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2006 Ohio State Rugby

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RugbyBuck said:
CBus and tOSU are perfect for this. Congratulations!
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Absolutely...top notch facilities, plenty of room to host the players, easy city to get in an out of from all over the country, budding rugby community, etc. After our practice last night, we took Dan over to the HOF Cafe and he talked with us about the ideas he has for making rugby a more prominent sport in this country as well as what we can do here at tOSU to facilitate our desire to take things to the next level. He is meeting with officials from the university today to discuss the logistics of the NA4.
 
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Apparently the word is out...all except the part about the Crew Stadium. No idea where they are getting that info from because it's simply not true. It is still not a done deal because I can guarantee that we will have nothing to do with this tournament if Arnot is still involved. Look for either him or Billups to be gone soon (and if USA Rugby is smart, they will dump Arnot as of yesterday)...

US leg of NA4 in Ohio

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The Columbus Crew of the MLS play their home games at 22,000 seat Crew Stadium.


By CRN Editor Doug Crosse

The North American Four competition between eastern and western squads in the US and Canada will have the American leg played in Ohio this July, and not San Francisco as originally planned.

The four team event, which is part of the increased funding and development of the sport for the US and Canada via the International Rugby Board, has two segments. The first takes place from May 20th to 27th in British Columbia, with the second taking place at Ohio State University in Columbus.

According to Rugby Canada CEO Graham Brown, who confirmed the venue in a communication piece entitled ‘In the Loop’, USA Rugby made the change after initially suggesting the round robin event would be contested in the Bay area of California.

“USA Rugby are working hard to pull together their leg of the 2006 NA4 schedule and in speaking with and dealing on a day to day basis with their staff, plans are coming together for the second leg of the NA4,” confirmed Brown.

The first leg will see matches at three BC venues, starting with Rotary Stadium in Abbotsford, on May 20th, then a Wednesday meeting of the teams at the University of British Columbia’s Thunderbird Stadium, while the third day of games takes place in Victoria on May 27th at Centennial Stadium.

The move to Ohio will be a plus for Ontario based Canadian fans – with the drive from Toronto to Columbus pegged around eight hours. While the venue for the Ohio event has not been revealed, a likely candidate would be the home of the Columbus Crew soccer team, part of Major League Soccer. It is a 22,000 seat natural grass facility capable of hosting rugby and would be a reasonable facility for the size of crowds anticipated for this event.

The US leg takes place from July 22nd to 29th. Currently the LA Galaxy are scheduled to play a 4:00 pm match against Columbus on July 22nd, but all other dates are free. There are a number of other facilities for football in Columbus, but most may be too large and costly for the inaugural event.
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wadc45 said:
Apparently the word is out...all except the part about the Crew Stadium. No idea where they are getting that info from because it's simply not true. It is still not a done deal because I can guarantee that we will have nothing to do with this tournament if Arnot is still involved. Look for either him or Billups to be gone soon (and if USA Rugby is smart, they will dump Arnot as of yesterday)...
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wait, so what your saying is this isnt finalized yet? Any idea on how long it could be, and after all of this gets organized.. ticket sales? Im assuming they wont sell out 22,000 seats for a rugby game in ohio so i guess im really not worried about getting ahold of tickets just yet
 
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barlow1802 said:
wait, so what your saying is this isnt finalized yet? Any idea on how long it could be, and after all of this gets organized.. ticket sales? Im assuming they wont sell out 22,000 seats for a rugby game in ohio so i guess im really not worried about getting ahold of tickets just yet
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There is a huge struggle going on within USA Rugby right now...mainly between the Arnot faction (basically Arnot by himself) and the Billups faction (bascially everyone not named Arnot). Arnot is supposedly resigning effective in July, but is still trying to take control of the NA4 and wants to have it played in San Francisco. Every other person affiliated with USA Rugby, including those that will be in control after Arnot is gone, wants to see the American leg played in Columbus. All I can say right now is that Lyle had a very positive meeting with the university officials yesterday and toured the sports med and Jesse Owens facilities. I would expect for things to be finalized and Columbus to be officially awarded the venue sometime next week. As is typical with USA Rugby, we are already falling behind as far as planning for this event is concerned. This article by Goof better explains it:

Time Ticking on NA4, HP

By Alex Goff​

April 6, 2006 – While Rugby Canada has a High Performance director in place, has already held a High Performance assembly, and has set up its HP Center in Victoria, BC, the USA has not been able to do any of that.​

Because the IRB and USA Rugby have both dragged their feet in appointing an HP director, in part because the IRB wanted Alan Solomons to spend two weeks in the USA assessing the rugby situation here, those on-staff at USA Rugby have picked up the slack.​

Dave Hodges, in conjunction with USA head coach Tom Billups, has contacted at least 60 players with information on assembly dates and preparation for the North American 4 series with two Canadian teams.
However these invitations were made before coaches could be brought on board. USA Rugby put out the call for coaching positions for the two teams, and have received several applications. However these jobs are not going to be easy. Since announcing the High Performance grants in 2005, the IRB has been enormously slow in helping to actually implement the programs.​

Meanwhile internally some at USA Rugby are getting agitated as they see time slipping away before the first games are played in May.​

Competition assemblies will be May 15-28 in Canada and July 17– 30 in the USA. The Canadian leg has already been set, with games in Victoria, Vancouver, and Abbotsford, BC. The USA locales have not been announced.​

There is no set roster, no coaching staff, no preparation plan for these games, and as it looks right now any team put on the field in BC in May will be exactly what everyone has been trying to avoid: a quickly put-together touring side with no cohesion and a coach that barely knows their names.​

How USA Rugby's leadership reacts to this situation may well indicate how serious they are about the program. But what has always been clear is that the IRB High Performance money is slated for exactly that, High Performance, and the IRB will want to see results.​


But with the slow allocation of IRB HP money, the slow movement to hire coaches and trainers, and the habit of allowing USA Rugby staff to take on the responsibility of getting something done but none of the power to make it happen, the results the IRB will see won't be pretty.
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The fact of the matter is that total control of this event has not been turned over to Billups and Hodges yet (like it should be) and thus things are getting held up even more. It's like Arnot is not happy enough with how poorly he has run things while heading up USA Rugby...he wants to F this last event up as best he can as well.

I've probably said more than I should have, but we are all very frustrated by this situation. This is an excellent opportunity for the OSURFC to do something huge in conjunction with support from inside the OSU athletics department...and we don't want to see it get mucked up.
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It'll go off, no worries. It won't sell anywhere near 20K seats, if it did that would be a North American, certainly USA, record, but it should draw fine and help put tOSU and Columbus on the IRB and intl. map. I'd love to see a World Sevens stop in Columbus. That would be a great annual event for the city and CBus is perfect for it.

GoBucks!
 
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Here's a quick preview of the Cherry Blossom Tournament this weekend...

High schools help Cherry Blossom reach milestone

One of America’s leading 15-a-side tournaments has reached its fortieth anniversary partly by shifting its attention toward high schools.

The Cherry Blossom Tournament, always staged during April's National Cherry Blossom Festival, has adjusted to the priority of Super League and Division 1 scheduling by dropping senior clubs from the competition. Washington RFC, the tournament organizer and itself a Super League member, made the change three years ago.

“The spring season for clubs is now just too important … [and] the interest from college men’s and high schools is just too strong to ignore. The tournament is a true invitational, and demand always exceeds space given the space constraints on the [National] Mall,” Cherry Blossom chairman Steve Studley said in an email.

Rugby jamborees were once an important part of the American environment because they provided numerous games in one place (as well as due to their social nature). But well-matched competition is now more accessible, and with national championships encouraging standardized league seasons, most 15s tournaments have been shunted to the side.

That’s not the case at the high school level, where powerful and fledgling teams continue to benefit from get-togethers. Indeed, events like Charlotte’s Carolina Rugby Festival and Tennessee’s Nash Bash are coming to join California’s Sacramento Valley tournament as early-season highlights.

“As an English transplant living here, I find it hugely encouraging and exciting … it’s easy back home to take ‘mini’ rugby for granted,” Studley said.

Of the 16-team field, locals Gonzaga and Pennsylvania’s Doylestown reached the national finals in 2005.

Notwithstanding the attention devoted to the schoolboys, the Cherry Blossom’s university division remains a considerable East coast array. Because the Northeast and Midwest territories determine their national representatives in the fall, and the Mid-Atlantic and South wrapped up last weekend, the way is open for teams to visit the capital.

Midwest champion Ohio State and Mid-Atlantic runnerup Navy are headed to the national round of 16 later this month. Also among the 18 contenders are Northeast semifinalists Buffalo and Cornell - which is skipping this weekend's Ivy League tournament - and Mid-Atlantic semifinalist Virginia.

Also in the course of the tournament, Washington (0-3) tackles crosstown rival PAC (2-1) in a Super League fixture.
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Opened the Cherry Blossom Tournament with an 8AM kickoff against Radford. Started off incredibly slow, but picked up steam in the 2nd half (20 minute halves) and cruised to a 25-0 victory. As the team was taking the field for the 2nd game against UConn, the park services shut down the tournament for the day because of the weather. Waiting to hear how things will be reshuffled tomorrow...much hinges on Washington's Super League game tomorrow.
 
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For those that are interested in the college playoffs, here is an article which explains it all...

http://www.usarugby.org/cgi-bin/02/press/displayFullAnnouncement.pl?announcementId=310

In short, we will be leaving for West Point on Thursday of next week for our regional bracket of the Sweet 16, where we enter as the 6-seed and ranked as the #5 team in the country. Our first game will be against #13 Dartmouth on Saturday at 4:00 PM. Should we win that game, we will face the winner of #4 Penn State and #9 UC-Davis on Sunday at 1:00 PM. You should be able to find updates on our games on the message board of our website, www.osurugby.com. If we win both games, we will head to Stanford in two weeks time for the national semifinals. For those of you that know someone on the team, make sure you wish them good luck as we make our push towards the Final 4 and the national championship.

Anyone looking for something to do tonight can come out and watch us scrimmage our parent club, Scioto Valley RFC, at 6:30 PM at our home fields on the corner of Lane and Kenny.
 
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Well, we took a pretty solid beating from Valley on Thursday night, but I think we learned a few things in the process. We did lose one of our best forwards during the game, but we are hopeful that with some rest and rehab he will be fine for next weekend. We have several guys on the mend this week, including our All-American 8-man who hurt his knee in Savannah, but we are confident that everyone will be ready to go. We had an excellent training session yesterday, which is something I'm sure most teams can't say. We have three practices left to get everything in order for next weekend. This weekend, most players took home some film either from earlier this Spring or from last year's nationals, so hopefully they are all doing some individual preperation.

In other news, Arnot has FINALLY stepped down from USA Rugby:

Boulder, CO – (April 14, 2006) – In a sudden development, new USA Rugby Chairman Bob Latham announced Friday that he has accepted the resignation of Chief Executive Officer Doug Arnot, effective July 14, which is concurrent with the completion of the national governing body’s eight-month strategic planning process and governance restructure.

Arnot, who was named USA Rugby’s first CEO on Nov. 14, 2002, offered his resignation to allow the newly structured Board of Directors a clear path in selecting their leadership team.

“Doug Arnot has worked tirelessly to advance USA Rugby during his three and-a-half years as CEO,” said Latham. “He brought a wealth of sports administration experience to the organization and certainly has upgraded our events and services considerably. As but one example, we would not have been able to stage the USA Sevens without his experience and energy. USA Rugby is a much better organization as a result of Doug’s involvement.”

Arnot will continue to have complete oversight and act on behalf of USA Rugby until July 14, when it is expected that the new Board will be seated following the next Board meeting in Chicago. Arnot came to USA Rugby from the Salt Lake City Winter Games where he was the director of operations. In his three-plus years, the national office has become an effective business operation, with an annual operating budget that has increased 400 percent from $1 million in 2002 to its current $4.5 million; the membership of USA Rugby has grown by nearly 10,000 members, from 55,300 year end 2002 to an all-time high 64,718 in ‘05; the United States has been awarded an International Sevens tournament in the USA Sevens, which saw attendance eclipse the 20,000 fan mark in 2006 in the annual calendar fixture and the International Rugby Board has recognized the United States as a nation likely to affect the sport on the world’s stage and awarded the national governing body with a 3-year $2.67 million grant to improve its high performance pathways.

Membership has transitioned to an online process and has vastly improved its level of service. Game Development programs have expanded substantially, reaching and teaching new coaches and referees across the country. Increased service to the membership has improved with growing the national office staff from five to its current 13.

Arnot has been integral in negotiations that will bring more international level rugby to the United States than ever before in 2006. In addition to February’s USA Sevens, the first US pool of the Churchill Cup will be hosted by the Union in June, followed by the North American Four Series, pitting Canada and the US in cross-border competition, in late July. USA Rugby will also host a Rugby World Cup qualifier against Barbados in August. His strong events background has grown the attention, facilities and resources of the USA Rugby Championships.

“USA Rugby has come a long way in three years. It is a much bigger, much stronger organization,” commented Arnot. “With the newly adopted strategic plan, overseen by the new governance structure, the future is very bright. We have brought new International events to the United States, established television contracts for those events as well as our USA Rugby Championships, a thriving Game Development program as well as the women’s NCAA Initiative. The list goes on. So too do the plans for new programs. There is a promising future for the sport.”
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I think this has been coming for a while now...and was sorely needed. While he did some good for rugby in this country, the obvious state of the national teams could not be ignored (2-14 in 2005/1-13-1 in 2006). Undoubtedly, the US's showing in the Hong Kong 7s (losses to Canada, England and Hong Kong) and the U19 World Championships (losses to Uruguay, Fiji and Chinese Taipei and a tie against Chinese Taipei) did not help his case. Hopefully this means that people like Dave Hodges, Pete Steinberg, Dan Lyle and Tom Billups will be given an opportunity to shape the course of rugby in the USA.
 
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