Youth Rugby Compulsory?

While in New Zealand a few years back, I was delighted to see a rugby pitch on each corner (it seemed that way anyhow). What tickled me even more than that, was watching small children play. Instead of baseball, football, or smear the queer, it was rugby.
Now, I have no delusions, baseball, football, basketball are a part of America, an integral part of our identity. I played all those sports as a kid. Those sports aren't going anywhere anytime soon. All I am suggesting is giving the kids another choice. If we really want to see rugby improve here in the USA, My thinking is we ought to consentrate on the youth, provide more opportunities to learn, and play rugby.
I grew up in a small farming community in the middle of Utah .A kid moved into town from South Africa. He suggested we play rugby, so we played rugby. It was our own version of course. The resident rugby expert was a bit vague on some of the rules and modes of play. We passed the ball backward but we had blockers. We had a sin bin, unoccupied, except for when someone wanted a safe place to rest. Our scrums involved everyone on the field. We would push, and push until someone got the guts to pick up the ball and run. Our line outs were more like soccer. It was fantastic fun. In fact I broke my nose and chipped a tooth for the first time playing “rugby”.
It is not my intention that we give a size 4 ball to some kids on a play ground, and say “Kill”. Rather, we should work on providing youth workshops, and a touch league. How invaluable would it be if our players came to the high school level already knowing basically how to pass, kick, create space, and knew when they were “off sides”. One of our assistant coaches is a elementary school teacher. He teaches his students to play touch, and they play most recesses. And from all accounts they have a great time. Rugby is fun; we should give our youth the opportunity to play. They will thank us for it.

-Jeremy

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier: A Hallmark of dedication

Now this has nothing to do with High school, or Rugby. But certainly, exemplifies Honor, Duty, Loyalty, Selfless Service, Respect, Personal Courage, and Integrity. These are values we all should anxiously espouse, and try to instill in our young men. I did not write this, it was an e-mail I received, I just wanted to share it. I have been to the Tomb and watched the Changing of the Guard. The amount of precision and attention to detail....It was one of the moments, I was most proud to be an American. God Bless all my brothers in the service.

-Jeremy


On Jeopardy the other night, the final question was How many steps does the guard take during his walk across the tomb of the Unknowns --- All three missed it --- This is really an awesome sight to watch if you've never had the chance . Very fascinating.

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

1. How many steps does the guard take during his walk across the tomb of the Unknowns and why?

21 steps. It alludes to the twenty-one gun salute, which is the highest honor given any military or foreign dignitary.

2. How long does he hesitate after his about face to begin his return walk and why?

21 seconds for the same reason as answer number 1

3. Why are his gloves wet?

His gloves are moistened to prevent his losing his grip on the rifle.

4. Does he carry his rifle on the same shoulder all the time and if not, why not?

He carries the rifle on the shoulder away from the tomb. After his march across the path, he executes an about face and moves the rifle to the outside shoulder.

5. How often are the guards changed?

Guards are changed every thirty minutes, twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year.

6. What are the physical traits of the guard limited to?

For a person to apply for guard duty at the tomb, he must be between 5' 10" and 6' 2" tall and his waist size cannot exceed 30." Other requirements of the Guard: They must commit 2 years of life to guard the tomb, live in a barracks under the tomb, and cannot drink any alcohol on or off duty for the rest of their lives. They cannot swear in public for the rest of their lives and cannot disgrace the uniform {fighting} or the tomb in any way. After two years, the guard is given a wreath pin that is worn on their lapel signifying they served as guard of the tomb. There are only 400 presently worn. The guard must obey these rules for the rest of their lives or give up the wreath pin. The shoes are specially made with very thick soles to keep the heat and cold from their feet. There are metal heel plates that extend to the top of the shoe in order to make the loud click as they come to a halt. There are no wrinkles, folds or lint on the uniform. Guards dress! for duty in front of a full-length mirror. The first six months of duty a guard cannot talk to anyone, nor watch TV. All off duty time is spent studying the 175 notable people laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery . A guard must memorize who they are and where they are interred. Among the notables are: President Taft, Joe E. Lewis {the boxer} and Medal of Honor winner Audie Murphy, {the most decorated soldier of WWII} of Hollywood fame. Every guard spends five hours a day getting his uniforms ready for guard duty.


ETERNAL REST GRANT THEM O LORD, AND LET PERPETUAL LIGHT SHINE UPON THEM.

In 2003 as Hurricane Isabelle was approaching Washington, DC , our US Senate/House took 2 days off with anticipation of the storm. On the ABC evening news, it was reported that because of the dangers from the hurricane, the military members assigned the duty of guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier were given permission to suspend the assignment. They respectfully declined the offer, "No way, Sir!" Soaked to the skin, marching in the pelting rain of a tropical storm, they said that guarding the Tomb was not just an assignment, it was the highest honor that can be afforded to a service person. The tomb has been patrolled continuously, 24/7, since 1930.

Recruiting: A new year, now what?

I can't tell you what a relief it was for last year's season to be over. Don't get me wrong some of the players I will miss tremendously, and will have a very difficult time replacing. Many have gone on missions, or off to school. And will be a benefit to the world around them.

Being as it was our first year we struggled a bit to get and keep enough players to field a team. Some got intimidated by the game, others parents forbade them to play. There were a few who did not pay the price to be on the team. They would not show up to practice, and then when they did it wasn't to practice. Come game day they expected to start, and have plenty of playing time, just as long as they felt like it though. We as coaches walked a tight rope not knowing if we would have enough players for each game or the caliber of players we needed to play. So to some extent I had to coddle these "players" and they knew it. I will not face that problem again, it is not fair to those who really pay the price. I expect it to be a bit easier this year hopefully word of mouth will help our cause. How do I go about finding the kind of players I need for this up coming season. There is no telling where they are. I had a kid last year he was so incredibly talented yet before rugby he had not played an organized sport. I had a tennis player that was so powerful, and lethal on on the field you would never know he had not played a contact sport before. The list could go on and on. I need to get finding kids now. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

-Jeremy

Hawaiian Gardens Rugby: a Great Story

In Hawaiian Gardens, youths go into scrums, out of gangs

Rugby has become a big sport in the small L.A. County city. What started as a youth diversion is now a quest for a championship.By Sam QuinonesLos Angeles Times Staff WriterMay 10, 2008When flag football season ended, Gonzalo Rios and his teammates found themselves with too much time on their hands. So Rios and others formed graffiti tagging crews.Administrators at Fedde Middle School in Hawaiian Gardens worried that the youths would end up in gangs and spoke to Ernie Vargas, the players' football coach.Vargas, 56, is the town's youth sports and gang intervention coordinator. Having played rugby in college, he suggested that the children form a team.None knew the sport -- a fast-paced forerunner to American football. Vargas showed them a film and took them to a tournament in San Diego. He taught them the basics and began scheduling games in the Southern California Youth Rugby Organization.They liked the relentless tackling and physical contact. It was football without pads.The Hawaiian Gardens Eagles youth rugby team was born."After that, everybody started changing," said Rios, now 16. "Everybody stopped banging. We liked the sport so much that we didn't have time for that no more."That was in 2006.Since then, Hawaiian Gardens -- one of the smallest and poorest towns in Los Angeles County -- has emerged as a Southern California youth rugby powerhouse.The city's program now has three teams and 45 players under 16, including a team of girls who protested when the city seemed willing to fund only boys teams. Many players have family members who are in gangs.Sharing cleats and jerseys, they beat rivals from larger cities and from wealthier areas where the sport is better known: San Clemente, Santa Monica, Long Beach and San Diego County.The three Hawaiian Gardens teams won their divisions this season; the girls squad went undefeated.This weekend, 10 Southern California teams will compete in the state youth rugby playoffs in San Luis Obispo. Three teams will be from Hawaiian Gardens.The players -- black, Latino and white -- have learned rugby's essential lesson: Support each other."They blend together well," Vargas said.The teams remain as unknown to town residents as the sport they play; their own parents don't understand it. Yet Hawaiian Gardens youth rugby squads offer a glimmer of what is possible to a town where gangs are entrenched and races haven't blended well.A blink on the 605 Freeway, Hawaiian Gardens, with a population of about 15,000, is less than a square mile in area -- a collection of modest stucco houses, dense apartment buildings and low-end retail. The working-class town may be best known for its casino, with its giant electronic freeway billboard, that provides a large chunk of its tax revenue. But more about Hawaiian Gardens is defined by its insular barrio and HG, a local street gang that has plagued the city for generations.The town "is really settled," said Jorge Escamilla, 16, a ninth-grader who started playing rugby on Vargas' first team. "My neighbors have been there for three generations; they don't get out of Hawaiian Gardens."When blacks began arriving in the mid-1990s, they were targeted by Latino gangs, police said. In 2003 and 2004, blacks were shot at and wounded in racist attacks. Also, Artesia High School erupted in violence as gang members attempted to drive out black families."The air was hateful," said a black woman whose daughter plays rugby and who did not want to be identified for fear of reprisal.Tensions remain, particularly at Artesia High School and Fedde, which most of the rugby players attend. This week, rumors circulated at Fedde that blacks were going to be attacked, parents said.In this charged atmosphere, Vargas' relatively new multiracial rugby teams are like a blast of fresh air. Some of the children have traveled across Southern California, played teams from Japan and New Zealand and scrimmaged on the floor of Staples Center.Rugby "gives you that sense of feeling that you're still alive," said Marco Gomez, one of last year's players.But, many parents were put off by the rough-and-tumble nature of the sport. This was especially true for the girls squad, which scrimmages with the boys in practice. Rugby didn't fit some parents' ideas of a girl's sport."I was frightened," said Luz Barriga, whose daughter, Jackie, 14, plays on the squad. "I didn't know what it was. It was just males."But as the season progressed, Barriga watched Jackie, who had never played a sport, grow attached to rugby. When Jackie hurt a shoulder, she begged for two months to be allowed back on the field. A doctor finally approved it last week.Jackie now plays softball, too, and her mother has an appreciation of rugby that failed her at first."It gives her a positive thing to do after school," Luz Barriga said. "Kids get in trouble after school if they don't have anything to do."Despite their success this year, Eagles' practices can be lackadaisical and chaotic. Vargas spends his time telling players to stop talking on cellphones and remove iPod earphones. He hounds them to run laps."In their own personal lives, everything isn't perfect. Discipline in life comes later on, as they mature," Vargas said. "What I'm trying to do is keep them from getting in a gang."Other teams, he knows, are far more disciplined and have more experienced coaches. So why do the Eagles win?"Every single one of us grew up like underdogs," Escamilla said. The first year "I got hit pretty bad. I'd get back up. Everybody here is like that: You get hit and you get back up."A test of that came in August. An informal 19-and-under Hawaiian Gardens boys team played a tournament at Staples Center, which they eventually won. However, a men's tournament also was underway.When a men's squad didn't show, organizers asked Vargas if his team wanted to face a men's team of New Zealanders, Samoans and Americans. The boys agreed.So a bunch of scruffy Hawaiian Gardens 19-and-unders -- the youngest of whom was 14 -- stepped onto the arena's artificial turf to face men who were almost twice their age and could bench-press triple their weight.The men would plow over them, but they'd get up and go at it again."We felt like we were doing something big," said Mack Levao, 18, one of Vargas' original players.In one play, Rios dived over one man to hit another. In another play, the smallest player on the Hawaiian Gardens team scurried between the legs of a rival behemoth. Of course the Eagles lost. But they scored first, and lost by only two scores. The team returned home that night scraped and bruised."But I was very happy I was there," said Marco Gomez, then 17.Looking past this weekend's playoffs, with the town's budget limited, Vargas is searching for sponsors for the team, and to help pay for a trip to England next year.Meanwhile, rugby seems to have settled in Hawaiian Gardens, which Gomez doesn't find that far-fetched. With its gang culture, "Hawaiian Gardens is like a big, giant, rugby field," he said."The difference between life and rugby is there's good sportsmanship after the game. In real life, we don't have that." sam.quinones@latimes.com

Run

As with anything in Life or Rugby, what you get out of it in the end is determined by what you put into it. There are no shortcuts, no cliff notes, and no abbreviations to success. What is required is heart, a willing mind, determination to endure, and exceed. Fitness is a major key. Something that we can do on our own to foster intensity. So strap on your running shoes and get on the road. You might find something on your way.

-Jeremy

Highland: A model for US Rugby

There are those who will disagree... there are some very strong opinions out there on this subject. I feel though, that Highland has the right way of it. I am referring to the use of foreign players. Now it is not as some assume and vehemently attest, Larry does not go and recruit heavily in New Zealand and Tonga. After thirty plus years with a successful program you can well imagine they knock on his door. We in the US have a distinct disadvantage in the realm of rugby. Most of our top players have not been exposed to rugby until college, of at the very most high school. Having started a new high school team last year I ran into many obstacles that rugby is facing here in the "States". The biggest obstacle was, and is lack of experience. It is not something you can teach as a coach, there is a learning curve that is found only on the field. My goal as a coach was to teach fundamental simple rugby so that none of my players would get hurt. As a result, strategy was rarely, if ever addressed let alone demonstrated. Other aspects such as pace, creating space, defense, attack, and timing are difficult to pass on to beginning players who have only recently seen a rugby ball in person. Don't miss understand some of last years players learned more than I realistically expected of first year players. One of the great hurdles is passing on the passion for the game. Once that is successfully done the players push themselves to become better rugby players. The biggest hurdle of them all. Expected level of performance, how do we prepare our players to be competitive in international rugby when they never, or very rarely are faced with it. Our first scrimmage match was with highland it was a very cathartic moment for the boys on my team. The following practices were much more intense, questions came much more frequently and with more intent. They handled themselves better than many other teams that faced Highland last year but what they learned is they had a very long way to go. they learned first hand what a good scrum felt like they were able to wittiness the speed of an effective line out, and witnessed the sheer poetry of a well executed back line.The only problem was our contact with that level of play was too few, too far between. We won many of our following games which only fostered complacency. So what is the solution for this dilemma? In my opinion the utilization of foreign players is an essential key to overcoming everyone of these hurdles. Young players learn much more from each other than any coach can lay claim to in my opinion. They bring a level of intensity and skill that we can not impart with instruction alone. Rather than frowning on the practice of using these foreign players we should embrace the practice. And glean every bit of benefit of having these fantastic players in our midst. In short if we want to see our Eagles be more successful, than it is imperative that we provide our high school players with the tools, examples, and opportunities they need in that pursuit.

-Jeremy