What is the Legacy Rugby Academy?

"Provide a community for youth (U12), high school, college, and club players and their families centered around a high-performance environment and teams. We, the LRA staff, are focused on developing the complete rugby player, coach, administrator, and referee."

What you just read is the mission statement for the Legacy Rugby Academy. Please take notice that nowhere in that statement do you see an emphasis on winning. We are not a performance first club, we are a development first club (we use the term 'developmental performance within LRA). If we do our job right you'll have players who will come back to you fitter, fundamentally better and their performance will help you win more games. We aren't going to just focus on players either, we want to be a developmental tool for coaches, referees, administrators and any other role you can think of in the game of rugby. Below is the back story and the reason why I wanted to start an academy here. I will also cover the short and long term goals that we have for LRA and how you can help us achieve them.

Rugby in Michigan made me into the man I am today. I love this sport and I love this state for what it has given me, but I first had to leave to learn to appreciate it. When I left Michigan I went to England and there I learned the importance of fundamentals and community presence. I learned how to really play there and I also saw how the English rugby club becomes a part of a families DNA with grandfathers on the board, parents playing in the first team and children in the age grade set-ups. When I returned to America and landed in Boston where I played for a few years and my coaching journey really began. During my time there I was lucky enough to be invited to help establish and set-up their youth organization, I learned so many lessons during that process. I also saw the importance of home-grown talent with the club I played for, Mystic River. It was no surprise to me when they won the national championship this past season with a roster made up of mostly local kids. After Boston, it was a quick four-year stop in Northern California where I learned even more about what it meant and what it takes to be a high-level coach. That whirlwind journey over 10 years eventually led to me moving back to Michigan for a coaching job and where it all began both in life and rugby for me.

Upon my arrival it was incredibly disappointing to find that rugby had not grown at a rate like most other areas in the country, it may have even taken a step back. Sure, there was small pockets of growth and success but for the most part, it hadn't developed. For example, when I left Grand Rapids there was a Super League team producing eagles and I even remember playing the Tradesmen in a D1 playoff game while I was with the Mystics. What happened to those clubs? It was also concerning to see a 1990's hip-hop like the rivalry between the East and West side of the state that appeared to have developed at the youth level. This state and the people who play this great game mean a great deal to me and it troubled me to see it in such a state.

Enter the Legacy Rugby Academy.

This won't be like other academy set-ups for a couple of reasons. First, we want to make this developmental driven (we are using the term 'developmental performance' within LRA) and focus that development on local homegrown talent. Second, we currently have a senior level men & women's 7s team that will play through the Summer and a few other events during the winter (think New York, Barbados, Las Vegas, etc) we are looking forward to adding a high school age version of this team next Summer. Along with the expansion of the 7s program, we are also laying the foundation to bring back an all-star format team for high school, college and senior level clubs in 15s. Yes, that's right, we want to also have 15s teams here so no player or coach's development is excluded.

LRA isn't just focused on competitive teams. We are excited to launch a 3-week youth flag rugby league July 19th for kids K-6th grade. We are also engaged in bringing new and exciting coaching courses to the state as well. These will not be the type that you attend with USA Rugby. Our version will be about usable rugby content on what to coach. We are excited to partner with the local union and bring in former Northhampton professional player and current U-20 Head Coach Wil Snape on August 20th to present on attacking rugby in the modern game. Coach Snape is one of America's top coaching talents and has been coached by some of the best, including Wayne Smith, which has helped develop his coaching philosophies which he is eager to share with Michigan's rugby coaches. Best part, this seminar will be free to coaches who are connected to teams in Michigan. It does get better, we have also partnered with The Rugby Site to give coaches the opportunity to get an annual membership, which normally cost $90, for $40. These are only two of the things we are working on. We have so much more we want to accomplish.
will be focused on

You can see we are working hard to make something special for the state of Michigan, but there is one catch...

We need buy-in from Michigan's rugby community to make this work. Now, I'm not asking it to be a one-way street of you giving us the attention, but we also want to hear from you about what you want. Does the community want more coach education? What kind? Attack, defense, position specific? Or maybe something on club administration? What do the players want? All of these questions are important to us and the more you let us know the better we can make LRA for you.

I encourage you to E-mail me, text, call me, or approach me at any of the numerous events that I'm at throughout the year. I NEED to hear what you want and have to say. I don't want Michigan to just make up the numbers in the rugby community, I want us to set the standard for the rest of the country. We all have given a lot to this game and wouldn't it be great to build a legacy that we can all be proud of? Please, help me accomplish this.

Are You Watching PRO Rugby? You Should Be...

So, I started writing this blog with the intent to impresses you with stats and fancy infographics to show you how well researched my support was for PRO Rugby in their inaugural season.

You're not going to get that blog.

From here on I'm just going to write in the perspective of a fanboy.

I love PRO Rugby. Yes, I know it's not at the quality of Super Rugby or the Aviva Premiership, but I don't care because we have professional rugby in America. The teams here lack the mounds of data that their foreign friends have about in-game decision making, possession, and other countless aspects of the game that they collect data on, but again this is a good thing.

What they have given us 4 weeks into the season is some high scoring, fast, and at times incredibly exciting rugby. This is exactly what we need to create buzz and buy in from the rugby loving community, the casual fans and newcomers to the sport. We are also developing domestic stars that we can watch week in and week out. Players like John Quill, Mike Te'o (he has been around for a minute I know, but he is new to some that don't follow the game as closely), and Will Magie are making names for themselves and again are fun to watch.

Yes, I know there are areas that can and should be improved upon and it is easy to be critical of them. These come with starting a new league and fixing them will ultimately decide if this league is meant to last or just be blip on the timeline of rugby in America. Regardless of what happens in the future, we should just enjoy what is happening right now, players and teams playing exciting and professional rugby here in America.

Developing and Protecting Your Team's Image

 We are in a tug of war battle with our traditions and our newly found acceptance with the general public. In the 'old days' we were a fringe sport played mostly by a motley group of characters and funny talkers from all walks of life. We toiled away on fields outside cities with only a few close friends and family members as spectators. Rugby and the general public only mixed at socials and often was met by equal parts amusement and that feeling you get when you pass a car wreck and can't look away. We were an early version of extreme athletes and we lived our lives that way. Now, teams have large corporations as sponsors, our college rugby has TV time, and in some cases TV money, and the youth game is exploding with parents choosing it over football. All of this is causing the traditions us old boys enjoyed to be scrubbed from our sport and replaced with a sterile 'professional' environment. Heck, even our songs aren't safe!

Good.

Now, I don't want to see the entire social aspect of rugby wiped away because it is as important to the game as the ball we play with. It's what separates and makes us better people than football and soccer players. We are a united band of brothers and sisters who battle against each other for 80 minutes and then celebrate the effort put forth by everyone after regardless of team affiliation. But we have to be honest with ourselves now, our traditions are our hurting us.

We are at a critical point in our development as a rugby nation. Our national teams are starting to produce talent and wins, clubs are aligning themselves for a possible jump to a pro operation and the college game is the strongest and most marketable it has ever been. As the spotlight of the general public interest begins to acknowledge and accept our sport we need to be conscious of our image and how we as athletes, coaches and administrators are perceived by outsiders while we are in the glare of that light. This is the most important part of that last sentence and what this blog is about:

WE HAVE TO BE CONSCIOUS OF OUR IMAGE

For me personally, it is one of my greatest fears to be a head coach of a college program left to answer questions for actions and negative consequences of a decision making process I was not involved in. I have watched from a distance learning, both what and what not to do, as other coaches have gone through the process of defending their sports, culture and players against the stigma that Delaware 'I'm schmacked' party or the Virginia Tech hazing suspension,  but I have had experiences with minor incidences and many close calls on bigger issues. It is my hope the content that you read below can save you, or a the very least help you manage, a  PR nightmare.

Let us start by debunking some common phrases used by players (even some coaches) to justify questionable actions:

"I pay dues, I can do what I want"- I'm going to stop you right there. No you can't 'do what you want'. With that logic you should be able to stop an officer from giving you a ticket because you pay your taxes (those are your dues to be an American) and those taxes pay that officer's wages. Sounds pretty stupid right? That is what you sound like when you say it. When you pay your dues you are entering into a social contract to conduct yourself within the standard set by your team. These standards should be explained to you (or better yet, presented in a handbook and/or displayed around your club) when you join the team. It's often why clubs allow you to play a few games before you pay anything, so you understand what their expectations are. Just because you pay into a program doesn't mean you can disgrace it, that isn't doing what you want but in fact its you being an asshole and hurting the reputation of an organization that was there before you and will be there after.

"It was us as individuals, not a team thing."- One of the great things about team sports is the idea of surrendering the 'I' for the betterment of the 'We'. Now, while you are out in public by yourself you are John or Jane Doe and an individual but the instant that you are joined by a team mate you give up that individual identity and become a group with an identity found by a common interest, in this case rugby. People call this association. So, when you two posed for a calendar, host a party, steal something, etc and then attempt to excuse your actions as not being a 'rugby thing' your common link of being team mates will ALWAYS make it a rugby thing despite your best efforts to justify it otherwise. You don't believe me? Why don't you ask the Minnesota Vikings PR department if they enjoy the association to the Love Boat Scandal or the Caroline Panthers being associated to Greg Hardy's domestic abuse case. The proof that association is a thing is literally in the headlines. This childish, immature thought process is more often than not the reason for stupid things happening.

"It is tradition"- Look at your Facebook news feed. Do you notice anything? I do, puppy and baby pictures have been replaced by people using social media as a megaphone to tell you what they are offended by. These people are your friends who you share some kind of positive connection with. Now think about your team's traditions, would they offend your friends? How about your parents? If the school found out how would they respond? Has this tradition got your team into hot water before?
If you answered yes to even one of those is that tradition a benefit to your team culture or a danger to it? The great thing about traditions are they are only as long lasting as your team's collective memory so they can be changed. "It's tradition" is the sport equivalent of "We've always done it this way" in the business world. If you believe that both of those statements justify not changing a dangerous or poor practice then you're going to lose more than just that one 'tradition'.

I would encourage you to talk to your leaders, captains, and entire team about these sayings. Trust me, I've heard all of these as justification for an action and once that person did some self exploration they realized that those statements are just away to pretend they aren't guilty of some kind of wrong doing. Create an up-front contact with them that saying these 3 phrases isn't OK and if anyone says them it should be discussed further if it is in fact going to hurt your club.

Now let's look at some preventive measures:

Find an ally within an institution- We as rugby people have a belief that it is "us v them". You see/hear it all the time "The school hates us.." or "We aren't looked at as a serious team because...". While I understand in most cases the people saying these phrases aren't the cause for the poor perception and you shouldn't accept this as a problem you created, but instead as a mean to the solution. You, as the coach, can be the school's best resource to help them avoid a PR nightmare and you need to sell yourself as such. A simple E-mail introduction of yourself, acknowledgement of previous problems, your solutions on how to fix them and an olive branch of an offer to  be partners in helping develop these young men and keep them out of trouble can go a long way. Find out who your players answer to and that is the person you should be contacting.

A coach is always under the scrutiny of association- This one I've learned the hard way. As coaches, our actions are always going to be under a microscope regardless if we are on the sidelines or in a bar with our buddies. When you become a coach you give up that individual title and become apart of the organization you work for. I'm no longer just 'Brandon Sparks' but I'm Brandon Sparks, head coach of University of Michigan'. I know the standards set by the university and I hold myself accountable to them the same way a varsity coach would. Why? Because, I don't want to embarrass my team, myself, or my family and I sure don't want to play into the stereotypical image of the rugby culture. I also want to be a role model for my players because it sends a poor message to be the coach that doesn't practice what he preaches.

Create a social media policy- The world is incredibly smaller than it was 10 years ago with things like Instagram, SnapChat, Twitter, Facebook, etc. We as coaches are faced with problems our coaches would have never thought of by dealing with technology we barely understand. These outlets are also where many problems arise from. Below is a practice I've taken from the business world and applied to teams I work with, a social media policy:

Players often don't understand the danger social media presents to themselves and their squad. This simple one page documents sets out a guideline to help protect the image of your club. To help with the buy-in rate encourage them to be a part of the set-up. Also, encourage an open discussion with them about positive and negative effects that social media can have on your team.


Be a sounding board for your team- We know that these kids aren't perfect and they are going to make mistakes, heck we have made plenty ourselves when we were that age. We also might have be involved in an incident that hurt our own rugby club. Don't be afraid to share those experiences and invite players to talk to you about possible decisions that could hurt their club. Good leaders are easy to relate with and approachable, but you need to show that side to your players first. They should also remember that the decisions they make away from you also directly affects your image.

I know in my own situations this is a tough issue to control. Emotionally I'm torn because of the nostalgic emotions that are created by my memories of my playing days but on the flip side as a professional coach I understand the changes that must occur in not just my own thinking but ours as a whole rugby community to progress this game. Do you agree with the ideas I shared? Do you have one of your own that I missed? Please share because