USA Rugby partners with Serevi in search for talent to follow Carlin Isles
Exclusive: Company named for Fiji great will focus on existing resources, look for crossover stars and boost youth participation
Speaking to the Guardian, Serevi's chief executive, Ross Young, an Englishman who was Rugby World Cup general manager from 2002 to 2011 and also worked in London for Harlequins, said: "The States is an incredible environment and a massive potential platform for rugby, with such reach and phenomenal athletic talent." Citing the international impact made by the USA sevens player Carlin Isles, who took up the sport last year after collegiate success in track and football, he said: "We need to cast the widest net possible.
"We're hoping to attract a critical mass of talent. They may be crossover athletes or they may come from institutions which already have a rugby programme."
USA Rugby and Serevi's "multi-year programme" will aim to establish a national network of high-performance USA Rugby training camps, from which men's and women's representative players in 15s and the Olympic form of the game, sevens, will be drawn. The partnership will also create youth development programmes aimed at players, from the age of four up, of what a 2011 Sporting Goods Manufactures Association report identified as the fastest growing team sport in the US.
"USA Rugby are desperate to channel as much as they can towards their high-performance programmes," said Young, "and to be judged by the performance of the national teams. But in any sport it's all about mass participation. It's all about getting young kids picking a ball up and channeling the talent upwards, to help USA teams perform better on a world stage."
The first eight USA Rugby high-performance camps, for which players will be selected or nominated from a wide base, are scheduled for spring 2014, beginning under the auspices of national sevens coach Matt Hawkins in Orlando on 2-4 January and concluding in Minneapolis from 3-4 May. San Francisco, Denver, Atlanta, San Diego, Boston, Washington DC and the southeast will also stage such camps, which will focus on talent identification. The programme will seek to implement a pyramid, running week-long elite camps and 10-month training centers in regional "hubs".
Asked where and how such camps will be held, Young said: "Part of our aim is not to restrict ourselves. Collegiate rugby has got stronger and stronger … so it's about making sure we get input into all those universities. But for example, we've got a great relationship down in San Diego and California with the YMCA. We'll also co-ordinate with state-based rugby unions, colleges and high schools.
"Certainly there will be aspects of what we do that won't meet every need, but focusing on areas where rugby facilities already exist will be the first step."
"The important thing on our side is to engage with as many sponsors and partners as possible," Young said. "'Sponsorship' is a funny word. 'Supporters' is probably a better word, because we're not making money as an organisation. We have a long-term goal and shortfalls are provided for by investors whose interest is in the growth of the game.
"The more sponsors we can get involved, such as the XL Group who have taken a group of our guys across to Bermuda and fully funded camps, or United Healthcare who help keep such costs down, the better. If there are local business we can find to subsidise camps and help, we're not proscriptive. We don't want to run a set-up that might restrict our costs."
The venture is not being run with assistance from the International Rugby Board. "We've got no direct affiliation with the IRB but the IRB supports USA Rugby and those links help us," said Young. "We'd like to think that as a stakeholder of rugby in the US, the IRB will be aware of what we are doing and will be supportive without directly sanctioning it." Young also said he hoped to work with Play Rugby USA, a New York-based non-profit which takes rugby into disadvantaged areas and schools.
Welcoming the deal, Sir Gordon Tietjens – a Serevi advisor who as New Zealand sevens coach has won 11 World Series titles, two World Cups and all four Commonwealth Games tournaments to have been staged – said: "For years we've all known that America has the athletes to compete at the highest levels of rugby, but not enough young players being exposed early to our sport.
"If you watch collegiate football or track and field, you get every sense of the raw athletic talent available with a blue passport. That's very exciting for the competitive and commercial opportunities for rugby, worldwide. Serevi Rugby and USA Rugby's partnership will set further into motion the rise of rugby in America, in both sevens and 15s, and invites other nations to keep our eye out for them."
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