Rugby Here & There – General News

Just a bit of rugby news here & there, thanks for all the emails!

  • Golf for a fellow Rugger
    Robert “Red” Brooks, Arlington player and former teammate of Swick, is battling brain cancer. Arlington is holding a golf tournament with proceeds to benefit Red and his family. The tournament will be played on April 10th. If you can make it out, a nice day of golf for a great cause.

    Details at www.maverickrugby.com

  • USA Rugby Conducts Women’s Referee Development Camp

    SAN DIEGO — In conjunction with the Champaign Classic tournament, on March 7-9, the Southern California Referee Society, under the leadership of it president, LuAnn Campbell, conducted a referee development camp for women funded and supported by a USA Rugby grant.

    Five referees, nominated by their local organization, were invited to attend, and over the three day period worked closely with Ed Todd, USA Rugby’s Director of Referee Development, and a group of trainers that included National Panel Coach Josh Tameifuna, National Panel Referee Dave Peters, National Focus Group member Dana Teagarden, and Northern California Referee Coach Lois Bukowski.

    The camp opened with the referees shadowing Dana Teagarden through her pre-match activities and went on to include a coach briefing with Ed Todd. The referees then spent time observing the match and sharing in the coaching review.

    Each participant officiated five to six matches over the weekend, receiving feedback, and developing learning points that were monitored and reviewed over the two days. Each referee was asked to produce a personal profile and development plan before the camp, and update it at the end to reflect their experience.

    Other activities included practical exercises to simulate match situations, and a conversation with Teagarden on the topic of training to be an elite athlete.

    “This was a rather last-minute camp,” explained Luann Campbell, “but we were very fortunate to have a great group of young and talented referees, who responded superbly and wound up refereeing some extremely entertaining finals. Feedback from the players has been very supportive, and I am sure this will become an annual event.”

    The funding for the camp came through USA Rugby’s Match Official Development Department’s grant application program, which was administered by Jen Gray out of the National Office.

    “We have set aside significant funds in the 2008 budget to be dispersed to local referee organizations for referee development activities,” said Todd. “These are awarded through an application and review process, with the goal to create a number of models and templates to be made available to all. This has been a fabulously successful concept that has seen camps and other programs put into place in Arizona, Minnesota, Florida, New York and Southern California.”

    Applications can be found on the USA Rugby website, and copies of reports from successful programs can be obtained by contacting Jen Gray at jgray@usarugby.org.

  • NEW Texas Rugby Union President Announced

    The TRU has completed its election process for the position of TRU President. Three individuals were nominated for the position: one accepted, one immediately declined, and one declined after conversations with his team, family, and others.

    At this time, we would like to announce that David McPhail out of Houston Texas with the HARC organization will be the next President of the TRU. David will be taking over the position on May 16, 2008.

    For those of you who don’t know Dave, he started his life in rugby while at Southwest Texas State in 1985 then went on to play for Austin RFC and HARC. Through the years, he has coached within the TRU Elite Program and the West RU Sevens program. David currently holds many leadership roles with the TRU and the West. (If you want all the details, then click on the attachment) He is more than qualified and experienced to take rugby in Texas to the next level.

    We are proud and honored to have David leading the TRU. We look forward to his leadership and vision throughout the Union.

    Thank you,
    Ted Hill

  • Check Out the National Guard Top 10 Rankings at USARugby.org

    Women’s Division One Collegiate Rankings

    American Rugby
    News Rankings

    Alex Goff’s
    ERugbyNews
    Rankings

    Coaches’ Poll Final Composite
    Rankings
    1. Penn State(1) 1. Brown(1) 1. Penn State(1) 1. Penn State(1)
    2. Stanford(2) 2. Navy(2) 2. Brown(4) 2. Brown(4)
    3. Texas A&M(3) 3. Texas A&M(3) 3. Navy(5) 3. Navy(5)
    4. Brown(4) 4. Penn State(4) 4. Stanford(2) 4. Stanford(2)
    5. Navy(5) 5. Stanford(5) 5. Chico State(7) 5. Texas A&M(3)
    6. Chico State(6) 6. Chico State(6) 6. Texas A&M(3) 6. Chico State(6)
    7. Indiana(7) 7. Cornell(7) 7. Virginia(8) 7. Virginia(8)
    8. Virginia(8) 8. Virginia(9) 8. UC Davis(9) 8. Cornell(10)
    9. Vassar(9) 9. Army(8) 9. Cornell(-) 9. UC Davis(-)
    10. Cornell(10) 10. Clemson(10) 10. Vassar(-) 10. Vassar(-)

    I like these rankings as they seem to be pretty logical, not based on favoritism and guesses. They are new every Thursday, so make sure to bookmark the site!

  • Forever Strong – Rugby Movie Due out in September

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