Varsity High School Rugby

In December, USA Rugby attended the National Federation of State High School Associations Convention in Nashville, Tennessee. Their stated objective in their press release was to gain exposure for rugby at the interscholarstic level. Sounds pretty good. Logically, you would think that USAR would contact the Tennessee High School Rugby League for support at this event since THSR is the recognized organization for high school rugby throughout the State of Tennessee. Or, at the very least, a courtesy call to THSR would have been appropriate since the event was in our backyard.

Well, unfortunately that phone call never happened... Those of us here in Tennessee found out about it the same way everyone else did - by a press release after the conference had concluded. Apparently this initiative is going to replicate the exclusionary personality of the NCAA women's initiative that USAR also is pouring resources into...

Ironically, the NCAA meeting in middle January is also being held in Nashville. Wonder how many USAR employees will be in town for that one?

Meanwhile, it has been a full year since the Conference on the Game was held in Nashville and all of those strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities were identified. SMAC sends $8k to $10k a year to Boulder and most of us have the same questions now that we had a year ago - when are we going to start seeing a return on our investment?

I can live with not getting anything from USAR other than the liability insurance; but, you'd think that they'd at least invite us to help them at some of these meetings since we are, after all, paying the bills for them to get there. Geez, USAR should at least pretend that it is grateful we pay dues so they can travel across the country in an apparent attempt to give the game away.

What possible explanation could there be in USAR's consistent exclusion of the current rugby community in their marketing attempts to high school associations and the NCAA? Do they think we will embarrass them? Are they afraid that we aren't on board with their objectives?

Unfortunately it looks like high school rugby is now being used as a potential pathway to assist in the women's NCAA initiative. That continues the trend of USAR's aggressive pursuit of NCAA recognition for women's rugby even at the detriment of another constituency within USA Rugby... All the while, that constituency continues to pay the bills.

USA Rugby's March of Folly continues...

The Drama that is the Cherokee Campus

The Knoxville News Sentinel has had an article a day for the past few days on the upcoming development of the Cherokee Farm. In my opinion, the KNS has done a pretty decent job of cut and pasting the university press releases on this issue. I’ve tried to keep up with the various articles and have hit the media of late and have posted many of them at http://www.fultonbottoms.com/.

Related Articles
October 02 – UT forms advisory panel to look at Cherokee campus
October 03 – Cherokee Campus Committee to hear Editor of Architectural Review
October 05 – Expert Says Cherokee Farm Site Special

All of these stories focus on the research and development campus that President Peterson has proposed in budget hearings before the governor and the general assembly in the fall and then also outlined in a Sequoyah Hills Neighborhood Association meeting in April.

Related Articles
March 06 – New Campus in Sight
April 20 – UT to build on Dairy Farm

There’s lots of issues here to discuss – none of which have gotten much ink with the KNS.

2001 Master Plan
The 2001 Master Plan for the UTK campus included detail plans for the Cherokee Campus. These plans included intramural and competitive sports fields in the design. $32M has been allocated to UT for the development of an infrastructure based on this master plan. As a matter of fact, new athletic fields on this site have been dangled in front of the students as early as 1998 with the continual increase in the student activity fees.

Whose Campus is it?
What’s the deal with the management controversy associated with the initiative? The master plan is a UTK development blueprint for the Knoxville campus but now the research site appears to fall under the domain of the university system. This is an important aspect but is going relatively unnoticed by local media. As you may recall, this issue also comes up from time to time because the UT Athletic Department reports directly to the system rather than the UTK administration.

Link: www.tennessee.edu/system/cherokee/

Athletic Field Search
Months ago UTK formed a committee to review the recreational and competitive sports needs. Several locations and ideas were batted around in hopes of getting UT caught up with other major universities in this area. UTK lags far behind other SEC schools and actually many Tennessee Board of Regents schools in this area. The Cherokee Campus was at the top of their list. It appears that this committee was mothballed once the “official” Cherokee Farm Planning Committee was formed and announced. Their work remains unpublished to the pubic.

So, what does all that mean?
The original master plan called for athletic fields to be built around the flood plane areas of the dairy farm. The scope of this original plan has obviously been changed at the system level with the affirmation of the trustees. The student government association voted last week to encourage the university to build recreational fields either on the Cherokee campus or find an alternative. If the university decides it doesn’t want to put athletic fields right across the river from Sequoyah Hills, I’m OK with that. However, shouldn’t the university at least take part of that $34 million and go find land somewhere else to build these promised fields? That would seem particularly fair if indeed the funds were allocated to UTK but end up going towards a UT System project instead. The students and faculty at UTK seem to be able to figure that one out even if the Knoxville News Sentinel seemingly avoids the topic.

And finally...
In the past it has been implied that my outspokenness may be hurting this process. Well, I have a vested interest in these issues as not only a giving volunteer to the university but also as a taxpayer of the State of Tennessee. Just where do you think that $32 million is coming from anyway? I have some very good friends that live in Sequoyah Hills. I wouldn't want a lighted athletic field in my back yard with hundreds of screaming college kids either. But the fact remains that it appears the fix is in to scrap the master plan and pull the dairy farm away from UTK and thereby losing one of the few available assets for growth for the Knoxville campus. Bottom line: if the Cherokee campus continues down the path towards a research facility at breakneck speed, why must the recreational and competitive sports needs of the students languish in the "study" phase? If that's the way it is then so be it. But, President Peterson and the Board of Trustees owe it to the students and the community to acknowledge that so we all can all move on.

Collegiate Rugby – Competition Review

There’s a big shindig in Chicago on the same weekend as the US v. Munster match that includes a meeting of collegiate rugby volunteers from around the country. Chip Auscavitch from the New England Rugby Union has prepared and distributed a comprehensive review of the competitions of each area of the country. It’s a 100 page PowerPoint presentation that is very heavy on data but does make a couple of suggestions that deserve further debate…

Standardization of the Competitive Season
Make college rugby a one-season, fall sport finishing with National playoffs in early December in a warm climate, which is also consistent with the NCAA initiative

While I appreciate the problems that the some areas of the country have with a spring competitive season, standardizing the competition into a fall season would be counterproductive to our sport in many ways.

1. It would be incredibly difficult for lower division clubs to jump right into a competitive season in the fall and expect to play productive rugby. There is no time to recruit and/or train young players before tossing them into their biggest games of the year. That wouldn’t seem to be in the players’ best interest plus it reduces the quality of product that we put on the field as a spectator sport..

2. It seems to me that most players would drift away from the sport in the spring due to limited playing opportunities and an absence of a competitive structure. Rugby is at its best when it’s a cult sport – meaning, its participants are devoted to the game. Let’s not reduce our sport to a seasonal sport that will encourage its participants to drift away into other sports in the spring. That would seem to reduce our game to just one step above intramural sports.

3. And finally, why go head to head with the most popular sport throughout most of the US – football. Football is king in most areas of the country and attempting to line up the most important rugby games during the fall will be very problematic. A full playoff schedule will most assuredly mean that collegiate players will miss most of the football games of their university. In many areas of the country, these are the biggest events of the year. Plus, many clubs have field availability issues in the fall during football season.

Standardization of Club Classification
Set Uniform LAU/TU Policies/Guidelines for Determining Division Affiliation

This one is probably long overdue. However, I’m not a fan of promotion / relegation at the collegiate level. At the club level, teams have the opportunity to build with players for many years plus club players are much more transient. Collegiate rugby is a different animal. A team turns over at what I’d guess to less than 24 months or so. Don’t punish a small club for having good players and good organizational resources (i.e. coaching). A divisional classification that includes student population as one of its principle variables is long overdue. Its time that clubs from schools of 25k students or more get out of the lower divisions. If large school clubs insist on playing at a lower division, make them ineligible for advancement in the playoffs.

Let’s put systems in place that promotes collegiate rugby as a legitimate mainstream sport. To do that, we need to find a less resistant pathway (spring) and create a national (minimum) standard for competition (divisional play). We talk a lot about making our sport appeal to the masses both in participation and with spectators. Let’s just make sure that we walk the walk when we consider adjusting the playing field.

USA Rugby announces drastic eligibility proposals

On July 17, USA Rugby released proposals for changes in the national eligibility regulations. Here’s a rundown on the ones that are the most relevant to the collegiate and high school competitions. Link

Proposal Collegiate 1
Players are limited to 5 years in which they are eligible to play collegiate rugby, within a time period of 6 years. The 6 years begins on the date the player first enrolled in a university, college or junior college. Any college courses that are taken during high school do not start the eligibility clock.

Oh boy, here we go… How the heck is this going to be governed? USAR just pushed most of the compliance responsibilities back down to the TUs so I assume this will now be an additional concern for territorial collegiate directors. It seems as if USAR is moving away from rules that parallel mainstream collegiate athletics with this proposal. If the intent of the proposal is to get the season ending injured player an additional year, why not just ask for medical records and grant the kid an additional year. If the intent is to create a bigger tent for collegiate rugby, I think it’s the wrong approach. If anything, I’d like to see collegiate rugby move in the opposite direction… Let’s give the kids 5 years to play 4 just like varsity athletics. Fix the waiver process in place to handle those unique circumstances.

Conclusion: Leave this regulation alone and focus on cleaning up the waiver process.

Proposal Collegiate 2
Players are eligible to play for 60 days following graduation, provided this is permitted by the college or university

I assume this change is required due to Proposal Collegiate 1. Since the playoffs occur after some schools have had commencement, this would be required. I assume this means that once a kid graduates, he/she is done – regardless if they are in their 4th, 5th or 6th year. So, by its own personality, proposals 1 and 2 discourage graduation… Is that the identity USAR wants to project to collegiate administrators?

Conclusion: See Proposal Collegiate 1

Proposal Collegiate 3
Reduce full time enrollment requirement to ¾ time enrollment.

Bad idea... I can’t see what benefit it is for collegiate rugby and, just as with #1 it seems to move our sport further away from mainstream collegiate athletics. Again, if it’s an attempt at creating a bigger tent, I think it’s the wrong approach. It seems to be counter productive for the student athlete.

Conclusion: It’s a lowering of standards in more ways than just number of hours.

Proposal Collegiate 5
If a college student is attending a school without a rugby program, but meets all other eligibility regulations, he or she may be considered eligible to play rugby for another college or university, provided the following conditions are met:
a. The player may only be eligible for one college or university rugby team and it MUST be the closest college or university in geographic proximity to the original college or university
b. The new college or university administration that governs the rugby program must expressly allow for participation by students from an alternate institution.
c. No club is allowed to have more than 5 players from any alternate college or university
d. This is only allowed if the original college or university has no rugby program participating in any rugby competition.
e. All other general and collegiate eligibility regulations apply.

This one is complicated. I wonder about the motives of this proposal. Are we to assume that there are kids out there that are denied access to rugby because they can’t play for a neighboring university? It seems to me that this type of regulation will encourage fewer clubs, not more. Plus, it seems to diminish the role that senior clubs play in the player progression. If this is implemented it just got a lot cheaper for the college coach to import players since they can now park them at the local junior college at a cheaper tuition rate (and less stringent admissions requirements). There’s nothing wrong with a coach recruiting a foreign born student to attend his university to play rugby; but, there’s plenty wrong with going to get yourself a few hired guns to win a championship.

Conclusion: Bad idea because it moves us away from mainstream collegiate athletics and opens the door for the recruitment of hired guns.

Proposal HS-1
Players must be within five years of the moment the player first enrolled in ninth grade, regardless of when that player started playing rugby or had the ability to start playing rugby.

Here is another interesting, and dangerous, proposal. I don’t understand the logic behind giving a player 5 years to play 4 years of high school rugby. I guess some kids could do the prep school thing to work out a 5th year but I can’t imagine that to be the issue here. If older kids are the issue, add a maximum age like the state athletic assocations do. If someone knows why this is an issue, please advise…

Conclusion: Kids play rugby when they are in high school – that should be an easy enough definition.

Proposal HS-3
Players may be home schooled and be considered eligible to play rugby, Verification of official home school status (through state sanctioned documentation) must be maintained with club records and displayed upon demand documents of any competing club, LAU, TU or USA Rugby officials.

Frankly, this is a clarification that is long overdue. This is an outstanding proposal despite the apparent sentence structure error.

Conclusion: Amen!

Proposal Collegiate All-Star 1
Players are eligible for collegiate all-stars if they meet all collegiate eligibility requirements, regardless of whether they play for their college or university rugby team.

Another proposal that is long overdue as a clarification of an issue that arose at this year’s National Collegiate All-Star Championship. For years, I have witnessed players play in the NCAC that competed with senior clubs then all of a sudden it is an issue.

Conclusion: Good clarification but needs to be closely monitored in practice.

Summary
I guess I didn’t realize some of these things were broken. In its total, the regulation changes at the collegiate level seem to be moving us closer to age grade rugby.

The biggest issue that I’ve seen over the past few years is the disparity in granting waivers… Some kids get waivers for military service, others don’t. Some kids get back extra years for injuries while others aren’t so lucky. Every college town with a well intentioned club side should be opposed to most of the collegiate proposals as it can and probably will hurt their recruitment.

If these regulations are implemented, I predict that in a couple of years there will be a significant swing in the opposite direction. A college coach under these new rules will have the opportunity to import players and park them for up to 6 years at the local junior college. He will save money because they are at a junior college with lower tuition fees and lower admission standards. Plus, he’ll only have to enroll them at ¾ time during the competitive season. How does that benefit collegiate rugby and the traditional student athlete?

In spite of the fact that I obviously oppose most of the changes, I do want to give USAR and the folks that worked on these proposals an incredible amount of credit for the professionalism in which they have been delivered to the rugby public. Some additional commentary would have been nice as to why the changes were needed but the fact remains that there’s an attempt at transparency in the process which is long overdue at the national level.

Once upon a time...

Once upon a time there existed a national sports organization that was the governing body for its participants all over the US. Most of the participants were adult participants, many in leagues and clubs anchored by foreign visitors and/or immigrants that brought the sport with them to the US. This organization had rocked along very comfortably for many years with the same ideas and approach to managing its sport.

One day a group of these folks decided to introduce the sport to a younger audience in their community. The kids loved it. It started as a high school club sport with the kids playing on that back lot of the school that none of the varsity teams wanted to use. The national association was very excited and watched as the movement spread. Slowing the sport began to establish some credibility in the community and was no longer just the sport that those guys played in the park outside of town on Saturday & Sunday afternoon. Younger kids wanted to play so teams and leagues were formed in community parks and neighborhoods across the more heavily populated areas of the country. The national association continued in its oblivious excitement, watched as the movement spread and their membership numbers swelled - all the time just assuming these organizations would naturally fall in line behind the national governing body.

Mom and Dad loved the sport and got involved at the grassroots level. Some began to ask why they sent money to a national organization that provided little, if any, service to their local efforts. Organizations began to contemplate the value of sending money to an organization that wasn’t structured to lead this growth nor capable of meeting the needs by providing support at the grassroots level. The national governing organization was built to deal with a constituency formatted as a group of 20 to 30 folks banded together to play. Now, they were being asked questions by organizations representing hundreds and even thousands of participants and they simply didn’t have acceptable answers. Sadly, this national organization had done nothing more than watch the youth movement become the 1000 lb gorilla, and now, it was too late. The movement splintered into several different special interests… High schools were slowly absorbed into state athletic organizations and local school districts. Mom and dad took the younger kids out on their own to form their own organization.

You know this group as the AYSO, arguably one of the most powerful sporting organizations in the country today (and still an independent organization). Surely you recognized this little story… US Soccer got caught watching. Their failure to react, provide leadership and value, put the organization back 20 years. Just in the past 10 years or so have they seen a return to prominence as the national governing body and that’s mainly due to the creation and growth of community based competitive youth teams. Many of us in the youth rugby movement can see some real similarities.