15 November 2006

Longwood men’s rugby team wins state championship

The Longwood Rugby Team celebrates the win against ODU in the finals of the Ed Lee Cup

The Longwood University men’s rugby team is state champs.

The team captured its division of the Virginia Rugby Union (VRU) by defeating Old Dominion 49-0 in the finals of the Ed Lee Cup on Nov. 5 in Richmond. The day before, the Longwood squad beat William & Mary 62-0 in the semifinals.

“The winner of the tournament is declared the Union champ,” said Dr. John Graham, the coach and adviser for the Longwood Men’s Rugby Club. “You have to qualify for the tournament, which started in 1975 and is named for the late founder of the Virginia Rugby Union. Four teams from each of the nine divisions compete in the tournament. We’re one of six teams that compete in the Men’s Club Division III, one of three men’s club divisions, which has no connection to the NCAA’s Division III. Other than Hampden-Sydney, we’re the smallest team, in male enrollment, of all teams in any division of the VRU.”

The Longwood team won all eight of its regular season games, outscoring opponents 361-22 and recording five shutouts. The team will play Penn State Berks, champion of the Eastern Pennsylvania Rugby Union, on Nov. 19 in Baltimore for the Mid-Atlantic Territorial championship. The winner of that game advances to the national championship tournament, to be played in late April at Wake Forest, for which four teams, all of them territorial champs, qualify.

Todd Miller scoring a try against ODU

The team captain is Justin Mulkey, a senior business administration major from Poquoson. This year’s leading scorer is Todd Miller, a junior business administration major from Springfield, who scored more than 100 points. Both were selected to the VRU’s all-star team, called the Select Side.

Why has the team been so successful? “We have a lot of seniors – nine of the 15 starters are seniors – and have a mature group of people,” said Graham, assistant professor of computer science. “They don’t get rattled. We have chemistry and experience. We found the right people at the right positions.”

Longwood has had a men’s rugby club since 1979, but Graham, who came to Longwood in the fall of 2005, is the first coach. He coached last year’s team, which also was undefeated during the regular season (7-0) and lost in the semifinals of the state tournament to Virginia Commonwealth University, which ended up finishing fourth in the nation. The Longwood team had last won the state tournament in 2004. Rugby is one of several club sports at Longwood.

“Longwood doesn’t offer academic or athletic scholarships for rugby,” said Graham, a longtime rugby player, coach and referee. “We get $5,000 from student government, members pay $75 in dues per semester, and their moms and dads contribute another couple thousand dollars. The annual budget is about $10,000. We have about 40 dues-paying members.”

Virginia Rugby Union teams play their league matches in the fall, from the third week of September through early November, and non-league games in the spring. The Longwood team plays at First Avenue Field, a few blocks from campus. “Last year we tied U.Va., and we’ve played other big schools, including Georgia Tech, the Georgia Southern University and Wake Forest,” said Graham.”

The VRU is one of three unions that comprise the Mid-Atlantic Territory, one of seven territories in the United States Rugby Union. “The Virginia Rugby Union is one of the oldest and biggest unions in the country,” Graham said.

Rugby, the second most popular sport in the world, is a 15-on-15 game roughly similar to football, though Graham, who has played both sports, said that rugby is “much safer” despite the fact that players don’t wear helmets or pads. It’s played on a field 120 meters (about 132 yards) long and 65 meters (about 70 yards) wide, about the dimensions of a soccer field. There are two 40-minute halves, and, like in soccer, there are limited substitutions and no time-outs, though the game is stopped for injuries and that time is added on to each half. The ball is “oblong and pointy and shaped like a fat American football,” Graham said.

“You advance the ball by carrying or kicking it forward, but you can’t pass it forward; only lateral passes,” he said. “After every tackle, which is like a tackle in football, is a fumble, the player must let the ball go. It’s like a fumble every play. Everyone plays offense and defense. It’s the highest rate of cardiovascular exercise of any sport. The average rugby player runs for 30 minutes during a game, as opposed to seven minutes for a football player and 15 minutes for a soccer player. There are about 200 plays in a rugby game, as opposed to 120 plays in football. In a football game, seven or eight tackles is considered good, but good tacklers in rugby make about 30 tackles a game.”

There are four ways to score. A “try” (five points), similar to a touchdown in football, is when the ball crosses the goal-line and is touched down. It’s followed by conversion (two points), in which the ball is kicked over the goal-post crossbar from where the try occurred. The most serious of three infractions results in a penalty kick (three points), either a place-kick or drop-kick over the crossbar. Also, a drop-kick (three points) can be attempted any time during open play.

Graham played the sport from 1970, as an undergraduate at U.Va., until four or five years ago. He estimates that he played about 1,500 games in at least eight foreign countries, among them Japan and New Zealand. He has coached 25 years and is a United States-certified referee who has refereed 20 years, including matches in three foreign countries. The fact that he speaks French once came in handy while refereeing a match between France and Italy. He was president of the Palmetto Rugby Union in South Carolina and started four teams, four of which are still in existence.

He also advises and coaches the Longwood Women’s Rugby Club. “They are separate clubs, but we have joint practices and play a lot of the same teams.”

Graham said the physical nature of the sport appeals to him. “It’s definitely physical; you get to hit people, which is fun. Surprisingly, though, it’s a game that you can play for a long time. I also like the fact that it’s so popular all over the world. I was literally driving through the French countryside one day, saw a game in progress, and I stopped and joined the game.”

Interestingly, Graham is the grandson of the man for whom the Graham Building on campus was named, the late Samuel L. Graham III, Longwood’s business manager for 26 years. “His daughter – my aunt – Sarah Graham, who lives in Laurel, Mississippi, is a 1952 Longwood graduate, and my daughter, Sarah Graham Porter of Richmond, who has a Ph.D. in chemistry from VCU, will teach here in the spring. So, that’s four generations of Grahams at Longwood,” he said.