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...