This feature originally appeared in the 2022 Winter edition of the Cal Sports Quarterly. The Cal Athletics flagship magazine features long-form sports journalism at its finest and provides in-depth coverage of the scholar-athlete experience in Berkeley. Printed copies are mailed four times a year to Bear Backers who give annually at the Bear Club level (currently $600 or more). For more information on how you can receive a printed version of the Cal Sports Quarterly at home, send an email to CalAthleticsFund@berkeley.edu or call (510) 642-2427.




Founded in 1882, California rugby is not only the University's oldest intercollegiate sport, but it is also the most successful, winning 33 national championships since 1980.
 
But what has propelled the rugby program to become so successful? Is it the high expectations set forth by head coach Jack Clark and associate head coach Tom Billups, both U.S. Rugby Hall of Famers and former head coaches of the national team? Is it the unmatched professional environment that cultivates a breeding ground for successful people both in the sport and in the business world? Yes to both. But both of those elements are bricks to a house which is built upon a larger foundational structure of culture.
 
One of the cornerstones of Cal rugby's culture is service to the program, a tradition that spans back to Miles "Doc" Hudson, who coached the team from 1938-74 on what was said to be a $1 annual salary. Ned Anderson followed Hudson from 1975-83 and kept the same volunteer compensation plan. Clark carried on this practice, earning the same proverbial dollar per year for the first 10 years of his tenure before the position transitioned into a full-time role. Furthermore, throughout the years, many former players have given their time to help assist the team in various capacities. The latest examples are Seamus Kelly, Jake Anderson and Dave Liebowitz, who are all part-time volunteers currently working with the team.
 
A former All-American, national champion in both XVs and 7s, and U.S. National Team player who owns the rare distinction of being a three-time captain at Cal, Kelly is helping the Golden Bears with core handling skills. Taking time away from his job as vice president at Jefferies (equities sales and trading), Kelly is helping the team break down passing and catching to its most basic building blocks.
 
"Anyone who would reflect back on their time in the rugby program and think about some of the successes that they're currently experiencing, they would be able to trace a lot of that back to some of the lessons that were ingrained in their time at Cal," Kelly said. "That realization is a massive contributor to that culture of wanting to give back."
 
Although he is helping the current student-athletes, Kelly believes he is still the benefactor of the program's teachings.
 
"I still believe I am the beneficiary of the lessons the program is teaching," Kelly said. "I get to be back in that orbit and hear those lessons again at this stage in my life and career. Seeing coach Billups and coach Clark diagnose operational execution and cultural problems on the fly is still something I feel really grateful to experience now. Although I am volunteering now, the program is providing me with more than I could ever give back to it."
 
However, neither Kelly, Anderson nor Liebowitz are the first Cal rugby alumni to give their time back to the program. All three witnessed others before them volunteering their time while they were student-athletes at Cal.
 
Liebowitz, now a senior vice president/financial consultant at UBS, is a former All-American and two-time national champion with the Bears in 1991 and 1992. At Cal, he made a strong connection with Bob Witter Sr., who served a long tenure as the chairman of the California Rugby Advisory Board. He was succeeded by Bud Lyons, who himself has achieved a similarly long tenure as chairman. In his undergraduate days, Bob Sr. was one of 14 Witters to have played on the rugby team. The Witters, having been a part of Cal for more than a century, are legendary for their philanthropic contributions within the rugby program to include rugby's field being christened Witter Rugby Field.
 
"There was a special connection and admiration for Cal rugby alumni and their willingness to help us," Liebowitz said. "Bob Witter was the first person who helped me start my professional career. Cal rugby has been an integral part of everything I've done in my life, and it feels great to be able to give back. When asked to come back and help manage the team, I took it as an honor."
 
Ross Biestman is another example of a rugby alumnus who returned to help the program as an assistant coach. Now a chief revenue officer, the former All-
 
American and 2007 graduate is one of the people who inspired Anderson to volunteer his time as a backs and assistant sevens team coach. He later interned for Biestman after leaving Cal and decided to follow him into a profession in technology.
 
Anderson, also a former national champion in both 7s and XVs, an All-American, captain and U.S. National Team member, is now the Director of North America Enterprise Sales at Dialpad.

The consistent occurrence of players returning helps foster an environment which rugby players continually give back to the program.
 
"How long the program has been around and how successful it has been carries a weight in it of itself," Anderson said. "As long as coaches Clark and Billups are around the program, they will create players that want to be upstanding men who give back in some shape or form."
 
"As a former Cal rugby player myself, I believe we all feel indebted to the program," Clark said. "Service back to the team is one of the ways the debt is paid forward."
 
The foundational culture of service within the Cal rugby program is one of many reasons for its success both on and off the field. The program's achievements come, in part, because its members continue to pass down this culture from generation to generation.
 
"If I can add value in some way, that's what I'd like to do," Liebowitz said. "Hopefully, we will be an example for the current players and they will want to give back after their graduation from Cal."
 
Perhaps Kelly summed it up best when he said that "for any organization, whether in athletics or in the business world to be successful long term, there has to be a strong presence of culture and a sense of responsibility of leaving something in a better place than how you found it. That is a desire that every Cal rugby freshman needs to have when they enter the program. That is the key to Cal rugby's continued success for the next 100-plus years."