Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010

CCU squad channels the rugby spirit

Rugby isn't the national past time. It's not very popular in the States at all when compared to baseball, football and, yes - in many regards - even soccer.

That was part of the appeal for me when I was assigned to do a story on Coastal Carolina University's club rugby team. On top of Clint Eastwood's "Invictus" receiving a pair of Oscar nominations (Best Actor, Supporting Actor), I had spent a little bit of time around the game and was looking for an excuse to see it live again.

To understand what my knowledge entailed going in, however, you need to know a bit of history.

One of my older sisters, Julian, played club rugby at the University of Kansas in the mid-'90s. Prior to a tournament, a teammate broke her neck on the field. The teams, after a short delay to get the injured player off the field, went ahead and decided they hadn't got all dressed up for nothing.

They played the game anyway.

When we were talking about it recently, she referred to it as the "Rugby Spirit."

During another one of her matches, Julian laid a right hook on a player from an opposing team, spurring an outpour of blood from the poor girl's nose.

When I asked Julian why she did it, the answer was simple, yet telling: "She wouldn't let go of the ball."

As time wore on - and Julian's story now includes the word "accident" - I realized not only that picking on my little sister maybe wasn't such a good idea, but also that club rugby could be a bit less structured than officially sanctioned collegiate sports.

Punches thrown, shirts ripped, players kicked.

Meanwhile, some referee who is either volunteering his time or getting paid minimally turns a blind eye... all part of the day-to-day.

So when I headed to CCU's club rugby game on Feb. 6 against Armstrong Atlantic, I took this knowledge with me: Club sports - particularly club contact sports, tend to be a shell of their more organized versions.

I also went already understanding that CCU's rugby squad is ultra-talented. Yet, thanks to a school's press release a year ago, they are often hit with a controversial broad brush.

While trying to put the latter behind it, the Chanticleers are trying to rely on the former.

The team is getting a second chance. And this time around, the Coastal Carolina club rugby team is minding its Ps and Qs.

Double, secret probation

The first time many locals heard anything about CCU's rugby team - now in its seventh year - was when the university issued a five-graph news release in May stating the team had been suspended for a violation of the school's alcohol policy. Being tried in the court of public opinion, many may have believed the worst - that the suspension had something to do with some party mimicking "Animal House."

Of course, a bunch of college so-called "athletes" were doing keg stands, taping some weakling to a tree and stealing cop cars, right?

What really happened, though, was something much, much simpler.

The team advertised for and threw a fundraiser at a local bar.

"We were upset because what it came down to was paperwork," team president Matt Mendelssohn said. "We felt that the training the school provided us - I don't want to say improper, but it wasn't thorough. ... They were enforcing such a strict punishment. The punishment didn't fit the crime, is what it boiled down to."

Perhaps the administration had an itchy trigger finger when dealing with the rugby club, as CCU dealt with a rash of alcohol-related incidents, many of them involving the school's athletes.

Mendelssohn and other members of the rugby team aren't allowed to talk about many specifics with what happened last year, including but not limited to the amount of money the team raised that ill-fated day. The school administration essentially took the money, saying it was not an approved fundraiser and didn't allow it to be re-distributed to the club.

But some of the facts are talked about openly between administration and the team.

First, though, it must be mentioned that club sports at most colleges get very little help from their respective schools. Often, a university will allow a club space for a meeting - in the rugby team's case, practices and games - some coverage under the institution's liability insurance and very little else.

The club participates under the umbrella of the school it is competing for, but it is nothing like the protection athletes competing in one of the school's NCAA-sanctioned teams is receiving. Tutors, trainers - not to mention deep-pocketed alumnae boosters - and the like aren't part of the package.

That leaves club sports looking for ways to raise money to go toward travel costs.

In December 2008, in attempt to do just that, the team held a fundraiser at Jackass Saloon near the Conway campus. Beer was served, and yes, some of the players were drinking.

A crazed frat party it wasn't, by all accounts, though.

It didn't matter. The school has spent countless hours and dollars trying to figure out how to change its image; it doesn't like being perceived as the party school near the beach, especially when it is constantly fighting the state for a higher share of legislative funding.

The rugby team had placed flyers around campus for the event, and it caught the administration's eye.

"At first, I was shocked, because we didn't get word of (the suspension)," Alex Nazon, the team's current vice president said. "We had a game in Charleston one weekend, and we didn't get word of it until (the day before the game)." Said coach Robert Kegler, who is also an officer with the Horry County Police Dept. "We wanted to win as a team before any of that happened. It's an unfortunate thing that happened and we did pay the price."

The team's former officers went before the school's judicial board in February 2009. The suspension was put into effect and eventually upheld by an appeals board. During the summer and fall of 2009, Coastal players were not allowed to use school practice facilities, compete in any offseason activities under the name "Coastal Carolina" and every sitting officer was forced to resign his position. It was somewhat new territory for the school.

"We see it a lot with fraternities and sororities," said Jake Rosick, the sport club coordinator in the Department of Campus Recreation. "But this was the first sport club. It certainly wasn't a witch hunt or anything like that."

All was not lost.

The school allowed the team to finish out the 2009 spring season, essentially post-dating the suspension until after the school year (the team was placed on probation for that season).

But there was nary a mention of the suspension when the university issued a press release on April 27 announcing the team had captured the National championship.

After some digging and questioning by Weekly Surge which had learned of a possible suspension, a press release was issued May 28 to local media announcing that the rugby club had been suspended "for violation of the University's alcohol policy.''

This announcement came several months after the decision had already been made.

Using those ticked off feelings stemming from the eventual suspension as fuel, the players started pounding opponents.

On a mission

The Spring 2009 season went from disappointing to magical in a short span of time.

Team members admit it wasn't the most spectacular group of players CCU had ever had, but something clicked.

"Some of the resistance we were getting from the school gave us the motivation we needed to push us over the top," Mendelssohn said.

Over the top didn't just equate to a good season.

The Chanticleers, competing in the National Small College Rugby Organization (NSCRO) Division III, beat a number of opponents who had been around the block two and three times as long. They beat Division-I Wake Forest, and eventually, put themselves into position to make a move in the national tournament.

"That was our goal from the very beginning when we started," Kegler said. "We worked two seasons. I started off last fall getting us prepared by hitting practice early. We were playing some of the best men's clubs that are in this area."

On April 26, Coastal completed an undefeated season by beating SUNY-Oswego 36-15 to win the Division-III national title. It was the school's first national title for a club sport, and done so with school administrators keeping the team on a proverbial short leash.

"I think it gave the club," Rosick said, "something to play for."

Keeping the fire stoked

Interestingly enough, other clubs in the same position have folded in the past, at CCU and at other universities around the country.

But, after winning the national title, most of the team's players decided to refocus their energy during their time off. During the fall, about 10 members of the team joined Kegler's Myrtle Beach area club team, an adult squad that was in need of players.

"As rugby players in general, we weren't going to take six months out of the training season," Mendelssohn said. "We would have driven to Columbia, Wilmington, wherever. We were going to find some way to play."

The Myrtle Beach team did just that. It took trips to the aforementioned places, as well as Charleston, for games.

That type of dedication is rare considering that most of the members of the CCU team have played the sport for just a few years. Many were former high school wrestlers and football players, and a handful of them gave rugby a shot after not making it through walk-on cuts for CCU's NCAA Football Championship Subdivision football team.

While not every player looks the part of a college athlete, there is a handful that physically stand out. Alex Nazon, for instance, was a four-year starting defensive lineman at Bishop England High School in Charleston.

Now, with the ball in his hands, he looks every bit of a college football player.

"There's been a few people on campus who are surprised when they find out I don't play football," said Nazon, whose build is similar to that of former CCU and current San Diego Charger fullback Mike Tolbert.

Mendelssohn is another former high school football player. And after playing at Lugoff-Elgin High School, he enrolled at CCU with designs on becoming a walk-on linebacker.

That didn't work out, so after about a year-and-a-half of nagging from a neighbor, he gave rugby a shot.

And while he isn't the baddest-looking dude on the squad, classmates' reactions to his new sport of choice leave him detailing everything from how the sport is played to just what the CCU team is all about.

"That's generally the first thing people say: 'You play rugby? You're crazy,'" Mendelssohn said. "We're all shapes, sizes and talent levels. We field a team from anywhere from a guy who is 5-6 and 160 pounds to a guy who is 6-2 and 280. I feel like I have to explain the rules; it's not just run out there and hit the guy across from you."

Chasing another championship

Only one part of the team's season opener against Armstrong Atlantic on Feb. 6 gave the appearance that this was anything but a well-run operation. At one point, the ball bounced out of bounds toward a few of us standing on the sideline. It approached a small pond in the beyond, prompting hollers from the coaches.

"If that ball goes in the water, we're screwed," one of them yelled.

Not exactly a problem for the collegiate, officially-sanctioned football or baseball teams.

Other than that, CCU still looked like a team playing with some serious fire. The Chanticleers made sure they kept the dominance of 2009 going. Within minutes of the kickoff, CCU was up by multiple scores.

It eventually beat Armstrong 67-6, getting little resistance from a severely overmatched team. It marked the first of what CCU hopes will be several wins in the "Matrix," a conference that includes, CCU, Armstrong, College of Charleston, the University of South Carolina, The Citadel and Furman. The team is now 2-0 having dispatched USC's C-team 36-0 on Feb. 13.

At one point against Armstrong, Nazon, arguably CCU's most influential player, gave fans the bone-crunching visual they were craving. An Armstrong player decided he was going to attempt to tackle Nazon after the CCU forward took a lateral.

Bad idea.

"Was almost like tunnel vision; it was me and him," Nazon said. "I couldn't hear anything. I could see that he was trying to take me on by himself. I decided to go through him."

He did just that, in the process actually stepping on the opposing player with his right foot.

It is scenes like that which prompt the untrained eye to view the sport as barbaric, but those types of scenes are also what keep fans coming back in places where the sport is more established. At CCU, the club is certainly starting to gain some of that recognition.

Nearly 100 fans were at the Armstrong game despite temperatures being in the low 40s and the previous night's rain making sure everyone who showed up was going to be covered mid-shin with mud and water.

They came to see a win, but they also came for the collisions like the one backer Justin Williams was involved in later in the game.

Well after CCU had the game in the hand, Williams used his shoulder to break a tackle near the goal line. The opposing player crumpled and lay on the ground for several minutes. He finally got up after his coach put a band-aid on his left cheek.

Just another part of the game.

And just another part of that "Rugby Spirit."