A year ago, some of Drexel’s rugby players ventured to PPL Park in Chester to watch the annual Collegiate Rugby Championship Invitational, or as the players casually call it, the “Rugby 7s.”
This spring, however, they were on the pitch rather than in the stands. The Dragons’ debut in the prestigious national tournament, which was held May 31–June 1 at the 18,500-seat PPL Park, rewarded the sweat, dedication and passion poured into a club that’s made huge strides at Drexel in recent years.
Arguably the zenith of collegiate rugby, the 7s championship produces a field of the nation’s top 20 teams, with several of the games televised live on NBC networks.
“I don’t think a lot of people realize just how big a deal this is,” says Michael Phan, a senior from Wilkes Barre, Pa., and three-year veteran with the Dragons. “It’s in a big stadium. It’s on national TV. It’s huge.”
[box type=”shadow”]Drexel opened the Collegiate Rugby Championship, held this year on May 31 to June 1, with a 26-0 loss to Maryland and a 36-0 defeat to University of California, the eventual national champion. The Dragons bounced back with a 12-7 victory over city-rival Temple University in the final match of pool play. In a consolation match the final day of the competition, Drexel fell 17-5 to St. Joseph’s University.[/box]
It also shows how far rugby has progressed at Drexel under fourth-year coach Michael Burch, a former Dragons’ rugby standout who graduated in 2003.
In a sport that long ago built a reputation for teams throwing big parties after matches on campuses throughout the country, Drexel’s program has done its part to help erase the stigma.
“The big goal when I took over was to get everybody to buy into the sport of rugby,” Burch says. “In the past, it became a social thing. But now, there are probably 60–70 schools in Pennsylvania that play high school rugby. It’s [even] in the Olympics. I wanted to come here and change the atmosphere, and make it as close to a varsity sport as possible.”
It’s been more than just lip service.
Rugby is one of Drexel’s 35 club sports, in which no scholarships are granted and students fund their own activities. That hasn’t deterred the Dragons, who have held intense practices in advance of the 7s collegiate championship and also worked out with the school’s varsity strength and conditioning coach at 6 a.m., three times a week. In addition, they gathered weekly for film sessions.
“It’s a club sport, but rugby here is highly organized,” says Daniel Simmons, Drexel’s senior associate athletic director and head of the school’s recreational sports. “We are playing at a top level.”
Drexel also has a 15s team, established in 1987, that fared well in the Mid-Atlantic Rugby Conference.
When Burch launched Drexel’s 7s team — an increasingly popular version of rugby that consists of seven players per team on the pitch instead of 15 — in 2013, the Dragons enjoyed instant success with a second-place finish in a tournament among Philadelphia’s six college programs.
“Compared to when I first got here, we’ve definitely improved so much,” says Robert Pletcher, a senior standout from Mount Holly, N.J. “When I was a freshman, the sophomores at the time really took over the team; they really helped turn it around, brought more guys out.”
The beauty of rugby, according to Burch, is that it’s a sport an athlete with little or no experience can take up in college and thrive at a high level. Participation numbers at Drexel have swelled to between 40 and 50, he says.
The hope is that this year’s exposure in the national 7s tournament will help garner more popularity on campus as well as support from alumni.
“I think a big problem is some people just don’t know what rugby is, or that we have a team on campus,” says Joe Midwig, a senior from the Baltimore area. “Any little noise helps. Just a little splash can make a wave.”