid-Atlantic championships in the past 6 seasons. Lesser outfits needs to focus on 'the basics'.

I think it's the other way around. Mindful that any one person's time is limited, we know that great programs address all facets of building a team, and thus winning becomes a measure of the system's performance. Act like a champion, then become a champion.

Moreover, the 2009 yearbook presents Gonzaga rugby as a sport you'd want to be part of: winning tradition, strong support from the administration, seasoned coaching, and the opportunity to travel abroad. The focus is the student athlete, and there is no drivel about positional descriptions or 'how to watch a rugby game'; implicitly, the staff is more than capable of teaching such things.

Gonzaga began practicing this past Monday for the 2010 season, which sees the Eagles head to Italy before opening the MAVRC league season against Hyde on April 16.

Related:
    Expanded Maverick league kicks off
    Maverick league underway in Washington DC

On parents and scoreboards

Foreign-born parents can be reassuring to adults who worry about high school rugby.

Perhaps 75 to 100 attended Saturday's game between Elsie Allen and the Marin Highlanders, the leading teams in Northern California's Redwood conference. The welcome turnout prompted a Highlanders assistant to observe expatriates have been 'really good' in addressing safety and other worries among parents of the burgeoning team.

The inference is that knowledgeable adults are validating some of the coaching staff's work. Parents who don't know the sport are being educated by parents who do.

Although San Francisco is arguably America's rugby epicenter, far more adults are familiar with soccer while lacrosse has shot right past our code of football, in part because Eastern transplants have jumped in to boost fledgling lax programs. While youth and high school rugby teams have been established in some cases for more than 20 years, many have struggled to gain the ultimate seal of legitimacy: parental approval.

Often enough, coaches say, it is due as much to parents' failure to grasp the sport as to teams' conduct and management, rugby's traditional shortcoming at the senior level. The insight, then, is that foreign-born Americans needn't coach or manage, but can help confer legitimacy by supporting sons and daughters who play the game.

The Highlanders helped their cause by conventional means, billing the contest as a 'homecoming' game for the league title while simultaneously staging an alumni barbeque. Played at a high school facility, the event was more appealing than the soccer game across the way.

In a back-and-forth match that saw three second-half lead changes, Elsie Allen prevailed 21-17, scoring the winning try on the game's final play. Highlander parents were stunned -- in part because they could not understand the referee's signals and also since there was no scoreboard (and timeclock). Always something else to do ...

Midwest schools scotch eligibility change

Statewide high school leagues in the Midwest have unanimously voted that scholastic competition should exclude college-age players, rejecting USA Rugby's updated eligibility regulations.

In an email ballot that closed earlier this month, Midwest Youth Rugby Association representatives determined that 'All high school rugby in the Midwest will be played by students enrolled in high school.' The resolution targets the Boulder's decision to allow any player who was not 19 before the school year started, including graduates and collegians, to compete in the national championship's so-called community division.

The stance opens a new front for the union's embattled guidelines, amended earlier this year. To date, controversy has focused on watering down the single-school category by allowed up five players from outside the student body, or the planned elimination of the national high school championship.

'It is hard enough for me to explain to school officials that we will be playing community sides. Imagine the difficulty in explaining to school officials that we will be playing collegiate sides,' Bob Cronquist observed in the March edition of the Midwest Youth Rugby Newsletter, referring to the possibility that universities could field frosh-soph teams which conform to the guideline.

'There is also the issue of safety. There is no way a college freshman or sophomore should be on the pitch playing against a 14-year-old. Think of our liability,' Cronquist wrote.

In a January statement issued in response to sour community reception, USARFU said its intention is to 'permit players to play rugby based on what is common practice for many interscholastic sports that lack overall interest, trained staff and overall funding.'

Formally recognized by the territorial union, the three-year old Midwest Youth Rugby Association comprises more than 250 schools and 6,000 players (not counting middle schoolers), according to Cronquist. Its constituent members are Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin plus Allegheny (which covers western Pennsylvania and West Virginia). Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois are formally acknowledged as by USARFU as state-based rugby organizations (SBROs).

Indiana's affirmative vote appears somewhat ironic, in that eRugbyNews previously reported that a Hoosier state official promoted at least one of loosened guidelines.

Related: On HS eligibility: quality not quantity

On HS eligibility: quality not quantity

'There is no other sport in America where [the] varsity plays games against players not in high school.'

That single line, drawn from one of many emails regarding USARFU's revised high school eligibility rules, encapsulates one of the two principal objections to allowing graduates and non-students compete for a 'single school' team.

But the second point -- that playing numbers do not equate to quality -- may be the more significant.

In 2009, Boulder hopes to reach 100,000 youth 'participants' including players, parents, and volunteers. That's a notable goal. Yet there is little evidence -- certainly not from the Under 19 team's trajectory -- that steady numerical gains improve the caliber of the youth / high school level.

By contrast, varsity high school sports assess quality in terms of school affiliation, facilities, coaching, medical and training support, attention given to league and championship play as well as key rivalries, budgeting, parental support, and so on. As a practical demonstration: parochial school after parochial school competes with much bigger public schools by hewing to these categories.

As in the collegiate environment, running a varsity team is essentially a zero-sum endeavor: they fight for the best athletes and resources. Therein lies USA Rugby's big chance.

The deepening recession is causing public-school budget cuts, crippling sports that are reliant on athletic department funding. But American rugby, which has ever been self-supporting, has (slowly) been adopting varsity traits with little or no help from school institutions.

Rugby teams that have been behaving like varsity programs are now set to move past some formally recognized sports. Coupled with the fact that parochials -- generally home to our strongest single-school teams -- will not necessarily be caught in the downdraft,  it's apparent that next 12-30 months represent a once-in-a-generation opportunity to grow high school rugby.

Instead of leaping at this golden chance to plug into the US school sports system, USARFU appears to be distancing itself through byzantine eligibility policy, while clinging to 'key performance indicators' that have not produced notable gains.

Related: HS champs: Dilution more worrying than elimination

Expanded Maverick league underway

Washington DC's 'Maverick' league kicked off its second season last weekend, having added two schools to its collection of well-regarded sports preps.

In one of two opening-round matches, newcomer Coolidge downed Eleanor Roosevelt 5 tries to 1 before a Friday night crowd of 100 at the school's all-weather, floodlight field. Organizers credit a Facebook campaign for the encouraging attendance. Meanwhile, the facility will host the league championship match as well as an all-star game.

The second entrant, Our Lady of Good Counsel, is a leading producer of football players. This fall, the Good Counsel-Dematha game was an ESPN game of the week. Dematha, a charter Maverick league member, is of course a top basketball school as well as a football power.

Most of the nine-team league won't be pursuing USA Rugby's national championship, according to organizers. The conference aims to gain recognition with school athletic directors, rather than compete for national championships against community sides.

Good Counsel will depend on a core of players from the Maryland Exiles club, while Coolidge High will make use of students from Washington's age-grade team. In addition to Coolidge, Dematha, Good Counsel, the lineup of well-known schools includes Eleanor Roosevelt, Georgetown Prep, Gonzaga, Hyde, Landon, and St. John’s.

Elsewhere, defending champion Alliance defeated Strake Jesuit 19-10 to capture the Jesuit Dallas Rugby Showdown, with the hosts taking third place. Past winners include Sacramento Jesuit, the Dallas Harlequins, and the Katy Barbarians.

Twenty-five teams will line up in this weekend's Carolina Youth Rugby Festival, considered an important early-season competition. Begun in 2003, this year's edition includes an Under 15 competition.

Related: Maverick league underway in Washington DC

'Varsity is a state of mind'

It's been suggested that American rugby's varsity model collapsed in the 1970s when college football coaches put their scholarship players on ice, and won't regain its footing because the sport will never surmount Title IX.

So what makes me think the varsity model can again take root? Varsity is a state of mind, not a status, and the results are most evident in the high schools and colleges that have closely followed the mainstream prototype.

Instead of rehearsing the key components, consider the vision of a leading practitioner at both the high school (and college) level:

A varsity model doesn't mean that the rugby team must be in the athletic department and/or recognized by the state high school athletic association. It means that kids play for their school and the competition is similar to every other mainstream sport in the US. They wear lettermen's jackets. They wear their jerseys to school on Friday. Their scores are announced in the morning before the pledge of allegiance. They look forward to beating on the kids from their rival high school and they play for state championships.

Recent high school eligibility revisions, though well-intentioned, miss all of this just as surely as former Eagle coach Peter Thorburn overlooked American sports' scope and scale in suggesting American rugby should be should get rid of 40-yard dash times and start thinking in meters ‘like the rest of the world.’ But how is rugby to transform American basketball players into locks, as Thorburn also talked of doing, if we do not understand that the 40-yard dash is the bedrock of measuring elite players in mainstream sports?

Why would rugby shut itself off from the massive network of athletic summer camps, high school and college recruiting services, and pro trials camps -- all of which measure in inches, feet, and yards? And why should we make it hard for school administrators to understand by trying to redefine scholastic competition?

Not every region will cross the varsity threshold at the same time, but there is evidence enough in Oregon, Tennessee, the Washington DC area, and above all Northern California, places where there are so many 'frosh-soph' teams that there are not enough qualified referees. That is what one calls a success problem.

Related:
        National HS champs on the way out as 'single school' guidelines loosened
        HS champs: dilution more worrying than elimination

Xavier NorCal tour plans include Jesuit tilt

Xavier plans a weeklong, three-match tour of northern California in April, an aggressive undertaking for the perennial high school contender.

The 2008 quarterfinalist's trip features an April 11 meeting with defending national champ Jesuit of Sacramento. Then comes 2005 runnerup Elsie Allen on the 13th and rising San Francisco Golden Gate Under-19 on the 15th, a pair of regional hopefuls who met last weekend to open the Santa Rosa school's new stadium, in a 15-12 match won by the visitors.

To the extent that they are looking to go beyond their league schedule, many high school teams prefer tournaments to tours because the former offer a lot of games in one venue. Even then, the logistics of traveling high school sides to weekend events can be complicated.

Xavier, a so-called single-school team, benefits both from having a roster all on the schedule (i.e., everyone has spring break at the same time) and from effective school support. The rugby XV also has a history of touring, having previously visited various Californian cities, Seattle, Salt Lake City, and even Hawaii, and of traveling to national title competitions.

The Knights expect to travel 27, according to coach Mike Tolkin, a faculty member who doubles as head coach of the New York Athletic Club. 'If [the trip] matches up to the standards and expectations of that time of the year (fitness, handling, speed of recycling and solid tackling), then we'll be satisfied,' he said in an email.

Including Xavier and Jesuit, seven of last year's single-school quarterfinalists were parochial schools.

Florida field report: Does the model hold?

Florida high schools present several problems that recommend a U19 approach, a local coach corresponds in response to last week's post on loosened 'single school' eligibility.

'Finding knowledgeable coaches with the dedication to run the team and attend all practices, games, and league meetings is a bottleneck for the growth of high school rugby (also finding facilities and referees). It's even more difficult to find someone who can run a practice in the afternoon immediately following school,' according to Dave McFadden, coach of Tampa's Pelicans, the 2008 U19 state champs.

'The few clubs in Florida that were associated with a particular school have mostly changed over to U19 clubs to avoid the additional administrative strains.  However, we all hope that rugby will become a varsity sport here in the future once there are enough rugby knowledgeable administrators and teachers to properly manage it,' he adds.

Florida grew to 19 teams from 9 in 2007. Effective adult supervision is crucial. There's no reason to believe this field report isn't as useful as it is concise.

And yet McFadden's sequence unintentionally makes an often overlooked point about the varsity model. Instead of school officials who have rugby skills, it calls for rugby coaches and managers who can speak to administrators on their own terms (while also presenting rugby as an appealing, 'cool' athletic endeavor to students). It requires leaders who can identify and manage the team's needs for fields and facilities, strength and conditioning, medical care, budget and expenditure, and so on -- and then uphold their end of the bargain, just the same as any other (often unpaid) school sports coach.

The result would be a rugby program the school athletic director and principal can be proud of, much like the tennis or water polo teams. Though not so important as basketball or baseball, these are mainstream sports because school officials feel confident there are quality standards and controls that have don't require intimate knowledge of an 'esoteric English game' [sic].

Note that varsity status is optional to the varsity model, and can be seen as a culmination of program building rather than a precursor.

McFadden adds that Florida union data shows about 70 percent of high school players are leaving the sport. 'Allowing graduated players to stay with their club will help to retain some of these players.  We also need to start U21 clubs in association with high school teams to keep them in the game until they are ready to move on to an adult club,' he suggests.

That may be an effective local approach, and perhaps such Florida sides may rise to challenge Highland and its ilk in the composite bracket of the national championships . But it is not a good argument to redefining the single-school category, for rugby's single handedly trying to change America's understanding of high school play as teenagers who go to class together.

Interesting report. Thanks Dave.

HS champs: dilution more worrying than elimination

The most significant feature of USARFU's newly revealed high school plan is not whether and when it will cease holding national championships, but how it defines high school.

Allowing up to five graduates and/or non-students to compete on a 'single school' team defies everyone else's understanding of the term. No other mainstream sport even bothers with the concept: you play for the school you go to, or you play for a regional all-star team, and never the twain meets.

The concept of transitioning toward state-based high school championships and a national Under 19 title is sound enough. The model pertains in American baseball, basketball, soccer, and a host of other sports. So playing for Highland Park and then moving up to the Dallas Harlequins U19 side would make sense.

But in aiming to leverage the school system, the union hasn't understood that varsity rugby has to look like any other varsity program to parents, the athletic director, and the principal. That means your son or daughter plays with the kids he or she goes to class with.

The essence of the 'varsity model' is not whether rugby is sanctioned, but whether it has a field and facilities, a budget, coaching and medical support, and credibility on campus. With these things, high school teams could compete for top-tier athletes and count on school and parental support. Then the quality of our game would soar. If not, then raw playing numbers will never matter so much.

This explains why parochial schools from Xavier in New York to Jesuit in Sacramento have consistently proven among the strongest in the country.

High school eligibility for rugby needs to be the same as for any other sport. As to the national championship, Americans like them.

National HS champs on the way out as 'single school' guidelines loosened

Loosened high school eligibility regulations will allow up to one-third of a 2009 'single school' XV to have graduated or be enrolled elsewhere, and the backtracking is part of USA Rugby's plan to discontinue the national scholastic championship after 2011.

Worried that 'many players [have] no access to any form of national [championship] event,' USA Rugby's 2008-09 rules allow teams ostensibly drawn from one student body to field five 'special exemption' players, a category that includes athletes from nearby high schools or who have finished secondary schooling but not turned 19 before September 1. Last year's standard, restricting teams in the single-school category to youngsters actually enrolled at the school, was too strict, the union's Youth committee reported in a December memo.

The change sets rugby apart from from conventional scholastic standards governing students who want to play a sport not offered by their school. If the school you're attending doesn't field a team in a given sport, typically you can play for another school that does. If you're attending private school, then you've already made a choice about schooling and extracurricular activities, and the option of competing for a public school team is generally foreclosed. Graduates are almost never part of the mix.

Not only the decision but also how it came to light are likely to be controversial. In October 2007, USA Rugby recast its secondary school playoffs in two divisions, one for teams comprising players from a single institution, and one for teams of players who are under the age of 19. In announcing the change, it declared that 'The strategic goal for USA Rugby is to have rugby formally recognized and supported by high schools. The new championship structure will support this goal by encouraging the formation of single high school teams, while allowing multi-school club teams to continue to compete.'

The move was well-received for creating 'apples to apples' competitions. But in describing its most recent tack, the union's circular asserted the 2007 decision actually set the union on course for single-school championships to be determined by state authorities (e.g., state-based rugby organizations), while USA Rugby's scholastic event would morph into an Under-19 national championship.

While such a transition has been much discussed, the contemporary press release made no mention of the objective, nor did it surface in conversations with then-youth manager Peter Steinberg. A union official could not immediately produce any 2007 documentation memorializing the decision. The December 2008 memo, which circulated to territorial presidents, state-based rugby organization officials, and sundry other 'youth leaders', does not appear to address discontinuing the high school championship.

USA Rugby did not respond to a query about the estimate of how many high school players are missing out on its national championship competition. ERugbyNews first reported the plan to discontinue the 29-year-old event (subscription required).

The decision sets the union up to adjudicate yet another level of eligibility filings and challenges, as the new standard is something like club-level rules limiting the number of foreign-born players. Historically, compliance has been time consuming, fraught, and even prompted litigation derailing the 2003 Super League final.

Were USA Rugby to follow traditional American practice, it would cede eligibility decisions to local school boards that are intimately connected to state athletic bodies, according to sports administrators with experience in the field. Yet despite Boulder's vision of state-based high school rugby, the December memo makes clear the union's discomfort with all that this entails, asserting organizers of state high school rugby championships ought to 'consider the model that USA Rugby has established for the national high school championship.'

The guidelines, approved by the board of directors and circulated last week, call for special exemption players to decrease to three in 2010 and two in 2011, the final year of the single-school tournament.