BERKELEY – Following their requests to observe California rugby during its spring 15s training camp, several coaches representing collegiate varsity programs down to middle-school youth teams have been granted access to the Golden Bears' two-a-day trainings and meetings, and everything in between, on the campus of the University.
Welcomed during the week of January 5 were two varsity coaches from the Northeast in Sue Parker, head coach of the women's rugby program at Harvard; and Bob Weggler, the director of rugby and men's head coach at Norwich University (VT). Halfway through week two, the Rugby Bears had a visit by two alumni coaches from the Cal Class of 1992: Dave Liebowitz, an All-America loosehead prop as a Bear and now head coach of the Danville Oaks Middle School team; and Jon Beck, an All-America lock for the Bears who is a Middle School assistant coach for the Oaks.
These visitors were followed on Wednesday by Cal women's lacrosse head coach Brooke Eubanks, who spent a morning observing a team meeting and training session to capture aspects of the Rugby Bears' culture and messaging that could translate into her coaching with the Bears lacrosse team.
“We receive a lot of visitors, from international and professional to youth coaches,” said head coach Jack Clark. “Sometimes we're more the beneficiaries of the exchange, while other times we are more the provider. No matter the circumstance, we feel an obligation both to learn and to share.”
Coach Parker, who joined the Crimson in 2013 as the first coach of the women's varsity rugby program in Cambridge, said that she aspired to build Harvard into “the gold standard for women's programs.” An alumna of the University of Maryland and holder of a JD from Virginia Law School, Parker was previously the head coach of the women's program at Navy. “Seasonal planning, practice planning, team meetings, team culture – I want to take some of everything we've been generously shown back to add to our playbook as we grow as a varsity program,” she said.
Coach Parker noted the universal traits she sees at Cal that all high-performance outfits strive to cultivate: “We all share a quest for excellence in every facet of our beings, something that I appreciated in all I've seen and heard at Cal. There is not detail that is left unconsidered, and that's something that we teach every day to our players, something I believe forms the foundation for a lifetime of success.”
Asked for the most influential aspect of her visit, Parker answered, “The level of attention to detail, how that impacts preparation and performance, really stood out. There's an actual study of the game, understanding it at its root level, that is expressed to the team in ways it can take on. Even from the operational side, it's a 360-degree approach to high performance that impressed me the most.”
Also making a visit to Witter Rugby Field and lunch with the student-athletes was Harvard's junior captain, Hope Schwartz, who has immersed herself in the game as a collegian after graduating from Oakland Tech as a soccer student-athlete.
“To spend time with such an established program was a great learning experience and will be valuable to bring back to our team,” said Schwartz, a forward. “There's clearly a lot of trust between the coaches and players, a clearly defined team culture that is something every team needs to have. To see how well integrated that was into the team's activities was very interesting.”
Coach Weggler, who has guided both the men's and women's programs into varsity statuses as the director of rugby at Norwich, explained, “I wanted to see how another university, particularly one as successful as Cal, works with its team and its coaches to conduct meetings and 'install systems,' as coach Clark calls them.”
Having earned his undergraduate degree at Cornell and an M.Ed. in Educational Leadership from Vermont College of Union Institute, Weggler has been the head coach for the men's program for 14 years, dating back to the Cadets' 2002 participation the Cal Invitational hosted by the Rugby Bears. “Given this access,” he said, “it's not hard to see why they are so successful. One reason is Jack's and all the coaches' organization and professionalism.”
This week, the team was visited on Tuesday by two alumni, Dave Liebowitz and Jon Beck, who are coaching middle schoolers locally on the Danville Oaks.
In his fourth year as the Oaks middle school head coach, Liebowitz vouched that “youth rugby is exploding – our middle school team has 70 kids this year. We want to start implementing the process for them to be learning from a young age.”
A two-year Bear who played loosehead prop for coach Clark who arrived in Berkeley as a baseball student-athlete, Liebowitz said, “It really helps to be back, talk to Jack and get mentally prepared with things I can take back to them team. The best way for these kids to compete at a high level is to implement things at the youth level. To use the same terminology throughout from U-8 up through our varsity teams, to develop their skill sets with uniformity – that's our goal.”
Beck, a former Cal lock who is serving as assistant coach in his first year with Danville, expressed gratitude for the open access to his alma mater's facilities, Witter Rugby Field among them.
“It's always good to come home and be back in the center of the universe, as we call it,” Beck said. “The opportunity to observe the advancements in the science of the game, the techniques, and see what we can take and translate from the collegiate level down to middle school – which is a lot, by the way – is invaluable. It's what we see not just on the field but also in the meeting rooms that are equally important. The concepts of culture and accountability, not just as buzzwords but as indoctrination, are huge. Kids that we coach at age 11, 12 and 13 are seeking them out, too.”
First-year lacrosse head coach Brooke Eubanks had a similar goal during her Wednesday visit to consider culture and messenging that could benefit her team, which begins its spring season February 22 at Notre Dame. “Sitting in the meeting, you can see the attention to detail, the verbal responses to confirm things are being heard and understood,” she said. “Some of the terminology offers me a new perspective on how to re-identify things we do and some new things we could add. On the field, that same organization and attention to detail are things you wish for as a coach, and it's nice to see it implemented and encouraged. No detail is too small to take into account.”
A former captain and three-time World Cup player on the Canadian Senior National Team, Eubanks became the Bears head coach following successful eras as an assistant coach at Stanford and George Mason, and a player at James Madison. Coach Eubanks explained, “There's so much to be learned, not only being new to Cal, but being a first-year head coach, and I want to learn from everyone around me. You can relate your sport to any other sport and learn.”
Clark said that any instinct to consider these visits as impositions on the team's schedule would be a huge miss on the importance of sharing best practices between programs. “I almost can't count all the opportunities I was provided, and am still provided, to observe and shadow coaches doing their thing,” he added. “It's only right to pay the opportunity forward.”
Week two of training camp continues down the homestretch, with twice-daily meetings and trainings joined by strength & conditioning sessions, as Cal prepares to depart Friday for its season openers Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 17-18, at UCLA's Dennis Storer Classic. The early-season tournament begins what the Bears hope will be a successful spring 15s campaign.
After Cal finishes the 15s season at the Penn Mutual Varsity Cup National Championships, televised nationally on NBC, it competes at the Penn Mutual Collegiate Rugby Championship 7s, also on NBC, in the form of the game that will feature as a medal sport at the 2016 Summer Olympics, the world's most-watched sporting event.
