More than Latin...

Perhaps good rugby club mottoes can be more than just Latin. Notre Dame RFC's motto is "Faugh A Ballagh!" , Irish for "Clear the Way!" This motto sound good, plus the motto has a history of its own as the motto of the Irish Brigade during the Civil War.

Wisconsin teams get around...

Winter in Wisconsin is simply unpleasant... with the snow piling up and the bitter cold. Fortunately, for the girls high school rugby community, we can look forward to the spring touring season. While not everything is in place, we're looking forward to sending out our teams to see what they can do.

• The first up-coming tournament is the March 22-23 tournament in Fulerton California. Tony will be leading his new Oak Creek team. Tony led Northshore to victory at the same tournament last year. We all wish Oak Creek luck on its trip.


• Perhaps the real big news of the spring season --Catholic Memorial will be the first club team to tour internationally this April with a trip to Ireland. Arrangements are being made to post updates about the tour on this blog -- hopefully with pictures (and maybe video) -- of some of the action. I am a bit jealous -- so if there are any teams abroad that want to host my club next year, please feel free to leave a comment.


• Also, in April, several Wisconsin teams (tentatively DSHA, KM, and Brookfield) will be traveling to Des Moines for the U19 Girls Rugby Festival. We are all looking forward to an opportunity to play against the challenging competition from around the country at this excellent venue.
• In May, DSHA and Vernon will be filling the Wisconsin #1 and #2 seeds at the Midwest tournament in Elkhart, IN. Hopefully they can repeat their success from last year and keep Wisconsin in the top two spots.
• Also in May, KM is setting up a min-tournament by the Dells between Wisconsin and Minnesota teams. I don't believe the details are final, but its always nice to compete against Minnesota as they always have good clubs.
• Throughout the season, a number of our clubs will be scheduling fixtures with our neighbors to the south. There is a natural rivalry between us Wisconsinites and the flatlanders, so those should be fun matches for all involved. I don't have any details, but as match reports come in, we'll post results.
• It's simply too early to talk about the National Tournament -- but it will be exciting to see how the new USA Rugby sponsored championship will pan out. After years of coaches from across the country banding together to create a National Invitational Tournament, this will be the first USARFU sanctioned event. It will be interesting to see how this works out. Receiving the official nod from the union is a demonstration of how far high school girls rugby has come over the past decade.

All and all it should be a great season. If you are a potential player in Wisconsin -- follow the links to your nearest team and get in the game. Most teams (except for Catholic Memorial and DSHA which are school affiliated), accept players regardless of location or school affiliation.

More Latin mottoes

To expose the sad truth, many of the teams I have been affiliated with have not had Latin mottoes. However, two that I have been affiliated with, in one form or another, share a common theme. The one is Williams College RFC (where I first picked up a ball while watching my brother play) and the other is West Potomac RFC (that first men's club after college). WCRFC's motto is Nihil in Moderato (nothing in moderation) and West Potomac's is Exeedium Universum (Everything in Excess).

Well, these may not be particularly lofty words to live by, but I don't wrtie the mottoes, I just find and publish them to keep busy during the off season.

So you want to tour the states...

I've noticed that about 20% of the traffic on this site actually comes from abroad. If you happen to be connected with a girls high school/U19 club (ages 14-18) and you are interested in coming to the States, we would be glad to help set up hosting with our local clubs. I discussed the idea with a couple of other coaches and I am sure we can find games and hosting arrangements if there are any interested teams out there in the world.

You may not think of Wisconsin as a place to tour, but the reality is we have a 8 teams all within close geographical proximity to Milwaukee. Moreover, our girls high school teams have perennially produced teams in the top 5 at national invitational tournaments.

So, if anyone out there is affiliated with a team and is interested in touring, you can post a comment to this site, and I will be sure to get back to you.

And yes, I know it is ridiculous to simply offer an open challenge to teams around the world, but it is offered with the best intentions.

The Batton has been passed...

for the leadership of the Wisconsin U19 Select-side, the official union select-side for the Wisconsin RFU. Gary Zischke, who has served as the select-side coach since the inception of the program 3-years ago, has passed the reigns over to Scott Prunkle, coach of the UWM women, who will serve for the next two years.

Thanks to Gary for taking the lead in getting the U19 Select side program up and running and a Thanks to Scott -- for taking on this new role.

The following is a list of tentative dates for select-side activities, which Scott has published to the High School Coaches. Interested players should talk to their coaches about these opportunities.

U-19 Select Side for the 2008 Calendar Year:
March 15, 2008 - Open Selection Camp
April 19, 2008 - Open Selection Camp
May 31, 2008 - Possible / Probable Scrimmage
June 14-15, 2008 - Midwest U-19 LAU Tournament
October 5, 2008 - Potential Fall Scrimmage
October 19, 2008 - Midwest U-19 Selection Camp
November 15-16, 2008 - U-19 NASC, Nashville, TN

Use those sideline ropes

Many sports related law suits involve injury (that's why there are lawsuits to begin with). I am happy to say that most lawsuits do not involve rugby. However, there are still important principles at play that have implications for the rugby community. In Shain v. Racine Raiders Football Club, Inc., 2006 WI App 257 a coach was injured while standing on the sidelines of a youth (11-12 year old) football game.


Multiple youth teams were playing games on a football field with the youth fields laid out running from side-line to side-line of the full-sized field. As a result, the middle fields shared a sideline. The coach was injured when a player from the adjacent field ran out of bounds and struck the coach, injuring his knee. The coach sued, alleging that the the organizers were negligent in not laying out the fields to allow a safety zone between fields.


The court tossed about whether the coach was a spectator, and therefore subject to the "Baseball Rule" or a participant, and therefore subject to Wis. Stat. s. 895.525(4m) which allows for recovery for injuries in a contact sport "only if the participant who caused the injury acted recklessly or with intent to cause injury." cf. my prior post. The "Baseball Rule", in brief, is that a spectator assumes the risk of attending a sporting event and, therefore cannot sue if, for instance, they are hit by a foul ball or some other foreseeable consequence of attending a particular type of sporting event. Ultimately, the court concluded that the coach was a hybrid spectator/participant and that his own negligence precluded recovery. In other words, when standing on a sideline between two fields, the coach should have known that he might get run into by a player from the other field.


Youth rugby guidelines recommend laying out youth fields in a similar manner (i.e. two fields running width wide across a rugby pitch) -- but suggest having a 5-10m safety zone between the sideline and the field goal posts and a 10m safety zone between the youth pitches -- if only they had been playing rugby this all could have been avoided. More importantly, the court's holding in Shain is directly applicable to the involvement of coaches in rugby in the event a coach (or spectator) is injured on the sideline -- when attending a rugby game -- people standing on the sideline should know that players may run about of bounds and you may get hurt. Therefore, it is best for spectators to stand behind the sideline ropes and for people in front of the sideline ropes to pay attention to the game, so that injury can be avoided.

Vis unita fortior

Vis unita fortior is listed as the motto of Alhambra-Union Rugby Football Club in this article on the influence of Greek and Latin on culture in New Zealand. This motto translates loosely to "A united force is stronger" or "united we are stronger" I think this is one of the better team mottoes and really expresses some positive rugby attitude.