Offering scholarships would certainly be a start, but I don't think it's really going to get you anywhere. The best athletes are already playing basketball, football or baseball, and given that there are so many scholarships already available(ie 2925 new football scholarships in Div 1 football alone). And then the other potential athetes are too stupid to make college. One could argue that many of the current athletes are having their tests written for them because they can't do it themselves but I digress. The current state of University rugby in the States is a joke. My high school team was down there for a tournament and we could have beaten every university team handidly.
What really needs to happen is at the grassroots level. You have to establish rugby as a school sponsored sport. Right now it is not. It has something to do with having to have a girls sport for every guys sport, I believe DC can fully explain this. You can't even begin to consider creating under 9's and house league stuff until you've established it in the high schools.
Next never consider drop out football players as a suggestion. It is stupid and you will never see it happen. Every rugby skill translates into football but no football skill translates into rugby. Taking the ball into contact is so drastically different, the contact situation is monumentally different. It's not just teaching players how to ruck, it's teaching players how to tackle. Football players haven't got a clue how to tackle. In football you lead with your head, in rugby that's a concussion waiting to happen. They don't know how to wrap properly and they especially don't know how to tackle from behind either. Don't believe me? look at the NFL. They actually had to create a rule so that you don't horsecollar someone(grabbing their collar from behind). Any half brained idiot would tell you to tackle their legs. You have to get to them early enough i.e beginning of high school or you have no shot at teaching the game.
Canada has had a shockingly terrible system for a long time and I believe it's finally coming around. Before it was once the high school season is over in June, you play either play club for the rest, you do nothing for the summer or you play for your province(if you're "good" enough. The main problem with that is the Provincial, for lack of a better word, headquarters is situated far away from where a lot of the talented players were. It's not their fault that because Canada is so large and the population dispersed, that there are inconviences with travel. For example in Ontario, the main training ground is near Toronto. Big shock. The only problem is rugby in Toronto blows and the real rugby is played away from there. When I played Ontario there was a guy who had to drive four hours to make a rugby practice. He often just stayed with someone half way, but still. In the end it costed me, well my family, around $5000 to play for the provincial side for about 2 months. Now excuse me but that just about limits the opportunity to only people who can afford it. Should you wish to play for Canada? That's another $500 for a week training camp and then whatever it costs to fly to whereever the next camp is. If the National Union had a brain in their head they'd make some major changes.
Firstly, you need to spend the money given to them by the iRB wisely. Look it's great that Canada paid for a backs coach, but you know what? That money could have found a much better destination. Work with the grassroots. If you have to, split the money 50/50 down the middle. Half goes to the national mens team, half goes grassroots. With that money going to the grass roots, develop a transportation system to get those kids into the training sessions, so it doesn't cost them an arm and a leg. And especially don't make them pay for the kit. Make your sponsors cough up extra jerseys, or here's a smart idea just have sets of jerseys, everyone doesn't need their own to keep.
Secondly, you need better coaching. I chose to forgoe the Ontario team despite knowing that I could walk onto the team, because I'm not going to learn anything. Sure I may be a special case that had been playing rugby since I was nine years old and know the game rather well, but still the coaching desperately needs to get better. The option I chose this year was to play both U18's(they play wednesday) and senior men's for my club. I know I'll learn more out at the club from the older guys or playing against older guys than I will with those who are my age.
Thirdly, you need stepping stones. Canada currently has been getting them. There may become a time when the provincial jersey becomes redundent or at least redundent at the junior level. I will continue to use the Canadian and Ontario example. As you may or may not know there is something called the "Super League". It is a league made up of amatuer Canadian players from different provinces around the country. They get their tickets paid for and they fly around the country and in the end the winner from the East plays the winner from the West. Well now there is junior affiliates to this. They are U20 sides, though there are rules that make these comprised mostly of U19's. This is a much better alternative to Ontario in my opinion. It's a much more local competition. For example, Ontario has three teams so travelling times to and from practices should take no longer than a half hour each way. This makes a far more economical system and puts the stepping stones in place. If you're a little lost I'll break it down. First you play high school, then club, U20 superleague, Superleague, then on to NA4 and finally Canada. To me that makes more sense than Provincial team to Canadian junior teams and hopefully Canada men's.
This may be Canada centric but it can easily applied to the American game. You need stepping stones up to NA4 and the American team.
What voicekiller said is mostly a vast crock of ****. For one there is no way that the iRB will ever be able to have the money to get that "right exposure". It's just simply not going to happen. Ever. To even think about taking down the NHL is a goal far and a way beyond what is reasonably expectable. Even when the NHL is in complete shambles. The Versus TV contract is worth over US$100million and the Canadian broadcasting deals are worth even more. I'd like to see the total value of the Six Nations TV deal but I doubt it reaches the sum of about US$240million. Do you know what the average attendance is for the Heineken Cup? About 12000. That's about what the worst team in the NHL averages a night and there are 41 games at home for each team. To tell you the truth rugby has an evern longer road than you might think. The top TV sports in the States are:
- The NFL
- NASCAR
- NBA
- Baseball
- NCAA Football
- NCAA Basketball
- Poker
- NHL
Besides even on a popular sports scene for rugby to take the number four slot they'd have to beat out not only Hockey but Soccer and Lacrosse. They'd have a shot at lacrosse but soccer is well and truley out of the question. For one the player base of soccer in America is greater than that of American football and rugby will never rival American football.
The major way of starting a league is to make sure you can get as many of the black atheletes as possible. Let's not fool ourselves, black athetes are, as a general rule the most athletic. They are a generally the fastest, strongest and most agile of all athletes. And lucky for the US they have a plethora of young black men that can leap tall buildings. You pass through any poor New York neighbourhood and on every other street corner you will see world class atheletes playing basketball. These are young men that will never make it pro. If you can somehow bring the game to them you will find yourself with a team of unstopeable atheletes. A huge problem of course is the lack of playing fields. It seems basketball courts are much cheaper in densly populated areas. It is a problem that currently is attempted to be resolved in the aforemention NYC. I truly believe that the fate of American rugby rests squarely in the program run in the depths of the New York ghetto.
I had a conversation a while ago about black players in the US and rugby with DC and he said that to get blacks to play rugby, there needs to be more financial incentive should they ever be good enough to go pro. He, and I assure you, said this in a much more blunt and quite frankly in a more racially incensitive tone. But he is almost completely right. When you consider what rugby is currently offering, say the reported £250,000 a year contract offer to one of the best inside centres in the world, Luke McCalister. And then compare that to the average salary of an NFL bench player(US$1.5mil), NBA player(US$3.5 million) it pales in comparison. Not to mention the opportunities to play basketball abroad, where an NBA dropout can easily earn six figures for being no where near the top of the heap.
For the US to be successful they need to spend money far more wisely, and concentrate at the grassroots level. In particular to create stepping stones all the way to the men's national side. As well they need to do their best to attract not only the black athlete but the large contingent of pacific islanders who call America home.