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.