Daily Deacon

Wake Forest Rugby Team Continues to Grow as it Moves in New Direction // David Blue

One of Wake Forest’s oldest club sports, rugby has been a presence on campus since 1973. Rugby is not associated with the NCAA, so it only exists as a club sport at the collegiate level as a part of USA Rugby. However, while it may be a club sport, there is no lack of competitiveness, according to junior player Tim Petersen.

“Most of the guys have played rugby for multiple years before coming to college,” Petersen explained. “Many of us played for competitive Catholic high schools, and that competitive nature still exists here.”

First year assistant coach Doug Porter, fresh off of a 20 year stint at the University of Georgia, emphasized that his experience at Wake is different from that of other schools because of how the Wake program is mostly run by the students.

“This is a student run team, and I think they learn more that way,” Porter said. “They do all of the setup for practices and games, and organize optional workouts. All us coaches do is run the drills at practice, as a sanity check.”

Coach Porter then went on to explain that the student run nature of the team does lead to a widespread variety of seriousness, but in the end he sees that the commitment is still there. According to him, this level of commitment is necessary for an average week that consists of two practices and two games.

Since 2011, Wake Forest had been in the Division I Atlantic Coast Rugby League (ACLR), featuring teams from the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), according to the Wake Forest University Men’s Rugby website. However, this past, the ACLR disbanded, according to the website. Former ACLR commissioner and Wake rugby coach Pat Kane had the following to say about the dissolution of the conference, via the website:

“One of the bedrock principles upon which the ACRL was founded in 2011 was that teams should do what is best for them. We reached a point this year where a number of teams felt that the conference was no longer what was best for them and our member teams are therefore moving onto different existing or new conferences.”

Instead of moving to another Division I conference, Wake Forest decided to move to the Division II Southern Rugby Conference. Junior player Mark Bernstein felt that this was a much needed move for the program, giving them a better chance to compete.

“Being a smaller program, this move should help us out a lot,” explained Bernstein. “We’re feeling confident. We could be one of the best teams in Division II.”

Head coach and Wake Forest grad student Chris Alderman echoed this sentiment, adding “We’re in a conference where we feel like we can do some damage now, playing in the Southern Conference.”

This past Saturday, Wake Forest played their first exhibition matches of the spring in a round-robin style 7v7 tournament against fellow Southern Rugby Conference foes UNC-Greensboro and Guilford. Score was not recorded, but that didn’t mean the games were devoid of excitement, according to Daniel Sechtin, a Wake Forest senior who decided to spend his Saturday watching the games.

“This is my first rugby game ever, and I don’t really know what is going on, but you can feel the energy from the sidelines,” Sechtin said. “I always knew it was a physical sport, but seeing it in person takes it to a whole new level. I definitely want to return to another game before I graduate.”

There were about thirty spectators at the matches on Saturday, which is more than usual, according to Mark Bernstein. “As the program continues to grow, so will the fan base,” Bernstein said.