Arkansas Youth Rugby Association

What Rugby Taught BofA’s Moynihan
By Michael Corkery

Crafty. Versatile. Tactical.

Those are words describing Bank of America’s newly appointed chief
executive Brian Moynihan. They are not referring to Moynihan’s banking
acumen, but to his skills on the rugby field.

Moynihan is a dedicated rugger, who played the game at Brown University
in the late 1970s and early 80s and remains an active donor and booster
of the school’s club team.

“He’s a very crafty player,’’ says Jay Fluck, who has coached and
advised Brown rugby for close to 30 years and was advising the team back
when Moynihan played. “Rugby is very instinctual. Brian could see
opportunities and openings.”

Just short of 6 feet, and weighing about 175 pounds (his college weight,
Fluck estimates) Moynihan played on the back line – which typically
includes the smaller, scrappier offensive players, who line up and pass
the ball laterally while advancing down the field.

For rugby readers out there who really want to know: Moynihan played fly
half and inside center.

The positon of fly half, in particular, requires quick hands and feet.
The fly half essentially functions as the leader of the back line,
reading the defense and directing the rest of the backs. “Brian was
definitely one of the leaders back then,” says Fluck.

Fluck says Moynihan was also “deceptively fast” – which allowed him to
break free of defenders.

After graduating from Brown in 1981, Moynihan kept playing for the
Providence’s men’s rugby club, which is made up of white collar suits
and blue collar workers from around Rhode Island.

It’s hard not see rugby – the ultimate contact sport played without pads
– as a metaphor for Moynihan’s rise through the BofA ranks. He’s the New
Englander who outmaneuvered the other top candidate for the CEO spot —
the bank’s Charlotte-based chief risk officer Gregory Curl. Moynihan
stuck by BofA CEO Ken Lewis during the drama over the Merrill Lynch
deal, took his lumps before Congress last month and still came back for
more.

Brown rugby is serious, but not quite as intense as the school’s varsity
teams. The club attracts a lot of high school soccer and football
players who want to remain involved in sports. For some, the big appeal
is the drinking. Post- game drink ups – where the team gathers to chug
beer – is an integral tradition.

Club rugby doesn’t get the financial support enjoyed by the University’s
varsity teams. Moynihan was one of the lead donors to a new field
created for Brown’s team five years ago . The field — which is simply
called The Brown Rugby Field — ended decades of nomadic living for the
club, which would search for an open patch of grass or mud.

“He’s a really regular guy,’’ says Fluck. “I’ve never seen him get
caught up in the trappings of where he has gotten with his life.”

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/126/story/441526.html


Local high school rugby squads finding new talent in hallways and other
sports
By DAVID WEINBERG Staff Writer, 609-272-7186
Published: Saturday, March 28, 2009

AVALON - Angel Sotomayor never stopped smiling Thursday, even as mud
splashed against his legs and a driving rain soaked his shirt.

He initially took up rugby a few weeks ago in hopes of getting in shape
for football. But it wasn't long before the Lower Cape May Regional High
School sophomore discovered there was a certain beauty amid the dirt and
blood.

"People think it's just football without pads, but there's a lot more to
it than that," said Sotomayor, a member of the Jersey Cape Storm club
team. "I enjoy being part of a team and this is the perfect team sport.
There's a chemistry there that is hard to find in other sports."

Jersey Cape Storm is proof of that camaraderie. Unlike St. Augustine
Prep, which fields the area's only other under-19 team, the Storm draws
its players from several high schools in Cape May County. Several of
those players are among Sotomayor's classmates at Lower Cape May. The
25-member team also includes students from Cape May Tech and Ocean City.

They also come from a variety of athletic backgrounds. Just as Sotomayor
was about to be tackled by Ocean City wrestler Kevin Loveless during a
recent practice, he shoveled the ball to Lower Cape surfer Adam
Prettyman. One of the team's standouts is Mike Fancher, who plays
outside linebacker for Ocean City's football team. Another is Lower's
David Lawson, who does not play another sport.

"It's a total mix of kids," Storm coach Mike Badger said. "The one thing
they have in common is they have grown to love the sport. Rugby is
something that they can play in college and beyond."

Recruiting in the hallways

Badger is an example. A Spanish teacher at Lower Cape May, he also plays
for the Jersey Shore Sharks rugby club, which is based in Galloway
Township. The Sharks earned third place last season in Division III at
the USA Rugby National Championships. St. Augustine's coaching staff
includes Sharks players Angelo DiBartolo and Matt Angelucci. Hermits
head coach John Armstrong played rugby for the University of Virginia.

Armstrong, an English teacher at St. Augustine, and his staff have done
an excellent job of recruiting in the halls between classes. The
Hermits' 38-player squad features members of the school's football,
soccer, wrestling and lacrosse teams.
"Our team is a real grab bag of student-athletes," Armstrong said.
"We've got a handful of guys who play other sports, but we've also got
some who got dropped from baseball and lacrosse. We also have some
pretty good athletes who just didn't fit in on another team and we even
have some that are playing a sport for the first time.

"Rugby is one of those sports where you don't have to be a star in
something else to succeed. Actually, I get the most satisfaction out of
seeing (unheralded) guys in the limelight."

Both programs are part of the Eastern Penn Rugby Union, which features
more than 40 teams of various ages and abilities in Delaware, southern
New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Jersey Cape Storm opened its season with a
39-5 victory over the Wilmington (Del.) Colts last Sunday. St. Augustine
beat Wilmington 29-0 two weeks ago and then earned a 24-12 win over
Delbarton Prep in a non-league match.

St. Augustine and Delbarton, which plays in the northern New Jersey/New
York region, are the only two high schools in the state with rugby
programs. Jersey Cape and the Cherry Hill-based South Jersey Rugby Club
draw players from several schools.
The Storm and the Hermits will get a good gauge of their progress
Sunday, when they face each other at St. Augustine.
"Jersey Cape Storm is going to be a tough test for us," Armstrong said.

Both teams feature players who decided to try rugby out of curiosity and
were instantly hooked. Jersey Cape Storm's Loveless just finished
wrestling for Ocean City and was looking for a spring sport to play when
he heard from Lower wrestlers Sal Sorace and Eric Danze that Badger was
starting a rugby program. Badger had 20 players for his first practice
and the team has grown by the week as word has spread.

Armstrong got his program started by showing a rugby video during school
one day last year. He got more players when they checked out a YouTube
video featuring the All Blacks, an international rugby union team from
New Zealand, performing a "Haka" dance prior to a match.

"I played lacrosse last year, but I thought I would like rugby better
and I was right," said St. Augustine Prep Alex Reid, a 6-foot, 240-pound
junior. "I don't know all the rules, yet, but I like it a lot. It's
physical, it's fast and you get to hit people. As soon as I started, I
knew it was the game for me."

E-mail David Weinberg:
DWeinberg@pressofac.com

The USA Women's Sevens Team will play the New Zealand Maori on Saturday February 21st at the Greater Little Rock Rugby Complex. The teams will face each other in three matches as part of a full day of rugby at the complex.

Admission is FREE

Schedule

12:00 Little Rock Tigers v Harding University Bison (Fifteens)
1:00 USA Eagles v New Zealand Maori
1:20 Little Rock Men v Memphis (fifteens)
2:00 USA Eagles v New Zealand Maori
2:20 2nd Half Little Rock Men v Memphis
3:00 USA Eagles v New Zealand Maori

There will be food and beverages available at the concessions stand. A VIP tent will be set up for sponsors and their guests. For more information on becoming a sponsor, call Pat at 501-247-8696. Sponsorships start at $100.

(01-21) 21:25 PST OAKLAND -- It's dark, it's cold, it's drizzling, and here comes the hail, pounding the group of high school boys and pinging like buckshot off the portable lights that cast weird shadows over their dinky practice field.

And here come the cops. Two Oakland PD cruisers pull up, and the officers inform the coaches they need to move their pickup trucks.

The boys continue their drill, one-on-one tackling, because they are Warthogs, and Warthogs don't wimp out. Giving up is an option they have chosen not to exercise.

Warthogs play rugby. They work hard, they trust one another, they listen to their coaches, and if they catch a break or two - who knows? - they might finally win a game this year.

The Warthogs represent Oakland Charter High School, although technically they are a club team and they have picked up a couple players from other schools. "Oakland Charter" has a snobbish ring, but the 90-student, second-year public school is as upper-crusty as the Fruitvale district of Oakland where most of the students live.

They are barrio kids. So why not soccer? Because that's a stereotype, and school executive director Jorge Lopez dislikes stereotypes. For his charges, he seeks the road less traveled.

"We push the s- out of them," says Lopez, who is neatly-groomed like a soldier, swears like a sailor and runs his school like a Marine. "There's not much fluff in the program. The (figurative) ass-whipping goes on all day."

At other Oakland high schools, students get an hour for lunch. At Charter, 20 minutes. Other schools have gang-bangers; Charter has book-bangers.

Lopez believes in athletics but encourages the students to think outside the box and outside the barrio. For the girls, most of whom can't swim, he started a rowing team. For the boys, most of whom grew up with soccer, he chose rugby.

Rowing and rugby put a premium on grit and guts while offering little glory. Both sports allow the inner-city athletes an entree into a mostly-white world.

Besides, Mr. Lopez is a rugger. He played football at Richmond High but got kicked out of school for being a punk. Given a second chance, at Berkeley High, he discovered rugby.

"My first game," Lopez recalls, "I lost my mouthpiece talking (trash), then got my front tooth knocked out. I felt like I had gone to war with these guys. I was hooked. It felt like I had a band of brothers."

That's what Lopez wants for his boys at Charter. He enlisted his brother Eddie and Ryan Burke, veteran ruggers, to coach. There were challenges. Rugby is running, and at the first practice, Eddie ran 10 of the 20 kids right off the team. You need 15 players, so at most games last season Charter had to borrow a few players from the opposing team.

Most of the Warthogs work part time to help support their families, so they struggle to find practice time. Practice fields? That's a laugh. The team found an unused field that was fenced and locked, so they jumped the fence. But neighbors called the cops to complain of the noise made by the generator for the portable lights.

Now the Warthogs practice at a public park, which is lit as dimly as your favorite tavern, and is about as large. The field is cramped even when the Warthogs aren't sharing it with a soccer team.

Despite the hurdles, a little magic has happened. The core group of 10 or so Warthogs - they chose their own name - stuck with it and fell in love with the game, and with being a team, even a team that gets its clock cleaned.

Their first game last year was against Oakland Military Academy. Charter's players were all freshmen and sophomores, so their opponents were twice as old and twice as big, or so it seemed.

"They drove off in their own cars," Ruben Cornejo says.

"I intercepted a pass and got smashed," Alan Ordorica says. "My mom ran onto the field and coach Lopez leaned down and told me, 'Act like you're OK.' "

The size disparity doesn't phase the Warthogs.

"Eric (Pena, who is 5-foot-5) can take down a 250-pound guy," says Roman Navarro, bragging up his teammate.

Eddie Lopez moved away, so Burke recruited two other coaches, rugby vets Soni Tupouata, a truck driver, and Mike Spencer, a private investigator. The three coach for free.

"The kids' commitment is what keeps us going," Burke says. "We just want to give back the gift we got out of rugby. And you'd think (from looking at them) that these are normal kids, but they've got (family) issues beyond what you can fathom. We want to be committed to them when no one else around them is committed to anything."

The season starts next month and the Warthogs are moving up from the developmental division of the Northern California Rugby Football Union to the tougher Silver Division. Tupouata says he hears grumbling from other team's coaches.

"They say our kids aren't ready," says Tupouata, a refrigerator of a man who learned rugby in his native Tonga. "I told (the other coaches), 'These kids are ready.' I believe in them. I'm trying to get them to believe in themselves. This season, we're going to play rugby."

They'll often play it shorthanded, and without a ton of fan support. Some teams have cheerleaders and cheering fans. The Warthogs have ... the Warthogs.

"We've been here since Day 1, and we're sticking to it," Cornejo says. "We go to practice and we expect the other guys to be there. We have no choice but to trust each other."

E-mail Scott Ostler at sostler@sfchronicle.com.

Rugby in the 'Hood

Provided by: www.independent.co.uk

Jesse Owens Park is a world away from the playing fields of Rugby School where William Webb-Ellis first picked up the ball and ran with it, in a famous act of teenage rebellion which spawned the sport that now bears his alma mater's name.

Situated in Crenshaw, one of the grittiest neighborhoods in Los Angeles, the muddy expanse of grass sits a stone's throw away from Slauson Avenue, a busy road that marks an informal dividing line between the territories of the Crips and the Bloods, the city's two most notorious gangs.

On a normal day, as one of the few bits of greenery in a concrete jungle, the park provides a haven to the local homeless community, who put up with the 24-hour din from police sirens and overhead flights into nearby LAX airport.

This week, however, it bore witness to a more orderly scene that would perhaps be better suited to the English Home Counties: 100 teenage boys and girls passing oval-shaped balls backwards and forwards, during the grueling first training session of their new rugby season.

The players, all aged between 14 and 17, are part of an extraordinary sporting and social experiment. They are among thousands of youngsters, from some of America's most gang-ridden areas, who are being taught to play rugby – in an attempt to turn them away from a life of crime.

Few Americans have heard of the game, but it was introduced to the View Park Charter School, which most of the children attend, by players from Santa Monica Rugby Club, on LA's prosperous Westside, a few years ago.

Today, dozens of schools compete in the Inner City Rugby League, one of several competitions that have sprung up across America to cater for teams made up of children from the country's toughest urban areas.

"At first, a lot of them found the sport confusing, but pretty soon they grew to love it," says Dave Hughes, View Park's English-born PE teacher and rugby coach. "They have tons of ability. Some are just incredible athletes, kids who can run 40 yards in 4.7 seconds, and hurdle as high as their own shoulder."

Learning rugby, which teaches values like hard work and team-building, can help improve the students' self esteem, says Mr. Hughes, and prevent them ending up on the wrong side of the tracks. At View Park, its benefits are also being keenly felt in the classroom. "We've got kids here who were totally uncontrollable," he says. "They used to make me want to quit my job every day. Now, you should see what rugby has done for them. It's incredible, like something has just clicked. Suddenly they want to help out, be part of a team, and have a future.

"Some are even getting into universities like Berkeley and UCLA on the back of their potential, because although it's only a minor sport, the coaches of the teams there are able to make sure they get offered a place."

View Park hasn't been alone in advocating the positive values of rugby. At Hyde School, in one of the most disadvantaged suburbs of Washington, coaches of the rugby team made headlines this year when, in defiance of expectations, every one of the 15 players in their team secured a place at university.

In LA's Hawaiian Gardens, an undefeated youth side which won the regional championships is credited with breaking down inter-racial tension, which led to an unprecedented drop in violence between black and Latino high-school students, together with a decline in graffiti in the local area.

Now inner-city rugby is starting to be taken seriously at the very highest levels of the sport. Next month, View Park's team will travel to Twickenham for England's game against Italy, as guests of the RFU.

The trip will form part of a week-long tour for the players – most of whom have never left California, let alone traveled overseas. They will stay at Wellington College, the Berkshire public school, play alongside the first XV and be coached by James Haskell, the England player and Old Wellingtonian.

Watching the children prepare for their trip provides frequent reminders of sport's potential to break down barriers. In normal circumstances, gang allegiance is demonstrated by the color of clothing they and their contemporaries wear: red for the Bloods, blue for Crips.

But on the field many of View Park's players wear outfits that symbolize their rejection of old divides. Some have one red sock, and one blue. Others wear blue shorts with red socks, or vice versa.

Speaking to them also reminds you how far they have come. "I hope to benefit from the trip by learning better rugby skills, but my community and family will also benefit from it by knowing that something good has come off these streets," says View Park's soft-spoken 15-year-old scrum half, Darius Dawkins. "When I get older, it will hopefully help me become a big-time rugby player and go to a big-time rugby school."

The growth of inner-city rugby comes as American Football, which evolved from it and is now the USA's most watched sport, struggles to distance itself from associations with gang culture.

Players in the NFL, the professional league, were recently banned from celebrating touchdowns and other on-field successes by making gangland gestures.

Rugby also makes solid commercial sense for schools in deprived neighborhoods, which can struggle to raise sufficient funding to provide the equipment and team of coaches necessary to run an American football program. View Park's entire league gets by on a small sponsorship deal with Evolution Capital, a finance firm in Santa Monica.

USA Rugby, the sport's governing body, says the number of schools offering the sport, particularly in disadvantaged urban areas, is increasing exponentially "Traditionally, only a tiny number of high schools have played rugby, a lot of them Irish Catholic schools on the East Coast. But that has roughly doubled in the last five years, and now we know of roughly 750 schools," says Mark Griffin, the organization’s youth director. "Plenty of that increase has been happening in the cities."

The USA's national rugby team, which achieved prominence at the last World Cup when it scored what was later voted the try of the tournament against South Africa, is hoping to eventually benefit from the influx of young talent from the inner cities.

Yet the most immediate benefits are on the streets. "Rugby is a full contact extreme sport, and like all extreme sports, it's a release," says Stuart Krohns, the founder of the Inner City Rugby League. "All teenagers have angst, and rugby gives them a sense of emotional balance.

"It's helping these children look at life differently because they are playing a sport that originated overseas, and to start seeing themselves as part of a global community. And in this day and age that has to be a very valuable thing."

‘A hooligan game’ Flag rugby introduced to Willis Elementary School
By JAMES A. JONES JR. - jajones1@bradenton.com

LAKEWOOD RANCH — Rugby, famously called a “hooligan game played by gentlemen,” is being introduced to local elementary school children, as a way to encourage physical exercise and fight obesity.

But unlike the game played by big bruisers who engage in a kind of tackle football, without the pads, flag rugby at local schools would be a non-contact sport.

On Tuesday, boys and girls in the physical education classes of coaches Jason Morales and Mary Quinn, at Willis Elementary School, got their first taste of the sport.

Noticeably absent was any hooliganism, but there was plenty of running, passing — sideways and backwards, but never forwards — and fun.

“It’s the most active game we’ve played,” said fifth grader Julian Rivera, 10.His classmate, Brian Steele, also 10, agreed. “It was fun,” he said.

But another classmate, who after running nonstop most of the period, said, “I feel like I’m going to puke.”

And that’s precisely the point.

Thomas Van Trees, of the Florida Rugby Union, who introduced the students to the new sport, said children are having so much fun that they don’t realize how much running they’ve done.

Quinn, who doubles as cross country coach at Lakewood Ranch High School, was impressed by flag rugby.

“Anything that promotes running and nonstop activity, I’m all for it,” she said.

Van Trees introduced students to rugby gradually.
He had them pair up and run down a field, throwing an elliptical ball back and forth, using an underhand motion. The rugby ball resembles a football, only it’s larger and without the laces.

Later he introduced them to rugby scoring.
“You touch the ball down to ground and say ‘try,’” Van Trees said.

“It you don’t say ‘try,’ it’s not a score.’”

Andy deVilliers, whose son and daughter attend Willis, and who learned the sport in Rhodesia, now called Zimbabwe, helped bring the rugby introduction to the local school.
“Look at them, you can’t wipe the smiles off their faces,” deVilliers said of the children, hard at play with rugby.
Jason Morales said he plans to incorporate rugby into the Willis physical education program.

“I’ve heard so many kids say, ‘I love this game.’ Everyone is participating,” Morales said.

Van Trees estimates he has introduced flag rugby to about 6,000 children in Hillsborough, Osceola and Polk counties, but Tuesday’s visit was his first to a Manatee County school.

For more information, contact Van Trees at (813) 767-4572 or floridaflagrugby@mindspring.com.

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.

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.

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.