As school and university teams evolve, coaching positions are diverging from administrative roles, possibly to the game's overall detriment.
A California high school looking for a women's coach is touting the opening as a 'dream rugby coaching job' because scheduling, logistics, and related chores are the responsibility of the school's director of rugby and its athletic department. Around the country, college leagues too are finding that many prefer technical specialization.
'Most of the coaches who are actually paid to coach can't / don't / won't serve in administrative roles', one league official said in an email. 'It is left to guys who have full-time jobs outside of rugby to both coach and administer competitions'.
As the game attempts to populate America's continental expanse, volunteerism is likely to persist, no matter whether it is organized by territorial or geographic union, state, or conference. Coaching stirs the blood because it's close to the action, while administration is not only thankless and obscure but also a responsibility shared with rivals, meaning no one wants to devote too much time and effort.
But separating how the game is organized and packaged from playing and coaching risks unmooring the sport from its primary competitive nature. Coaches, a team's single most influential voice, ought to be part and parcel of game development, to help shape routine administrative practice.
As one example of schism, staging the 2008 collegiate round of 16 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, made sense in terms of event registration and staff logistics, but created superfluous travel while taking playoff matches out of the campus environment. The following year, broad unhappiness with the collegiate territorial (all-star) competition led to calls for a coach's association.
USARFU has recently made direct grants to school leagues for professional administration, with mixed results. Some policymakers are now discussing whether the geographic unions that are to replace the territories might employ full-timers.
Since the GUs are meant to govern senior rugby, however, it is unclear how such staff would work with the independent high school and college organizations that have already taken root. The conversation is preliminary, according to people familiar with the matter.
For their part, should school leagues develop commercially, they would soon enough have to decide when and how to reinvest in expanding capacity.
James Paterson used an illicit narcotic during the World Cup and therefore has been sidelined for four months, the International Rugby Board announced Friday.
During routine drug testing, Paterson acknowledged taking oxycodone for a shoulder injury, on the recommendation of the national team's medical staff.
'This was a very unfortunate case in the sense that it could have been avoided by referencing the [World Anti-Doping Agency] Prohibited List which is provided to all unions and was proactively made available to all participating teams and players prior to and during RWC 2011,' IRB anti-doping manager Tim Ricketts said in a prepared statement.
In addition to being the only failed drug test at the quandrennial championship, the case has attracted attention because the 24-year-old is native to Christchurch, New Zealand, and has played Super Rugby for the Crusaders.
The snafu is a major black eye for USARFU, which separately had recently been audited by the federal Department of Labor regarding improper player payments. Unlike most of American rugby, the national team is professionally managed.
The suspension began last October and extends through February.