Elite Pathways in American Rugby PART I

Reading Tony Ridnell's incisive calls for a strategic plan has prompted me to think a bit about the vector of our existing elite level pathways. Some of these thoughts have been percolating for a while and it is high time I've expounded on them in a format beyond twitter.

Flipping the Pyramid
Growing the youth game has been the byword at USA Rugby for at nearly two decades now.  I first recall hearing former USA Rugby CEO Doug Arnot using the phrase "flip the pyramid" in a talk to youth development development officers in 2002. The figurative pyramid is rugby participation in the United States. In the early 2000s, the number of men and women in college or club rugby dwarfed the number of boys and girls playing the game. Likewise, there were less, albeit only slightly, adults playing collegiate rugby relative to club rugby. Americans joined rugby late in their young adulthood and only had a few years of competition prior to their peak athletics years.





Compare this to rugby playing nations like New Zealand and you'll notice a pyramid where the largest segment of rugby participators are young and under the age of twelve, while the smallest segment group is that of adults 23 and older. That doesn't mean New Zealand lacks a thriving club rugby scene; far from it! Because there are lots of people exposed to the game at an early age, despite drop-off as they children discover other sports, hobbies or pursuits, there are still many people playing the game. Injuries, career and family commitments naturally take their toll on participation as people mature. But because there is such a broad base in cities like Dunedin, close to the size of Lansing, Michigan, that they support thirteen senior clubs in its cities and suburbs. I'm sure many Midwesterners would love to play a whole club season without leaving their county, much less state!

Again, this fact has been recognized by Boulder since at least 2000. Since the mid-2000s, there has been significant growth in the game. In 2014, a survey name rugby union one of the fastest growing sports in the US (easy to do when your numbers are so low however...). The college game, the beating heart of the game for generations, has expanded and improved as well. This isn't limited to more colleges playing rugby, which there are, but also the fact that more colleges programs are prioritizing the athletic aspect of rugby union over the social side.

But the most dynamic growth has been high school programs. We've seen growth in traditional areas of rugby unionism like Northern and Southern California as well as Utah; but also in Indiana and North Carolina. A national championship for high schools and clubs was first put on in the early 1980s by USA Rugby. By the late 2000s, USA Rugby split the tournament into separate single-school and club brackets. Several years later, there were so many teams that they created such a logistical problem to seed, that the governing body stopping holding a sanctioned championship. I personally think this is a good sign for a growing high school field, but that's a post for another day.

We can now see that the participation pyramid in the US is changing. It hasn't exactly flipped. We still need many more young players. But you could say the high school section is starting to bulge. This trend should accelerate in the coming years. We will have more high school students picking up the rugby football. The challenge will be creating the pathways, structures and competitions that allows these rugby players thrive as athletes and eventually give back to the game.

PART II will focus on the existing pathways for talented young rugby players.