Arkansas Youth Rugby Association

Great story! Coach Bayer is an old teammate of mine.
-Coach Pat

November 15, 2008, New York Times

The Unlikely Scrum
By WILL BARDENWERPER

WASHINGTON — The rugby practice field at Hyde Leadership Public Charter School bears little resemblance to the manicured lawns of the English boarding school where the sport was born. It is more brown than green, and sirens sometimes drown out the shouts of players. Then there are the occasional interruptions, like when play was briefly halted during a recent practice as a man darted about wildly on a nearby street, calling football plays and evading imaginary tacklers.

But this patch of mud and grass is more than the home of what is believed to be the nation’s first all-African-American high school rugby team. It is also where a growing number of students have been exposed to a sport they once knew nothing about and to parts of society that once seemed closed to them.

Hyde players have a hard time explaining rugby to friends who do not attend their school and who do not know much about the sport. Others say things like, “You’re crazy, that’s a white person’s sport,” said Lawrenn Lee, a senior on the team. One parent, Clifford Lancaster, recalled his reaction when his son Salim announced he was going to play: “My eyes got this big. I said, ‘That’s a wild sport.’ ”

The man most responsible for all of this is Tal Bayer, 38.
After several unfulfilling years in finance, Bayer became the first teacher hired when Hyde opened in 1999. He said he rejected his mother’s admonition that becoming a teacher would leave him “broke and miserable.” After a recent practice, Bayer smiled and said, “I am broke but far from miserable.”

He never imagined Hyde would have a rugby program. But from the start, students would ask him why he sometimes appeared in class with black eyes and other minor injuries. He explained they were the result of rugby tournaments. The students had never heard of rugby, so Bayer invited them to a pick-up game after school. Those informal games led to the birth of a team in 2000. It began with 15 students. Now, 45 of the high school’s 110 boys play.

The first season was dismal. Hyde lost every game by more than 60 points. Bayer even encountered some difficulty scheduling games with teams from more affluent suburbs.

One private school attempted to back out of a game without offering a reason. After some prodding, Bayer said, he learned the opponents “were concerned that the kids would be driving expensive cars to the game and were worried that they would be broken into.”

Desperate to establish his program, Bayer instead bused his students to the leafy suburban campus. Hyde now hosts that opponent regularly — a development that Bayer described as another “barrier that rugby has broken down.”

Hyde is strapped for resources. The team lacks a suitable field, and its weight room consists of two donated benches jammed into an already cramped locker room. One rival, Gonzaga College High School, a local Catholic school that edged Hyde to win the city championship in 2007, has more boys in its rugby program than Hyde has in its entire school. Nonetheless, Hyde has become one of the city’s top programs, finishing second out of seven teams in the Metro Area Varsity Rugby Conference last year. Even more important, Bayer and his players said, is how rugby has exposed them to experiences and opportunities.

“Rugby brings the world to you and you to the world,” Alex Pettiford, a sophomore, said.
All sports can help break down racial and cultural barriers, but certain elements of rugby make it especially suited. With its raw physicality and traditional postgame bonding, rugby forces an intimacy among opponents not found in many other sports.

Because rugby players wear no equipment, Bayer said, they compete “right there, eye to eye, face to face.” Then they hang out with their competitors. Still, Hyde’s players have encountered ugliness. Bayer recalled a trip to New England, where only five families agreed to host his players. It is customary for host-team families to invite visiting players to stay with them.

“They didn’t know what to expect from this group of black kids from the inner city,” Bayer said. After watching an afternoon of touch rugby on the beach, and noticing how the Hyde players conducted themselves, he said, “all of a sudden, the parents were fighting to host a player.”

The team has also been on the receiving end of generosity. While visiting Dallas on a shoestring budget for the 2004 high school national championships, the Hyde players subsisted on a fast-food diet. Parents from Gonzaga noticed, and the school’s booster club offered to help.

P. J. Komongnan, a player on that squad who has returned to Hyde to serve as an assistant coach, smiled as he remembered how the Gonzaga parents took everyone to a rodeo and dinner. Komongnan has since played on the United States National Rugby Sevens team — which competes in a faster-paced version of the sport with smaller teams — and has traveled the world for the game. He credits the sport with helping to turn his life around after he had been kicked out of four schools before enrolling at Hyde.

“Rugby has taken me places I’ve never imagined going, and I’m thankful when I can go to places where I don’t always have to duck and dive,” he said.

Players do not always instantly embrace the sport. Some, like Ernest Pearson, go out for the team only to start skipping practices.

Bayer recalled Pearson’s excuses for his absences, like having to hurry home to attend to “my sick, pregnant cat.” After repeated entreaties from Bayer to stick with it, Pearson went on to excel. He played for Ursinus College and returned to Hyde, where he recently succeeded Bayer as the athletic director.

The differences between his players’ backgrounds and his own is not lost on Bayer. One afternoon in 2003, he and his players discovered a body in some high grass near their field. The gruesome sight left Bayer shaken, but he noticed that most players seemed unmoved. Soon, the players were sharing dead-body stories, leaving him to reflect on “how tough it must be to be a kid in this city and maintain any kind of innocence.”

Some players marvel at the ability of Bayer, a bald-headed white man approaching his 40s, to relate to them. Pettiford joked that some “wondered if Coach was white or black because of the way he interacts with us.”

Hyde players are accustomed to being pioneers. Salim Lancaster and a fellow sophomore, Antoine Johnson, barely thought it was worth noting that they were the only two African-American players at a rugby camp in California last summer. Just getting to Berkeley proved to be a challenge because neither had been on an airplane before. They barely made their flight after Johnson went to the wrong airport and Lancaster’s ride failed to appear.

Lancaster said he was initially a little nervous on the plane, although he settled in and took advantage of the airline’s satellite television service, tuning in to — what else — international rugby.

He rises at 4:30 a.m. to make it to Hyde on time every day. Between rugby and school, he said, “I don’t have time to get in trouble.” Relaxing in his southeast Washington apartment with his family on a recent Friday night, he said going out with friends was the last thing on his mind. There was a game on Sunday, anyway.

That game was part of the annual Ambassador’s Shield tournament, sponsored by the New Zealand Embassy. The embassy has been a friend to the Hyde program, promoting New Zealand’s national sport while helping raise money for the school’s team.

Hyde lost the game, but the players enjoyed the international atmosphere and were impressed by the New Zealand expatriates who played later in the afternoon. Mathew Brown, a Hyde senior, provided the ultimate seal of approval, saying, “Those Samoans are ballers,” as a New Zealand player of Samoan descent took off down the field.

Afterward, the team attended a reception at the New Zealand embassy. While diplomats and representatives from USA Rugby sipped cocktails and mingled, the Hyde players escaped the formalities and gathered outside. One of them found a rugby ball. Before long, he was teaching youngsters how to play on the moonlit lawn.

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

By Wes Huett - PJStar.com

Never thought the words would spill from the mouth of a football player.

"It’s a lot like soccer," East Peoria junior linebacker and fullback Nate Joseph said. "In how you pursue the ball and fight for the ball ..."

Only with full-on tackling, full use of your hands and scrums that leave bodies bruised and beaten — yet rarely seriously injured.

And bloody noses.

"Those are not fun," Metamora senior Tim Thannum said.

Welcome to rugby, a punishing multi-sport hybrid where a handful of area football players spend a small part of their spring and summers busting their butts and busting heads.

"It’s fun to just be able to go out and hit someone after a few months off from football," said Thannum, a starting offensive lineman for the Metamora football team. "It’s a game that requires total teamwork, an all-around game and there’s definitely big hits."

Football programs at Metamora, East Peoria, Washington, Morton and Illinois Valley Central, among others, filter kids into the four high school rugby teams in the area.

Started four years ago as a way to expose kids to the game and create interest in the adult teams, guys like Peoria Rugby Club head Mike Schubach and former PRC member Joe Goett — each of whom had teenage sons — laid groundwork to begin youth teams.

The clubs began in north Peoria and Morton then filtered out to Metamora and Washington. Chillicothe got on board last year.

Goett said plans are in the works for one or more of the central Illinois clubs to join the Illinois Youth Rugby Association, a governing body that promotes the sport and sponsors a state championship. Springfield will be starting a pair of teams next year, he said.

The seasons run only parts of three months in the spring, leaving plenty of time for offseason workouts and free time. They practice at local parks and work around high school engagements.

"Talk about a sport that preaches toughness, that’s rugby," third-year EP coach Doug Martin, who played on a club team while in high school in Texas. "You gotta be a tough person to play it."

Martin is one in a handful of coaches that Goett says support the area clubs. Most see no problem as long as it doesn’t eat into football workouts or interfere with a player’s participation in spring sports.

Goett is a longtime proponent of the game and former officer with the Peoria adult team. Goett says the bonds he formed while playing last forever. He needs a favor, and among the first names dialed are former rugby teammates.

Bonds Goett hopes he’s helping create among area kids, many of whom meet across the line of scrimmage on Friday nights. Rugby teammates Joseph of East Peoria and Thannum of Metamora face off tonight in a battle for first place in the Mid-Illini Conference.

"I’d have no idea who most of those kids were if I didn’t play rugby," said Thannum, rattling off names of rivals like Joseph, EP’s Andrew Raglin and Washington linebacker Randy Bertleson.

"Football isn’t like other sports where you can meet and mingle, so it’s nice to be able to talk to guys and know them."

But still ... "Timmy’s a great guy and I like him," Joseph said. "All that doesn’t make a difference on Friday nights."

Bonding aside, the skils from the rugby pitch translate well to football. Joseph says he’s a harder runner now that he’s played two years of rugby. Thannum finds he has improved his footwork and stamina, the latter after playing 80-minute matches that require as much running as soccer.

Former Metamora standout Sam Dias put his rugby prowess to good use last November, when the defensive lineman ripped the ball from a Morris ballcarrier late in the Redbirds’ 17-14 state title game.

"We teach that," Goett said, adding that tackling with no pads can give a kid confidence once he straps them on in August.

"Form is everything," he said. "You have to wrap your arms... if you don’t it’s a penalty. In rugby, you have to think on your feet a lot and you develop free-hand ball skills in ways you can’t in football"

Thannum is well aware. The 300-pound guard doesn’t handle leather on Friday nights unless by accident. In rugby, his team has plays designed for the big fella.

"I got to score this year," Thannum said. "That was so awesome."

Wes Huett can be reached at 686-3208 or whuett@pjstar.com.

From Wikipedia: Football

The Metamora football program has arguably been the best in Central Illinois over the last fifteen years under head coach Pat Ryan. The highlights of which are class 5A state championship game appearances in 1996, 1997, 1999, and 2000, all of which were losses.[citation needed] Metamora won eight straight Mid-Illini titles from 1995–2002 and has won four straight from 2004–2007. The team has also advanced to the quarterfinals of the IHSA state tournament 10 out of the last 12 years and has qualified for the state playoffs 13 seasons in a row.[3]

Metamora's championship drought was ended by winning the class 5A state championship vs. Morris High School in 2007.

USA Rugby Launches "Rugby For All"

BOULDER, Colo. – USA Rugby has officially launched its “Rugby for All” continuum, marking the first of several initiatives in the development pathway of USA Rugby players, coaches and referees.

USA Rugby’s “Rugby for All” continuum has been developed to emphasize the breadth of opportunities in the game and promote rugby’s new image as a vibrant sport that centers around the core values of family, health, fitness and fun.

“There is much more to rugby than the full contact 15-a-side game. The global game of rugby offers many versions flexible enough to suit all athletic abilities, ages and genders,” USA Rugby CEO and President of Rugby explained. “Contact or non-contact, seven-a-side to 15's, whether you are playing, refereeing, coaching or administrating, rugby truly is a game for everyone.”

One of the most exciting developments in the “Rugby for All” continuum is the introduction of a new non-contact youth initiative called Rookie Rugby, which will include players from under the age of six through 12. Rookie Rugby is set to be launched in late October and will be supported by its own officiating and coaching course.

“During the next 12 months, we have a strategy for growth that will expand the game significantly across the pre-high school sector,” Melville added. “USA Rugby must introduce the sport to increasingly younger players so they can develop the basic skills of the game and enjoy the many benefits rugby has to offer.”

Supporting the “Rugby for All” continuum, USA Rugby has developed officiating and coaching courses that support each level of the game and will also be promoting the online IRB Rugby Ready Course available on the USA Rugby website.

For more information about the “Rugby for All” continuum please visit www.usarugby.org or contact USA Rugby’s Youth Development department, Coaching Development department, or Referee Development department directly by clicking on the links.

USA RUGBY, founded in 1975, is the national governing body for rugby and is a member of the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) and the International Rugby Board (IRB). The organization is responsible for the development of boys, girls, high school, collegiate and club athletic programs, and ultimately, all of the national teams representing the United States in international competition.

2008 Youth Conference on the Game Comes to Colorado

BOULDER, Colo. – USA Rugby is excited to announce details surrounding the 2008 Youth Conference on the Game, the largest gathering of the youth and high school rugby community, set to be held December 5-7 in Glendale, Colo.

Glendale’s newly completed Infinity Park Event Center will play host to the event, which gives all participants the opportunity to interact with other accomplished youth and high school coaches, referees and administrators from around the USA and abroad, in a unique rugby-specific setting.

“This annual event continues to have a major impact on the growth of youth and high school rugby,” USA Rugby Youth Manager Katie Wurst said. “We look forward to offering new, exciting features and attracting participants from all corners of the USA.”

Valued partners such as World Rugby Shop, the Positive Coaching Alliance and Play Rugby USA will all lend support toward USA Rugby’s mission to lower the age of introduction to the sport through presentations, exhibits and informational materials distributed throughout the weekend. State-based youth organization, Colorado Youth Rugby, will also supply a number of enthusiastic participants and volunteers dedicated to making the event a success.

Complete details for the Youth Conference on the Game and online registration are now available via the USA Rugby Web site at www.usarugby.org/goto/Youth_Conference.

Register early and save today! Reserve your spot by November 21, for the low price of $80 which includes an invitation to all receptions, meals, unlimited networking opportunities and access to exhibits, development tools and free gifts. Late registration is available at an increased cost of $130.

Arkansas State Coach Curt Huckaby

Tuesday Sep 2, 2008 in Rugby Magazine
By Buzz McClain

During his 10 years at the helm of Arkansas State, Curt Huckaby has built a collegiate powerhouse in the South. But with his son and Assistant Coach Matt waiting in the wings, Dad isn’t quite ready to leave the stage.

First of all, let’s get one thing out in the open: long-time Arkansas State University head rugby coach Curt Huckaby (no relation to former Arkansas Governor and Republican Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee) isn’t stepping down.

Sideline observers speculated as such upon the graduation this spring of Huckaby’s player-son Curtis (a three-time Mid-South Rugby Union All-Star). And since ASU finished No.10 in the nation in Division 1—ending the season with a dominating 44-17 drubbing of Dartmouth in the Consolation Round of the National Guard Collegiate Championship in Albuquerque this May after tying South rival Tennessee 13-13 for the South crown—well, it would figure Huckaby would call it a day on a high note and let his other son, 29-year-old Assistant Coach Matt (who also played for Dad) take the reins.

“Sorry, not yet,” Curt Huckaby says with a soft laugh. “When we played that last game against Dartmouth, I realized I wouldn’t have a son playing on my team any more and I sort of lit up. I never realized how much pressure there was having a son playing on top of also being head coach.”

Curt says his oldest son Matt knows more rugby than he ever thought of knowing but father isn’t ready to hand the job over, at least not yet. “Of course, Matt’s young and needs maturing to be a head coach, but he and [Assistant Coach] Lee Stanback have taken over so much of the day-to-day grind of the practice field that I’m reenergized and excited to coach again.”

In 1996, Curt Huckaby raised ASU from the ashes of a men’s club that had collapsed when Matt was a senior in high school. “I was so small I never played football,” says Matt. “I ran track and was on the swim team, the only sport where I was worth a durn. But I started growing when I was a senior and told dad I’d like to play rugby because it looked like fun.”

As it happened, dad had played in college but abandoned it to focus on his law practice and raising a family. “I literally had not seen a game in 10 or 15 years,” Curt says. “And they had just disbanded the [local club] team and we decided, ‘What the heck, we’ll start one.’”

“When we started practices we had a guy from France, a guy from Argentina, one from Spain and me,” says Matt, who was a Mid-South Rugby Union All-Star in 1999. “The first year dad tried to get 13 or 14 players to a game; that way we could borrow someone from their B-team and field a side.”

Remarkably, the early ASU club was D1. But Curt saw the team was overmatched and voluntarily dropped to D2. It was the right move and launched a winning tradition at the school. During the last 10 years ASU is 170-43-1.

“When he started 11 years ago, dad didn’t say ‘Hey, we want to be in the top 20,’” says Matt. “Dad pursued little obtainable goals that got us to where we are.”

To understand what Curt Huckaby has accomplished with ASU’s rugby team, one must look at a map. Jonesboro, a bustling town of 60,000 where the school resides, is pretty much in the middle of nowhere.

“Chapel Hill and Gainseville are 14 hours away,” says Curt, beginning a litany of away-game destinations to which ASU must travel. “South Carolina and Clemson are 10 or 11 hours, Georgia, eight or nine hours, and Knoxville is seven or eight hours.”

But if a school wants to play Division 1 in the South, that’s the price they have to pay, not just in mileage, but in expenses and time away from home for four-day rugby weekends.

“We always said if we got enough financial backing from the school and we had the [player] numbers, then we’d go Division 1,” says Curt.

Last year, for the first time, the school came through with $20,000 for transportation, and the squad was holding firm at 40 players, including foreign-born athletes from South Africa and Fiji. This has not gone unnoticed by the competition.

“That’s the sort of thing that shifts a good side into a very good side,” says Butch Robertson, senior coach at ASU’s arch-rival University of Tennessee. “Plus, Curt has given his players good sound fundamentals and techniques for a number of years.”

So how is it that a South African living in Pretoria gets it in his head to attend college in obscure little Jonesboro, Arkansas? The answer: Charl Welman, ASU assistant coach and player recruiter.

“A lot of kids in South Africa are looking to play rugby here because they have limited opportunities over there,” says Welman, who is a project manager for a hospital. “And they’re looking to get a good education. That’s why they’re coming over.”

Not only that, but Arkansas will cut tuition in half, saving a student $5,500 a year. It’s a form of scholarship for playing rugby.

“I’ve got six South Africans here now,” says Welman. “We have two Argentineans and I’m in the process of bringing in two more Fijians.” Adds Curt: “Two-thirds of the 40 players on our roster will be from out of state.”

It’s crucial the program lands experienced foreign players as rugby in Arkansas’s high school system is still woefully underdeveloped. “We may have two kids on our roster from high school teams in Arkansas,” Curt says. “And recruiting from western Tennessee just hasn’t worked out, for whatever reason.”

That may be the only setback on the horizon. ASU has its own rugby-specific field—assigned by the school but surveyed, leveled and developed by friends of the team—with a second field coming on line this year. The team gets funding from the school, has returning players who have won at a high level, and a coach with a favorable enough reputation to be named an All-American selector this year (“The hardest work I’ve ever done,” Curt says), and who is energized about the coming season.

“I have found my calling in coaching; I truly enjoy it,” Curt Huckaby says, adding that the support of his wife Vickie has been vital. “Watching these kids become productive young men has really been a blessing.”

Now if they can just beat Tennessee at Tennessee.

National Coaches Kathy Flores and Julie McCoy: Icons for Women’s Rugby

Monday Jul 21, 2008 in Magazine
By Katy Rank Lev

Kathy Flores knows what she wants. Take coffee, for example. The head coach of the US Women’s National 15s Team is a gourmand when it comes to beans, taking her own Peet’s Coffee on rugby trips so she and her coaching staff can start their day off with something strong and tasty. Perhaps taking care of small details like providing morning coffee is what has enabled Flores to be so successful in a rugby career spanning 30 years.

As a player, she helped lead the US to the first Women’s Rugby World Cup Championship in 1991 and starred for the Berkeley All Blues between 1994 and 1998. As a coach, the 53-year-old Flores led the All Blues to multiple club titles and helped turn the University of California at Berkeley women’s team into a perennial playoff contender. In 2001, Flores was named the Women’s Sports Foundation’s Coach of the Year, and in 2003—the year she became the US National Team coach—the International Rugby Board named her Personality of the Year. In ’03 and ’04, Flores coached three elite women’s teams almost simultaneously. It’s difficult to think of another woman who has had as much an impact on US women’s rugby as Kathy Flores.

But perhaps Julie McCoy comes close.

Nine years younger than Flores, the head coach of the US Women’s National 7s Team didn’t have as storied a playing career (“I was always one of those ‘bubble’ players,” she once said. “I had an A side mind, but B side athleticism.”), and doesn’t possess as long a coaching resume as her colleague and long-time friend. But once McCoy discovered rugby in the late ‘80s, she became a leader on the field, a student of the game, and rose quickly through the coaching ranks.

She coached all the West Territorial Union teams during the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, and when Flores became the National Team coach in ’03, one of her first moves was to recruit

McCoy as her defensive coordinator. By 2005, McCoy had not only developed a highly-praised footwork camp (see story, page 36), but had become the National 7s Team coach. She will lead the Eagles in the first Women’s 7s World Cup in Dubai next year, where the US will be one of the favorites to win the title.

Flores began her athletic career at Monmouth Regional High in New Jersey, where she excelled at field hockey, basketball and track. She was a two-sport athlete at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania (where she was born), starring at point guard in basketball and possessing a wicked arm for the javelin. In fact, Flores’ record javelin toss of 148 feet is still only 10 inches shy of the current school record. Twenty years after her 1977 graduation, the University inducted Flores into its Hall of Fame.

Flores earned a BS in physical education, but wasn’t sure what to do after graduation. A friend was studying at Florida State University and kept talking about this new sport, something akin to football. Flores became intrigued after the friend sent her photos which depicted a sport that was nothing like the flag football games Flores had played when she lived in Philadelphia. This was a game with contact, physicality, strategy. After Flores moved to Tallahassee, FL, to start graduate work at Florida State in something called “Movement Science,” she joined the women’s rugby team and became a No.8 and scrumhalf for the Seminoles.

“Kathy got into rugby when women players had to be self-taught,” says McCoy. “She read as much as she could about rugby and became a student of the game. Then she had to find a group of people she could play with and win.”

The 44-year-old McCoy followed a similar path to the rugby world. The Arkansas native never heard of rugby growing up and didn’t have a chance to play in college the way many women do today. After earning her M.D. at the University of Arkansas in 1989, she moved to New Orleans for a Neurology residency at Tulane University and came upon flyers promoting the New Orleans Halfmoons, a women’s rugby club.

McCoy didn’t know anyone in her new city and wanted a break from her long hours at the hospital, so she gave the Halfmoons a shot. She noticed that rugby attracted successful, achievement-oriented women and decided to incorporate the sport and its social scene around the 80-plus-hour weeks of her medical residency. She traded on-call duties so she’d have time to drive all over the country for weekend matches. In those days, before women’s rugby exploded, the Halfmoons would take five-hour drives to Florida to play the FSU Seminoles. That’s when Julie McCoy first crossed paths with Kathy Flores.

Despite enjoying the anatomy coursework at FSU, Flores opted not to finish her graduate studies in exercise physiology so she could devote more time to her new passion—rugby. She became a massage therapist, a career that would allow her to work with the human body but also provide her the freedom to go wherever rugby might take her. After helping lead the Seminoles to four National Club Championships (1979, ’80, ’84 and ’85), Flores toured Europe in 1986 with the fledgling US Women’s National Team. In 1987 she captained the squad against Canada, the first official US international game (where she scored her first and only National Team try in a 22-3 victory). Over the next four years, the US toured England and played Canada to prepare for something entirely new: a World Cup for women’s rugby.

Flores was honored to be a part of that first US World Cup team, even if they did have to wear girly wool skirts (provided by sponsor Land’s End) as their number ones. Flores chuckles when she recalls players like Tam Breckenridge and Tara Flanagan, known as the “locks from hell,” wearing those outfits. “It made us look like a team, I guess.” Flores says. “They gave us red acrylic warm-ups, too.” The newly formed band of players grew close in their hotel rooms, drying their cleats on radiators and discussing what it meant to represent their country as women rugby players.

Flores doesn’t dwell much on that first World Cup competition (she’s been involved as a player or coach in all four subsequent Cups), but she retains flashes of memories—wingers going hypothermic in the rainy Welsh weather as the Eagles beat the Netherlands; she and the other subs bringing hot tea into the shower room to warm the players’ fingers after the match.

Flores does remember being in Cardiff, Wales—her first time in an actual rugby stadium—and staring into her teammates’ eyes while New Zealand’s Black Ferns performed the Haka before the semifinal. “We circled up and just looked at each other and knew this was the real challenge for the Cup.”

Even in those days, the Black Ferns were setting the standard for women’s rugby, but the US produced a 7-0 upset victory and then beat England 19-6 in the final. The US team’s triumph at the first-ever Women’s Rugby World Cup solidified a life path for Flores. She knew what she had to do and that was coach the Women’s National Team.

The 1991 US Women’s World Cup team has always fascinated Jules McCoy. Not only was the squad filled with women she played with and against, but McCoy noted that the team was put together very quickly with players from across the country, many of whom were player-coaches, each with their own style. How, she wondered, did those women come together and win a World Cup? Determining the answer to that question would shape her coaching career.

After her residency in New Orleans, McCoy moved back to Arkansas. She found a women’s club team—the Ozark Ladies—and continued her massive multi-tasking; a busy neurological practice, five-plus-hour drives to weekend rugby matches and coaching duties. She also added motherhood to the mix.

McCoy loved teaching rugby strategy, but also wanted her players to care about one another; to create a family on and off the pitch. She became obsessed with team building and player development.

In 1997, McCoy captained the West select side in 15s and 7s and then decided to retire from playing. Actually, says McCoy, “You never retire. You just transition. There’s never a point in your life when you stop.”

McCoy had always been the person to plan the socials, schedule the matches, organize and run practices, line the fields and take care of all the details. “I became known as a doer,” says McCoy of her hunger to advance the women’s game, “and people will always let you do.”

Back in Arkansas, McCoy transitioned into a coaching machine, leading the Ozark Ladies, the West 15s team, the West U-23 team and the West 7s team. “I was coaching everything in those days,” she says. And she was successful. McCoy led her teams from the bottom of the bowl brackets to competing in the top tier.

After the second World Cup in 1994 (which the US lost to England in the finals, 38-23), Kathy Flores moved to the San Francisco Bay area and became a player-coach for the Berkeley All Blues, a powerful women’s club known for its dominating play. Over the next 11 years as the All Blues’ coach, Flores helped develop a Pacific Coast dynasty, winning 10 National Club Championships. The key to that success was incorporating more sophisticated strategy into the women’s game.

As a player, Flores was never the sort of No. 8 to keep her head down at the back of the scrum. She was very much a link between the forwards and backs, always looking a few plays ahead, creating opportunities.

“The physicality of rugby is great,” she says, “but strategy is where it’s at. How will you tie them in? How will you get behind that line of defense? How should we attack? I find it all so interesting.”

In the early days of the game, many women were playing to get the ball from the set piece and out to the backs. Flores wanted the All Blues to see holes in the field and put their teammates into those holes.

Instead of just telling players what went wrong and what to do, Flores started asking questions. “Why wasn’t that two-on-one successful? How will a different decision affect what happens on the next play?” Her goal was to get her players to make the smart decisions because once the game started, there was nothing Flores could do from the sidelines.

When Flores was a player-coach, she was able to execute change on the field. Now she had to rely on team leaders and her ability as a coach to prepare intelligent players. “The hardest part for any player who has become just a coach,” she says, “is sitting there watching the game unfold and knowing you have no physical influence on the game. It’s nerve wracking.” But former Eagles captain Jen Crouse says Flores creates an atmosphere in which players can flourish. “Kathy gives players the freedom to use their judgment on the field and make decisions with more than one right answer,” relates Crouse.

At the end of 2002, after 25 years in the game, leading the All Blues to seven National Club titles and finding success with the Pacific Coast territorial side, Flores finally realized her dream. She was appointed coach of the Women’s National Team after the US squad’s disappointing 7th place finish at the 2002 World Cup in Barcelona, Spain. (Flores got the chance to see that World Cup up close, having won the trip as a grand prize in a raffle.)

Flores had built her life around rugby, developing a portable professional career she could take with her wherever rugby moved, and she had fostered lifelong friendships within the sport. She could build a coaching staff of intense former players who shared her passion for the strategic aspects of rugby and her choice for a defensive coordinator was Julie McCoy.

Flores and McCoy had been talking strategy at rugby socials for years and Flores valued McCoy’s ability to develop a defensive plan that worked within the overall team vision. McCoy admired Flores’ hunger to develop intelligent, independent-minded players. Both were zealously dedicated to coaching, so much so that when McCoy joined the National Team staff, she gave up her other coaching responsibilities to concentrate on becoming the best assistant possible under Flores. It was an ideal combination; the partnership of two strong rugby warriors who were on a mission to improve the US women’s game.

“Julie has a very good analytical mind,” observes Flores. “She was perfect for developing and summarizing our defensive strategies on the 15s team.” But in 2005, when Women’s National coach Emil Signes decided to “transition” out of coaching, McCoy applied for the position and soon found herself in charge of the 7s Eagles.

“I wanted to create a coaching environment where I’m not the authority; the players are,” says McCoy, echoing Flores’ sentiment about the coach being uninvolved once the game begins. McCoy wanted her new team to aspire to be like that first World Cup squad; students of the game who would “train their butts off.”

Those early Eagles were self-taught and self-coached; the type of self-reliant “doers” McCoy liked to be around. “I wasn’t there in ‘91; I only heard stories,” she says. “I wanted to figure out how to develop that atmosphere again.” McCoy decided the secret to 7s victory wasn’t to be found in special drills or secret plays, but in developing a group of women who loved rugby and played for one another.

Based on the performance of her team over the past four seasons, McCoy’s formula is working. In November 2005, the 7s Eagles captured the North America West Indies Rugby Association Tournament with a 5-0 record. They placed second at the 2007 USA 7s Tournament in San Diego, but took the title this February with a 5-0 record (and beat South Africa, 17-12, in an exhibition match in PETCO Park).

After finishing third at the Hong Kong 7s in 2006 and ’07, McCoy’s team won Hong Kong this March with a 6-0 record and followed that with a 7-1 record and third place finish at the Amsterdam 7s, with all their wins being shutouts. While her motivational technique before Amsterdam—ending all her emails to the players with the note, “We just won Amsterdam 7s,”—didn’t lead to a tournament title, McCoy is always trying to instill a sense of what it feels like to be champions.

“The feedback Jules gives to the players is awesome,” says wing Jen Starkey, one of the team’s most prolific try scorers. “She’ll call us individually and talk for an hour, just going over what we did in a game and what we need to work on. At that high level you don’t always get that kind of attention.

“Jules has completely changed me as a player,” Starkey continues. “I used to be someone who just kind of showed up and played and got by with my natural ability. After one of her footwork camps, I really improved; got stronger, faster and smarter.”

“Julie is doing a great job with the 7s team,” says Flores. “She has made 7s a very high profile aspect of rugby.”

Flores coaches the team with the bigger profile and her first big test as coach of the National 15s Team came at the 2006 World Cup in Edmonton. While the team finished 5th with a 4-1 record, they were in a tough pool with Australia and Ireland and had to face eventual Cup runner-up England in their first round match. Considering they rebounded from an 18-0 shutout to win their next four games, it was a vast improvement over the team’s 2002 performance.

Since then, Flores has been working to build a fundamentally strong team that will perform even better in the upcoming Nations Cup this August (see “Quick Taps,” page 20) and in the 2010 World Cup. She resigned from coaching the All Blues after the fall 2007 season so she could focus exclusively on the National Team and runs her camps like an intense chess master. Her drills are game-like situations that teach the Eagles to read and anticipate patterns of play rather than specific plays.

Her players absorb Flores’ intensity. Co-captain Kristin Zdanczewicz feels that the Eagles play not just for each other, but also for their coach. “I play hard because I don’t want to let her down,” Zdanczewicz says. “It’s like when your parents have expectations of you. If we don’t win, I feel like I let her down.”

Kathy Flores and Julie McCoy haven’t indicated how long they will continue coaching, but even if they decide not to coach beyond this year, they will have left an indelible mark on the sport. During the last two decades, many of the country’s best women players have learned the game from these two women warriors of rugby coaching and some will likely become coaches themselves.

Is there any doubt that rugby strategy according to Flores and McCoy will be taught and executed on rugby pitches for decades to come?

We will be playing a fall season this year. All matches will be friendlies and not count toward standings. The Fall season is designed to be a learning period for new players and provide extra fitness training for all players.

New players are welcomed. This is the perfect time to see if rugby is the sport you've been looking for!

Returning players are encouraged to bring new players out with them.

Practice days and times will be announced shortly(Likely Tues & Thurs.)

Matches will be scheduled once we have a firm idea on player numbers. All matches will be on Saturdays.

The article below is from www.heavensgame.com

Arkansas, home to the biggest rugby complex in the world. Surely.


Pat Beaird from the Arkansas Youth Rugby Association and Wilma Keller from Little Rock Rugby have taken the time to talk to us here at heavensgame.com.

Firstly, I have to say that Wilma's statement that "Little Rock has both a men's and a women's team. We are separate clubs but we own our rugby complex (34 acres) together" absolutely floored me, this surely has to be the biggest rugby complex in the world. Not anywhere have I seen a figure like that.

Not surprisingly competition is tough in this region as Wilma points out "New Orleans proved to be the strongest team in the Mid South and has advanced to the Sweet 16's." On a more local scale Beaird identifies "Little Rock Tigers, lately but Benton County Blues have been the strongest in the past" as the standout sides.

From a ladies perspective Wilma considers "The Kansas City Jazz are currently the strongest women's club within the West".

Like most clubs in the rugby world both recognise the benefit of working in the community and both support "We work with Big Brothers/Big Sisters and a local Boys& Girls Club". Initiatives such as this can only put our game into a good light.

With regards to the growth of rugby in Arkansas, Beaird noted "Slowly. There are two new collegiate sides this year at Un. of AR and Harding Un. Existing teams are also at John Brown University and at Arkansas State (finished #10 in D1 this year) We are also starting efforts to get Touch Rugby going in grade schools."

Keller was also keen to point out the work that Beaird is putting into rugby in the state "We currently have a U-19 program and are starting a touch league within the Big Brothers and Big Sisters organization. LR player Pat Beaird has worked hard to get all this started and has help and support from Little Rock Rugby ."

Rugby in Arkansas might be growing slowly, but it is on the move and in the right direction and will only benefit from the support of people like Pat and Wilma.