Published with permission
I've decided to speak about my experiences as a USA Rugby Congressman and then draw some conclusions about the state of the union. It's long winded, but I hope it's insightful.
I hadn't really known who was on Congress previously or how they were elected. It was just something that happened at the Territorial Union (TU) or somewhere echelons above my reality as a player and small club administrator. USA Rugby had been evolving it's structure to separate the youth and high schools from the colleges from the adult teams and doing away with the "middle management" of the TUs. To catch up with the changes, the Congress was expanded to better represent the membership.
The Texas Rugby Union (TRU), which represents the adult leagues in Texas and large portions of Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana, was given two Congress positions. The terms are 2 years and are to be staggered. We held one election, the top vote winner getting the 2 year term and the second place, me, with a half term. Congress meets twice a year and the first meeting was in Houston, my home, in the summer of 2014. I was excited to get started.
The night before the formal meeting, Congress traditionally meets informally to welcome the freshman members and discuss the next days agenda. This was the first introduction to my actual role. We affirm board member nominations, we approve any USA Rugby actions that are outside the operational norms, and we are to be a free workforce serving in a variety of committees. Other than listen to briefings about the budget, the new online membership system and the player development model, our only task for the first meeting was to affirm the renomination of a sitting board member and the nomination of one new member to replace someone who has termed out. I was given bios and they sounded impressive enough to me (the new guy being a West Point grad and former ambassador to Germany). We affirmed both without much discussion.
After that, I was to wait for a list of openings on committees. The list never came. The only thing that came was a second hand mention of a Strategic Planning Committee to revamp the Strategic Plan, a task that happens every 5 years. After two conference calls, that group disbanded after the USA Rugby employee who was leading the effort quietly parted ways.
The next Congress meeting coincided with end National Development Summit in Chicago... In winter, thanks. We heard about USAR's bid for the Sevens World Cup and that pro rugby was in the works. There were more reviews from the different USAR functions, blah blah... This is where we approved RIM. It was so insignificant, the only note I have on it is "USA Rugby sponsorship will term out and move to RIM." It was a way to commercialize rugby and it sounded like a step forward. My other Texas partner didn't even have it in her notes. Looking back, I realize that I had no idea what I was agreeing to. There was minimal explanation. I only learned that it's modeled after US Soccer's United Marketing a couple weeks ago. I don't know what other National Governing Bodies own these private companies, what the legalities are, nor how well they have worked historically. I still don't.
The night before the formal meeting, Congress traditionally meets informally to welcome the freshman members and discuss the next days agenda. This was the first introduction to my actual role. We affirm board member nominations, we approve any USA Rugby actions that are outside the operational norms, and we are to be a free workforce serving in a variety of committees. Other than listen to briefings about the budget, the new online membership system and the player development model, our only task for the first meeting was to affirm the renomination of a sitting board member and the nomination of one new member to replace someone who has termed out. I was given bios and they sounded impressive enough to me (the new guy being a West Point grad and former ambassador to Germany). We affirmed both without much discussion.
After that, I was to wait for a list of openings on committees. The list never came. The only thing that came was a second hand mention of a Strategic Planning Committee to revamp the Strategic Plan, a task that happens every 5 years. After two conference calls, that group disbanded after the USA Rugby employee who was leading the effort quietly parted ways.
The next Congress meeting coincided with end National Development Summit in Chicago... In winter, thanks. We heard about USAR's bid for the Sevens World Cup and that pro rugby was in the works. There were more reviews from the different USAR functions, blah blah... This is where we approved RIM. It was so insignificant, the only note I have on it is "USA Rugby sponsorship will term out and move to RIM." It was a way to commercialize rugby and it sounded like a step forward. My other Texas partner didn't even have it in her notes. Looking back, I realize that I had no idea what I was agreeing to. There was minimal explanation. I only learned that it's modeled after US Soccer's United Marketing a couple weeks ago. I don't know what other National Governing Bodies own these private companies, what the legalities are, nor how well they have worked historically. I still don't.
We also found out that there hadn't been action in the committees because Nigel had asked a few Congress members to review all of them. The review wasn't thorough enough, so he asked for them to continue. We set specific deadlines to get the work done.
One tidbit I gathered was that the IRB, now World Rugby, had identified that we have trouble with attrition and gave USAR a grant of $100k to assess our recruiting and retention. I thought that was money well spent because I struggle with it every day at the adult level.
There was again no action on getting new Congressmen on committees between semiannual meetings. The deadlines came and went with little notice. To be fair, I could have been way more proactive, but was working, coaching a high school team and had 2 kids under 2 at home. No excuse... but there's my excuse. I assume that the rest of Congress is busy working locally as well, so their national responsibilities becomes out-of-sight-out-of-mind unless they are already on an active committee with regular conference calls and firm leadership.
My term should have been up at that point but the TRU hadn't replaced me yet. I flew to the home office in Boulder for my 3rd and likely final meeting recently. Colorado in summer, much better! Once again it started with a 'hoo-rah' session about how great everything is. Two Olympic qualifying teams, a RWC qualifying team, the creation of the American Six Nations tournament, the pro league being almost a reality, etc.
As I mentioned before, USA Rugby had restructured, so we took the time to update the bylaws. There wasn't much substance change, just renaming the IRB World Rugby and Territorial Unions Geographical Unions.
The best part for me was heading the results of the recruiting and retention study. Basically, we attrit 50% of our high school players every year with only a small fraction playing in college. We recruit a bunch in college just to lose 50% again each year. A small fraction go on the adult teams where we only lose 45% each year. The major culprit is that no one communicates between the silos. All the restructuring that happened in the years before I got there seems to have indeed created silos of isolation. My immediate thought was, "WTF am I doing wasting my time trying to fix this mess nationally. I need to be fixing it at the local level. I can get my local schools talking to colleges and talking to clubs. USA Rugby will do dumb things in the name of progress, so it's up to me fix my home town."
We spent the rest of the day brainstorming for the Strategic Plan that I'd tried to be a part of the previous year. All our ideas were to be compiled by a full timer and turned into a plan. Most everyone was distracted by the USA Canada game that was streaming on over half the mobile devises in the room. I can't say I was proud of the quality work we put in.
This meeting was attended by about half the Board, but the others who were in town the day before didn't stay. This is the first time I'd really interacted with any of them as a Congress member. A couple had given presentations and fielded questions at other meetings, but never had they "mingled" before. My general impression was that they don't get the daily struggles of club admin. Their focus is on corporate America.
Finally, we talked about committees. The review was much more thorough with a terms of reference provided for most. There still were some open actions, and again Congress was firm in setting deadlines. Nigel committed to them. Alas, no process has been established to get the free workforce of Congress working. I did get queried about joining the Club Strategic Committee from the chairman who is a local Texan I've known for a few years. I told him I wasn't interested because I'd already decided to champion breaking down the silos in Houston and not worry about the national scene anymore.
So, that's it for my stint in Congress.
Here are more of my editorial comments about the people/groups and their actions:
Nigel: I've approached him several times to try and strike up a conversation (first time meeting him was 2011 at the first and only Director of Rugby Course), but I never really got him to engage. He always seemed like he had someplace he'd rather be or someone more important to chat up. I'm not suggesting I don't like him because he gave me the cold shoulder, but I've never seen him as an inspirational leader. I would expect someone in his position to be more engaging. "Tell me what you do in rugby? What are your difficulties with...? Have you contacted so and so who has dealt with similar problems? What can I do to help you?" I almost envision a salesy politician shaking hands, kissing babies and spreading the gospel of rugby. His vision really is to make American fall in love with rugby but how is a mystery to me!
Here are more of my editorial comments about the people/groups and their actions:
Nigel: I've approached him several times to try and strike up a conversation (first time meeting him was 2011 at the first and only Director of Rugby Course), but I never really got him to engage. He always seemed like he had someplace he'd rather be or someone more important to chat up. I'm not suggesting I don't like him because he gave me the cold shoulder, but I've never seen him as an inspirational leader. I would expect someone in his position to be more engaging. "Tell me what you do in rugby? What are your difficulties with...? Have you contacted so and so who has dealt with similar problems? What can I do to help you?" I almost envision a salesy politician shaking hands, kissing babies and spreading the gospel of rugby. His vision really is to make American fall in love with rugby but how is a mystery to me!
I've only had limited interaction when it comes to actual decision making and task execution. He's been terrible at managing what would seem to be a simple review of the committees. My outside perspective on his decision making is based on his coaching choices. Friday seems to be a great choice though a year later than it could have been made. The rest of his coaching choices are suspect.
The Board of Directors: I view them as competent professionals but they have limited time to engage the Congress and they either don't try or struggle at it. Someone pointed out that one owns the baseball park in San Fran and that's where the Sevens World Cup will be. I don't know how I feel about that. Is the board swaying USA Rugby to benefit themselves financially or are they pulling strings to benefit USA Rugby financially?
USA Rugby employees: Passionate and underpaid or we're getting what we pay for. It's a mix.
Congress: Passionate people who want to do good things. They're time is divided. I believe an effective leader could cut the red tape and get good results. We don't have many of those. Most are doing great things in their own unions, conferences and state-based organizations. I've heard some comments that Congress isn't representative. I disagree. We are. I encourage everyone one of you to look up your rep and send them a message if you have a question or concern. I've solicited comments via email and I do a small amount travel to be available for comments/questions. I've only heard from about 3 people in my whole union.
USA Rugby's trajectory: I don't know what the vision is or what the values are that should guide our decision-making. I've actually written some of the values presented at each Congress meeting in my notes and they're different each time. The Army Values are clear and drilled into every soldier. My companies values are published on every wall and publication in the building. The terrible company I worked for between the two didn't have any of that, so note the adjective I described it with.
Yes, rugby in the US is better now than it ever had been, but if you benchmark against others, we aren't growing as fast. One of the USA Rugby employees wrote a long list of all of the successes we've had. There are a lot! But there was no clear pattern. There were feats that happened years ago and haven't been repeated. Argentina and Japan used to be peers and now they're pulling away in 15s. You can say that 7s is most improved but that all happened in the second half of one series. I'll call it a trend if it carries through this World Series and the Olympics. And then I'll attribute it to a simple change in leadership and wonder what would happen if we changed out some leaders.
The Board of Directors: I view them as competent professionals but they have limited time to engage the Congress and they either don't try or struggle at it. Someone pointed out that one owns the baseball park in San Fran and that's where the Sevens World Cup will be. I don't know how I feel about that. Is the board swaying USA Rugby to benefit themselves financially or are they pulling strings to benefit USA Rugby financially?
USA Rugby employees: Passionate and underpaid or we're getting what we pay for. It's a mix.
Congress: Passionate people who want to do good things. They're time is divided. I believe an effective leader could cut the red tape and get good results. We don't have many of those. Most are doing great things in their own unions, conferences and state-based organizations. I've heard some comments that Congress isn't representative. I disagree. We are. I encourage everyone one of you to look up your rep and send them a message if you have a question or concern. I've solicited comments via email and I do a small amount travel to be available for comments/questions. I've only heard from about 3 people in my whole union.
USA Rugby's trajectory: I don't know what the vision is or what the values are that should guide our decision-making. I've actually written some of the values presented at each Congress meeting in my notes and they're different each time. The Army Values are clear and drilled into every soldier. My companies values are published on every wall and publication in the building. The terrible company I worked for between the two didn't have any of that, so note the adjective I described it with.
Yes, rugby in the US is better now than it ever had been, but if you benchmark against others, we aren't growing as fast. One of the USA Rugby employees wrote a long list of all of the successes we've had. There are a lot! But there was no clear pattern. There were feats that happened years ago and haven't been repeated. Argentina and Japan used to be peers and now they're pulling away in 15s. You can say that 7s is most improved but that all happened in the second half of one series. I'll call it a trend if it carries through this World Series and the Olympics. And then I'll attribute it to a simple change in leadership and wonder what would happen if we changed out some leaders.
My final comment is about the recruitment and retention study. It makes it very clear that there's something wrong. We cannot continue to lose half of our players every year. I'm coming to the conclusion that the system is cobbled together by struggling leaders to keep strong factions from tearing the whole thing apart. We are floundering in a broken, fragmented system, and I'm convinced there's a better way to do things. We need strong leadership and clear vision that can unite our efforts!
Dave Yeoman
Houston, TX
11/11/2015
Editor's Note: The views stated here may not directly reflect the views of RuckBottom. However, RuckBottom accepts that a reasonable voice should be heard, especially if the perspective is different. We've known Dave Yeoman for several years and always known him to be a staunch supporter of rugby. His voice has always been heard above the din at every rugby event to take place at BBVA Compass Stadium (yes, including Houston 7s)! We wish him the best and hope he will soon write about some of the success he achieves promoting and improving the Houston Rugby Community.
Dave Yeoman
Houston, TX
11/11/2015
Editor's Note: The views stated here may not directly reflect the views of RuckBottom. However, RuckBottom accepts that a reasonable voice should be heard, especially if the perspective is different. We've known Dave Yeoman for several years and always known him to be a staunch supporter of rugby. His voice has always been heard above the din at every rugby event to take place at BBVA Compass Stadium (yes, including Houston 7s)! We wish him the best and hope he will soon write about some of the success he achieves promoting and improving the Houston Rugby Community.