Paying Our Dues

Five matches into the season and no wins. I know how disappointing it is for our program for all the work we put in, practicing three times a week and all.

We are young. Two seniors start, then after that it's a few juniors and eighth graders and a bunch of kids new to rugby. The part that bothers the coaches though are the inconsistencies at training. But this too can be expected, academic and family demands, some job stuff, etc.

I know of no other sport that puts such a premium on experience. It's not the kind of game where you just show up from time to time and are great at it. Timing, confidence and most of all teamwork play into the equation of how well a team does. There are so many moving parts to this violent game that the analogy "full contact chess" really applies.

Last year our only win came against Berkeley Rhinos. On Saturday, a seemingly new Berkeley program rammed it down our throat on our pitch. Berkeley looked like they found 20 new experienced good rugby players. They were big and physical.

We don't have immediate solutions. I know the kids and coaches will just keep working hard.

As a player I have been on my share of great teams and struggling teams. We are trying to teach these kids that regardless of wins and losses that we are a true team and will keep working to improve. The foundation is being laid.

Know what we will do Monday at training? Run sprints all over the park, including up a steep hill I have dubbed "Mt. Soni" after the head coach, and get ready for our match Saturday against Alameda.

"Team Mom" Averts "Lord of The Flies" Situation

Ah....group dynamics. Ugh.....uber-male, testosterone-fueled, rugby, group dynamics.

We here in Warthog-land came off the pitch after our home opener a fairly dour and pissy group. The losing wasn' t the issue. The problem was how we treated each other, our players, the fans, the ref, etc. Delta Rugby had kicked our club in the collective scrotum and we just rolled over.

Volunteers drive our sport, especially the refs. We were fortunate to procure Matt Heafey to ref the match. Matt knew the background about what had happened last year between our club and Delta and how Delta had ended its season. Last year, head Coach Soni had to walk out between the two clubs after some fighting, sit all the kids down and lecture them about conduct on the field and the importance of getting an education. It was amazing, because only the hulking Tongan truck driving coach could have mesmerized kids like that. The match last year ended on a positive note thanks to Soni.

Unfortunately, Delta devolved into anarchy last season when one of its players sucker-punched a ref. The ref was hospitalized and the boy arrested. Such behavior is why rugby has a hard time attracting refs. The on and off-field violence is still pretty rare. The league now has field protocols in place to try to control coaches and spectators.

By the way, I will tell readers the unflinching good, the bad and the ugly about my favorite sport. I will speak my mind about what's good and bad about my favorite sport.

So I told Matt Heafey about what he might be getting involved in and he still agreed to ref. So during the game things weren't going our way and we whined way too much about Matt, who also happened to stick one of our supporters behind a barrier after the supporter verbally lost control on the sidelines. Matt took control of the situation. I dare say our visitors out-classed us that day.

I came to practice Monday night with that heavy-stomach feeling, the kind you might have had seeing your parents argue. But we went through our training and had a pretty good session.

So at the end of the night the coaches say a few words. But this came out of the mouth of Ms. Lupe, whose sons play for us:

"Remember, you play to have fun."

Saturday: Season Opens in Oakland

Pretty, athletic and a tad violent. Saturday's a rugby day as the Oakland Warthogs high school rugby club hosts Delta Rugby this Saturday at Raimondi Field in West Oakland at 10 a.m. Wear your black and white Warthog colors to support this city-wide, scrappy little, best kept sports secret in the East Bay.

I cringed tonight after I put the team through a little warm-up and grappling practice. Why? Because the head coach Soni then marched them over to "Mount Soni" at Brookdale Park and unleashed on them 20 minutes of running a 30-degree hill. (I have seen my share of rugged sports training but this was like Jerry Rice meets Mike Singletary meets Ultimate Fighting torture.)

We practice three times a week and are coming off two consecutive tune-up games, one against top national high school club Hayward Rugby in which we held tough the first half. We are becoming a team and family in all the best ways. We are truly an Oakland side: Mexican, Tongan, African-American, female, Caucasian, etc.

What makes our side different is our emphasis on taking our kids to the next level, preferably college.

Big Valentine's Kiss For City --We Have a Field!

Wow, what a difference from the last ranting post. Warthogs administrator Ryan Burke informed us today that the City has granted us a permit to host 3 matches this season at Raimondi Field in West Oakland.

Not sure exactly how it happened but I know that Rebecca Kaplan's office worked with Parks and Rec to make this possible. Great thanks to both.

You have no idea what this means to some kids who don't get the standard varsity high school sports experience. Our city-wide players come from Oakland Charter, Skyline, Oakland Tech, Oakland Military, Oakland High School and other schools. It also came about because we had worked on navigating the fields process for close to three years.

The City also gave us a good price, $150 for the total three fixtures. This cost is in-line for what our shoestring budget can afford. Speaking of budget matters, we just received $150 donation from the Oakland law office of Lyle Cavin Jr. and $100 from Oakland lawyer (and rugby ref) Bryant Byrnes Yes, of course, we still need donations to fund our roster of about 25 kids.

These home matches will be:

Saturday, February 27 against Delta Rugby
Saturday, March 13 against Berkeley Rhinos
Saturday, April 24, against Lamorinda Rodents

It appears that the first high school rugby program in Oakland, Oakland Military, has folded. It's a sad day for rugby when a team disappears but we hope to absorb their kids who want to come play.

OUSD, City Conspire to Keep Kids Obese

My apologies for the misleading headline but I am still stewing about the situation for finding practice and game fields for our high school rugby club. We search for a fair way for the City and the School District to allow better access to fields for youth sports.

There is no conspiracy but obstacles abound. On February 18 I will be attending a City Parks and Rec meeting about the future of field use.

Background info for our club team, which provides rugby to under-served and poor kids throughout Oakland. About 80-percent of our team is dirt poor and lives in the Hood. Many do not have access to traditional school sports like many of us had growing up. Every year we deal with the City and the Oakland Schools trying to get game and practice fields in winter. The City does not allow grass field use during the rainy season because it tends to thrash the fields.

So the City has told us that the policy is that we can't make reservations more than a month in advance. The issue with that is that we have to lineup referees and confirm game days with other teams, only 30 days does not allow much advance planning. Our season is February through April.

What really ticked me off is that one of our coaches finally got an audience with Castlemont High about getting on their turf field for a game. (For the record, Oakland High never responds to our annual requests for a field.) Guess how much Castelmont wants? $250 for a few hours on a Saturday. Why? Because the OUSD custodians' union has a minimum fee of 3 hours at $40 per-hour and apparently OUSD wants to profit on the rest.

I am a City resident who pays hefty property taxes like the other coaches who volunteer time for free. Oakland: Do you not get that we want to engage youth in productive outlets??? My nickname for Oakland when it comes to youth sports is "The City of No."

I learned a while ago that it's a good idea not to bitch if you don't have proposed solutions. So here are some ideas for the City dealing with how it assigns field use:

1. Give priority to youth sports. (Adults have more options for recreation.)
2. Give priority to youth sports in the "heart" of their league seasons. A season should be defined as 3 months. Teams need time to sign up for fields far more in advance of 30 days in order to schedule matches and line up referees.
3. There should be a public record or a published calender online of which group has which field when. (Don't let us wonder if a certain group has a field because of "connections" or something unsavory.)
4. If there are competing youth sports trying to get on the same field, alternate the usage. Don't just give field space every year to the most popular youth activity.
5. Look into building more all-weather fields. In the long run they are cheaper than maintaining grass.

To Oakland Unified and especially to the Custodians I say this: Stop being so protective of your literal turf.

Are we not all in this process together of allowing kids more opportunities. Why shouldn't a kid in Oakland have as much opportunity as a kid in Moraga or Orinda?

Fools In The Rain?

The torrential rains killed our practices this week. Part of me understands but the part of me who never missed practice in any sport until I was over 40 found it revolting.

Our numbers are struggling. We do have a grass field but we would have made a mess of it playing in the rain. Dirt would have been shifted and ugly when the Brookdale field dries.

The solution is getting the team on an all-weather turf surface field such as Raimondi but we are still baffled as to who gets those winter practice slots before we get it.

I had wanted kids to show up and run on pavement in the rain. I want to send a message to them that some days suck, in life and in work, and you just need to show up and do your best. I have credentials for such suck it up measures. First, it was 5 years of Pop Warner football, never canceled for any rain, heat, etc. August meant football.

In high school it was four years of wrestling. Not outdoors but all the running, cutting weight, the tortorous practices and while studying in school. My crowning achievement in high school wrestling was going from mediocre to above average, that and the time I lost 9 pounds in less than two days before a match.

Coaching is a balancing act. But Coach Burke and I wonder if we are creating a bunch of softies by not having them run in the rain. Still, do we want to burn someone out by being ogres?

In all my nearly 20 years playing men's club rugby I never had a practice canceled. I remember playing in a game with our flanker on a cold day who had to be pulled because he had such low body-fat that he was shivering.

Sports do also build character and not just reveal it. Next time, we get wet and we run as a team.

Tragic Real-Life Lesson from Coach Isaac

The kids came to practice tonight, not exactly on time but they showed. I had a little venom in me for the initial conditioning session, telling them that they need to be ready when we start training at 5 pm. We had lost 25 minutes or so of valuable time under the lights. We never let them forget that rugby is first and foremost a running game that demands endurance and power.

It was our first night of live contact. We would have preferred to start contact much sooner but now that we are becoming an established program, we had to wait until all the kids and parents signed the necessary waivers to allow tackling. We try to teach them the right way to tackle and go into contact. After all, this is rugby and not football. Leading with your head in tackles in rugby will get you knocked silly and can incur injury if not done correctly. The great thing this season is that on any given night, we have 3 to 5 coaches supervising.

At the end of each practice coaches talk, not just about rugby but about life. Coach Soni asked Jose Pena, a former Warthog player who has made the Cal team, what happens if Cal players are late for training. Jose said that he was late for one Cal training and got a "strike" against him. Two strikes and you might be off the Cal team, Jose said matter-of-factly.

It was Isaac's turn. Just last week Isaac had told the kids that they need to make important life choices. He implored them to go the college-route and avoid hanging out on the corner.

Tonight, Isaac had more urgency in his talk. He told us that he missed practice Monday night because he was at a funeral for a former player of his on the Hayward high school rugby club. He told us that Willie had died of two caps to the chest at 1:30 am while he sat in a parked car with some friends. He talked about Willie's grieving mother. Isaac told them that they better choose their friends with care or they could end up like Willie.

It was a chilling reminder of what life can be for some urban kids. It's why Warthog management insists that our players perform in school. We want them to have options in life, especially ones that include college and improving their lives.

Tonight was about a lot more than rugby. Thank you Isaac for bringing this brutal message to us.