Michelle Berthiaume
Equinox Staff
With a coach on his way out and limited funds for the men’s club rugby team, there is still the possibility for a successful season.
The team’s first loss came at the hands of UMass Amherst last weekend, but the team has remained optimistic.
“It was a tough first loss but we have learned a lot from it. We made adjustments that needed to be made and hopefully we are on the up and up from here on out,” sophomore Brandon Edgerly said.
Other worries occupy the minds of men’s rugby players currently though. Coach “Bunk” Johannasen will not coach the men’s team next year, after a long career with the men’s club team. There’s a lot on the plate of men’s rugby players this year. Not only do they have to worry about winning games, making playoffs and eventually nationals, but now they also have to worry about finding a coach.
“If he decides to stay then he stays and he’s a good coach. If he doesn’t then we have to try and find our own coach. We have some alumni that are in the area. They might be interested. We just need to find a coach because you can’t play a sport without a coach,” senior captain Bill Dodge said.
“As far as I am concerned, that’s on the shoulders of the older guys,” Edgerly said.
The lack of funding also concerns players on the team. As a member of a club team at Keene State, you can’t see an athletic trainer after an injury at practice. Players must go out of their way to find their own doctors to handle their injuries.
“We are one of the only contact sports at this school. We still have to play through all of it. I have split my head open and had to get 14 stitches, pulled hamstrings, broken fingers and not once can I go to the trainer,” Dodge said. “I have to go out of my way, go to the doctors, pay out-of-pocket, when it could be done here, by people who know what they’re doing. It would take five minutes and I’m back on the field.”
“It’s not about the uniforms or the transportation. What it’s really about is the lack of athletic trainers,” Edgerly said.
But the men’s rugby team also places concern on its lack of new uniforms.
“We really had to go out of our way to get jerseys this season. We had our old uniforms for a while. They even started to affect our game. They were very loose. We were easier to tackle ‘cause players could grab onto our jerseys,” Dodge said. “But now, we are finally getting our jerseys – halfway through the season.”
The lack of funding for the men’s rugby team relates to its procrastination as well as its lack of NCAA affiliation.
“They may not have the funding where they should have funding because they weren’t submitting their budget to the Student Assembly by the deadlines that they were supposed to in past years,” Club Sports Director Lynne Andrews said. “So their budget already starts at a deficit based on their guidelines and their policies. It takes them a while to build it back up to the level that it should be at.”
An NCAA affiliation seems like a far-fetched idea, but some disagree.
“I think the chances are getting better because the sevens is going to be in the Olympics in 2016. They are only showing a few games on national TV on Universal Sports every once in a while, but they are never really showing good games,” Dodge said. “They show top notch teams beating on teams that are at the bottom of the totem pole and that’s no fun to watch, but I think they’ll come around eventually. I think more things can be done to actually push it through.”
“You can’t move to the NCAA if there’s no NCAA there to sponsor you. There are no NCAA Division Three men’s rugby teams right now,” Andrews said.
But the lack of support from the NCAA doesn’t stop the men’s rugby team from keeping high hopes for the season.
“We want to make playoffs, win the championship, and go back to nationals,” Dodge said.
He said he keeps his expectations simple but still motivates the teammates to do their best. The men’s rugby team looks forward to an exciting season that hopefully ends in a trip back to nationals.
Michelle Berthiaume can be contacted at mberthiaume@ksc.mailcruiser.com