UPDATED SEPTEMBER 5, 2015
CHICAGO – Golden Bears coach Tom Billups was inducted Friday into the U.S. Rugby Hall of Fame on the eve of the international test match between the United States and Australia.
“Everyone from the University of California is proud to congratulate Tom Billups for his Hall of Fame induction,” said Director of Athletics Mike Williams. “We celebrate his particular commitment to the intercollegiate rugby program, where his contributions to student-athlete success on and off the field are as highly valued as his many achievements in international rugby.”
“I am deeply honored to receive this recognition,” Billups said. “As an amateur and professional international player I was very fortunate to have outstanding teammates beside me, inspiring coaches teaching me and competitions that challenged me. To the legions of teammates and coaching staffs, home and abroad, my heartfelt thank you. To the Cal rugby men, past and present, whom I have had the privilege to coach, I am forever grateful.”
A former U.S. international player and head coach of the U.S. National Team, Billups completed his 16th season as coach at California in 2014-15. During that period since 2000, the Bears have won 10 national collegiate championships in 15s and three national 7s titles with Billups an instrumental contributor to the team's success.
“We are all bursting with pride for Tom,” said Cal head coach Jack Clark. “This is such a well-earned distinction and acknowledgement. I believe Tom is the first inductee into the U.S. Rugby Hall of Fame who has the credentials for inclusion as both an athlete and a coach.”
In addition to their national collegiate championships, Billups has worked with Clark on the All Marine Rugby Team in 2006 and 2007, and on multiple tours with the United States Collegiate All-Americans.
In support of student-athletes' postgraduate pursuits, Billups worked closely with the two most recent Bears, Derek Asbun and Jason Law, to find pathways into Oxford University, where both earned their Varsity Blues vs. Cambridge while completing postgraduate studies. “Coach Billups was pivotal in helping us prepare not only to seize the opportunity, but to be mentally and physically prepared for the challenge of competing abroad,” said Asbun, who played alongside Law, a fellow former Cal co-captain, in Oxford's 2011 win at Twickenham before earning a postgraduate degree and playing for the U.S. National Team.
A Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (C.S.C.S) since 2000 through the National Strength and Conditioning Association, Billups has also been in charge of Cal rugby's strength & conditioning program since 2003, using his expertise to utilize the potential of the Simpson Center for Student-Athlete High Performance and its 142,000 square feet of applied sports science in the Bears' regimen.
Billups' early years at Cal overlapped with his tenure as head coach of U.S. National 15s Team, which he helmed from December 2001-2005. His appointment as head coach of the USA Eagles followed his leadership of the Collegiate All-American team, for which he was head coach in 2001; the 2003 Rugby World Cup; and his role as head coach of the U.S. National 7s Team, which he led at the 2005 World Games.
Billups' coaching tenure on the U.S. National 15s Team ended with 12 international test victories, including a record-setting seven wins in 2003, a campaign which included the USA's biggest win ever over rival Canada. At the Rugby World Cup that year, Billups' team beat Japan for the USA's first win at the RWC since 1987.
“The pride and passion he felt, both in the honor and responsibility of representing our country, resonated with everyone,” said Matt Sherman, the Army head coach and former Cal All-American and U.S. international who was coached by Billups at both levels.
“Coach Billups embodies everything U.S. rugby and the game of rugby stands for: hard work, grit, professionalism and an undying commitment to improvement,” said Kort Schubert, the 2002 Cal Athlete of the Year and a Bear for five consecutive national collegiate championship seasons, during which time he embarked on a 49-match U.S. National Team career.
Born in Burlington, Iowa, Billups was a gridiron football player at Burlington Community High School who went on to compete in football and wrestling at Augustana College in Rock Island, Ill., where he was a two-way lineman for the Vikings as they went undefeated for 50 straight games and won four NCAA National Championships from 1983-86. Billups received the Jerry Freck Award as Augustana's Most Inspirational Player on the gridiron in 1986. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from Augustana in 1987.
Billups began his rugby player career in 1984, during the spring of his sophomore year in college, on the Quad City Irish in Davenport, Iowa. One year later, he helped Quad City Irish to the national club 7s championship title. He went on to play for the Whakatane Marist club in New Zealand and the Old Blues in Northern California, where he was a part of the 1993 national champion club side and captain of the club in 1995 and '96.
In 1996, Billups became one of the first Americans to earn an overseas professional playing contract when he joined the London Harlequins, where he was named Supporters' Club Player of the Year for the 1997-98 campaign. He followed that tenure with a season in Wales on the Pontypridd club in 1998-99.
Jason Leonard OBE, a former Harlequin and British Lion whose 119 international appearances as a prop for England included its 2003 Rugby World Cup championship, said, “Billups had all the attributes to play as a modern-day hooker: strength, speed and a huge stamina. He was the fittest player on the team.” The president-elect of England Rugby (RFU) set to take office this summer, Leonard shared Billups' advice to younger teammates when they competed together on the Harlequins: “He told them that just because they were being paid, that doesn't mean you are a professional. A professional, he said, wants to improve as a player and a person every day of his life. To be better every day than the day before, that's what being a professional meant to Tom.”
At the representative level, Billups played for All Iowa, the Midwest U-23s, Midwest Thunderbirds, Northern California Pelicans, Pacific Coast Grizzlies, U.S. Cougars and the Major Stanley XV (an international all-star team) in addition to his selections to the U.S. national teams.
“When we selected Tom on the national team, we knew we were getting an excellent player and an even better teammate and man, but I am not sure we could have predicted then the Hall of Fame,” coach Clark commented. “I mention this because after Rugby World Cup 1999, when I asked Tom to come into coaching, it was clear to everyone the impact he was going to make on the profession and the teams he coached. From the moment he began coaching, this passage could have been predicted.”
As a national-team player, Billups made 27 appearances on the U.S. 7s team at eight international tournaments, including the Hong Kong Sevens, between 1989-94, captaining the squad at the Sicily Sevens in 1993; and made 44 international appearances as a hooker on the U.S. 15s team, captaining the side for 12 matches in the 1998 season and playing at the 1999 Rugby World Cup.
“Tom has proven at every level what we want and, more importantly, need to be great as a country,” said Dan Lyle, also a former U.S. international player and trailblazer for Americans earning international recognition as rugby professionals. Now an executive at United World Sports, Lyle said, “Tom Billups continues to be the consummate pro and asset to American rugby.”
Paul Emerick, a fellow Iowan whom Billups selected in 2003 to the first of his 53 matches on the U.S. National Team, said he is forever thankful to Billups “for identifying and developing a young man plucked from the cornfields. His passion, enthusiasm, attention to detail and dedication to the game of rugby is contagious.”
His Midwest roots and international accomplishments notwithstanding, Billups has been claimed by the Blue and Gold faithful as part of the Rugby Bears' unparalleled staff. “Although Tom is a proud Augustana College man, we have very much adopted him at Cal, so there is pride for our University and team,” Clark said. “To have a coaching staff with Tom and Mike MacDonald, the most-capped international player in U.S. history, along with Jerry Figone, is pretty damn great. This is a time for us to feel really appreciative and proud.”
With his induction, Billups became the 13th member of the Cal rugby program to enter the U.S. Rugby Hall of Fame, joining Clark, who was inducted in 2014; former head coach Miles “Doc” Hudson, who led the program from 1938-74; player Colby “Babe” Slater, a two-time Olympic gold medalist; and nine other Cal players – George Davis, George Fish, Matt Hazeltine, Charles Mehan, Charles Tilden and James Winston in 1920, followed by Ed Graff, George Dixon and Ed Turkington in 1924 – whose USA Olympic gold-medal teams were previously inducted.
