Dartmouth Rugby teams weigh advantages to maintaining club status

from the Dartmouth.com:

Founded in 1951, the men’s rugby team is one of the most successful Big Green athletic programs, the recipient of national accolades and consistently a contender for the Collegiate Rugby Championship. The team shares the preeminent Corey Ford rugby clubhouse with women’s rugby, added in 1978, a competitive team in the Ivy League.

Rugby is a growing sport in the United States and stands to increase in popularity after the 2016 Olympics, when rugby will be included for the first time. Dartmouth rugby is at the forefront as former men’s player and head coach Alex Magleby ’00 was recently selected to coach the men’s USA Sevens team.

The schools of the ancient eight organized the Ivy Rugby Conference in 2010 as part of a larger effort to centralize collegiate rugby competition, and this fall, Harvard University will promote its women’s team to varsity status, the first Ivy League school to do so for a men’s or women’s team.

In Hanover, the benefits to varsity recognition are nuanced. As members of club teams, men and women ruggers maintain a large degree of independence to make decisions about their travel schedules and uniforms, among others.

Big Green women’s coach Debra Archambault ’85 said the team has spoken with the administration about becoming a varsity team, but that there is no immediate plan to do so.

Despite this, Archambault said that rugby already operates very similarly to varsity teams.

“We currently have a varsity model program,” she said. “It’s the same structure as a varsity program in terms of the commitment of the athletes and Division I status.”

Many athletes see achieving varsity status as a trade-off between their ability to make team decisions or receive increased financing and recognition from the College.

“It’s exciting to see rugby being recognized as an important collegiate sport in America, but at the same time, I do love the autonomy we get as a club sport,” women’s summer president Allie Brouckman ’15 said.

Brouckman suggested that the team’s club status has helped create a culture where players are motivated to take significant ownership of the team.

“We have a lot of players who can be integrally involved in their athletic experience because they can plan games, direct a training trip, order our own equipment, design uniforms, handle part of a sport that in a varsity sport are handled by an athletic department,” she said. “But I’d still be excited to see Dartmouth go varsity in a few years if Dartmouth was willing to support it.”

Neither men’s nor women’s rugby are officially recognized as NCAA sports, however, women’s rugby has been classified as an NCAA “emerging sport,” a critical step on the road to national recognition. Emerging sports are required to meet NCAA regulation requirements.

If the men’s team were recognized by the College as a varsity program, it would not have to comply with additional NCAA regulation requirements.

Despite increased regulations, Archambault saw varsity status as mostly beneficial. As more teams go varsity and the sport continues to grow in the US, college programs will likely grow, she said.

“One of the biggest advantages of having it [as a varsity sport] is that it would promote rugby throughout the country because it would provide scholarship opportunities and be another sport that women could excel in,” Archambault said. “It would also improve the quality of women’s rugby. We would benefit from having more high schools with rugby and being able to recruit more.”

Promoting women’s rugby teams to varsity status can also help universities comply with Title IX regulations, which require equal funding and participation across men’s and women’s sports teams, among other stipulations. Women’s rugby is particularly attractive because the sport competes across multiples seasons, allowing one athlete to essentially count twice and balance a men’s football and baseball player, for example.

Archambault suggested that achieving Title IX compliance could have been a factor in Harvard’s decision and acknowledged the difficulties of being a trailblazer, as only seven women’s rugby teams, including Harvard’s are recognized as varsity programs. Eastern Illinois was the first school to recognize its women’s rugby team in 2002, and has since been followed by Bowdoin College and West Chester University, Norwich University, Quinnipiac University, Davenport University and Harvard University.

“Nobody wants to be the first team, it’s a tough situation,” Archambault said. “I do think that it’s a nice solve for Title IX compliance.”

Men’s rugby player Jake Levine ’15 said he saw few benefits to switching to varsity status in his team’s case.

“We have a somewhat extraordinary setup, namely a very supportive and involved alumni group,” Levine wrote in an email. “We’re lucky to have some of the best facilities in the country, great coaches, the opportunity to use the varsity weight room and the ability to go head to head with the best competition in the country, including varsity programs, as well as outside the states on our annual international tour.”

Levine said he did not think that competition or funding would significantly improve if the team changed to varsity a sport, adding that the team is already achieving success in the Ivy League and on the national and international levels.

Rugby’s transition from club to varsity would be limited by the willingness of the College athletic department to take on additional funding requirements. The school already has the highest varsity teams per capita in the Ivy League.

Currently, the majority of funding for rugby comes from alumni donations to Friends of Rugby, an umbrella organization that supports the teams.

Levine said players rarely cover expenses out of pocket except for individual expenses on the spring training trip. In past years, the team has traveled to Canada, Ireland and the Caribbean.

While many of the donations have historically come from older male alumni, the women’s team is working to cultivate a fundraising culture among its younger alumnae base.

“You have a very dedicated alumni group, especially from the time before coeducation,” Brouckman said. “We met with the DWRC originals and I think it’s getting to the point where women alumni are also able to contribute.”

The teams also receive subsidies from the athletic department’s club sports office, but Archambault confirmed that the department “does not provide the team with a significant portion of its income.”

Instead, the office is more involved in providing the teams with administrative and logistical support.

Noah Reichblum contributed reporting.