Talk:College rugby in the United States

I recently overhauled this article a bit, attempting to explain the division system a bit more and reel in a clear bias towards Cal (has dominated?) The 'grassroots' section I am luke warm on. On the one hand, it is worth mentioning that this is the 1st level of Rugby in the US. Whereas on the other hand, it seems way to a subjective comentary. Please help and contribute. 219.86.167.87 05:00, 28 October 2006 (UTC)Reply

Thanks a lot for your recent contributions! I agree that the "grassroots" section might be worth tweaking (perhaps we could merge it into a "history of college rugby" section). hoopydink^{Conas tá tú?} 17:13, 28 October 2006 (UTC)Reply

I actually just noticed that the information in the "Grassroots" section was incorrect. There are hundreds of youth and high school rugby teams in the US. We could mention that most rugby players pick the game up at university (the IRB has stats on how many youth and collegiate players are in the US) hoopydink^{Conas tá tú?} 17:21, 28 October 2006 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for recent contributions. Yes I agree, there are many youth programs popping up. However, it is fair to say that something like 98% of US rugby players start in college rugby. I think keeping the tone of this league being 'the first level of rugby' is appropriate. 219.86.167.87 08:28, 31 October 2006 (UTC)Reply

I'm not sure that the 98% figure is correct. The IRB tallies 16,000+ male teen rugby players in the US out of ~46,000 total male players. Check this website out. hoopydink^{Conas tá tú?} 08:38, 31 October 2006 (UTC)Reply

98% is not accurate. 70-80% is probably more accurate in my experience coaching college rugby, and the number shrinks each year as HS programs are added in the northeast US. The IRB figure is not particularly helpful, however, because college freshman and sophomores are 18 and 19 years old. Perhaps the better source of data would come from USAR's CIPP program.Surfidiot (talk) 19:48, 11 July 2011 (UTC)Reply

I am not sure the explanation of Divisions is very accurate. Schools choose which division they play in. A lot of times it boils down to money and the ability to travel. It also has to do with the amount of people participating, etc. The top 5-8 Division 2 Schools would do very well in Division 1.

Divisions are very fluid, and their relative strength obviously depends a lot upon the re--gion--. Furthermore, I was not aware there was even a Divison III-- I was under the impression there were only National Championships for Divisions I & II, is this not the case?? Citation, please.Lmeister 23:23, 17 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Division 3 & 4 rugby have existed in the northeast for many years. Promotion and relegation rarely occurs for NCAAD3 schools, because schools are interested in maintaining the same college rivalries as other sports.Surfidiot (talk) 19:48, 11 July 2011 (UTC)Reply

Nice article. I might also add that Division II schools, too, are required to fill B-side squads and games or they are penalized. Many smaller schools with small rosters cannot do this. In the recent past, Furman, which has three DIII championships and finished runner up twice, has been the subject of criticsm for not moving to DII. But the Paladins rarely carry a roster deeper than 20. Last year the team, which finished 12-3 and lost to Coastal Carolina (the eventual national champion) in the South Finals, had 18 guys. -- John Roberts, Furman Rugby Coach —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.208.148.87 (talk) 21:05, 5 January 2010 (UTC)Reply

This article reads like an advertisement or press release, rather than an objective article Meirav (talk) 20:15, 26 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

Need reference for the following addition (alleged 1974 men's D1 championship by Texas A&M): 20:20, 29 January 2010 Bcstringer (talk | contribs) m (13,297 bytes) (Added another major college rugby cup and championship) --- Jeff in CA (talk) 22:19, 10 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

If this article is intended to deal only with college rugby in the United States, perhaps it should be renamed to US college rugby, College rugby in the US, College rugby (US) or similar? WJBscribe ^{(WJB talk)} 00:58, 17 January 2007 (UTC)Reply

• I agree. I do not believe this deals with Rugby at any international Universities. Not sure how to rename and redirect an article though, can anyone else take care of that?--Fresh 19:23, 17 January 2007 (UTC)Reply

Definitely good points, but there are two arguments for restricting to the US. First of all, the US places more emphasis on college sports than other countries, to the point that college rugby may be the most popular level of rugby in the US. Secondly, other English-speaking countries do not use the words "college" and "university" interchangeably like in the US. I am not against changing the name/scope of the article, but there exists reason to keep the article as is.49giantsharks (talk) 04:47, 11 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

I like the idea of this article but it is written pretty poorly, and I don't believe it follows the wikipedia methodology. It would be interesting if someone who actually knew the ins and outs of college rugby in the USA wrote it. Cheers198.173.149.130 00:57, 7 February 2007 (UTC)MileHiRuggerReply

Why are the national championships broken up to before and after 1997? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.101.53.138 (talk) 07:50, 7 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Probably due to availability of records online. I remember seeing the national championships divided as such on CSTV's website long before Wikipedia was popular.49giantsharks (talk) 04:49, 11 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

It has been suggested that this page be renamed/moved to College rugby in the United States. Please add arguments for and against below. Cheers Rugby monk (talk) 02:59, 29 May 2011 (UTC)Reply

• It depends whether the term "college rugby" is used in other countries. In Australia, for instance, it would just be "intervarsity rugby". So, if "college rugby" uniquely identifies the US game, it's ok. If not, move it to a new title, and put a stub here, calling for information about other countries. Stevage 04:01, 7 September 2011 (UTC)Reply

I agree with Stevage, the topic has come up with other articles for college sports. "College [insert sport name]" seems to be an American athletics term as many other countries use "University [insert sport name]". In America English the words 'college' and 'university' generally can mean the same thing but in other countries the word 'university' is used for higher education institutions. Bhockey10 (talk) 00:04, 8 September 2011 (UTC)Reply

I am not detecting any momentum for re-naming this article. If the name is going to stay the same, the tag is stale, and perhaps we should remove it? Barryjjoyce (talk) 02:08, 16 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

I removed the tag. The discussion has grown stale, 5 1/2 years after it was first proposed.Barryjjoyce (talk) 15:46, 29 July 2012 (UTC)Reply

At the present time, the NCAA sanctions women's rugby at only 6 schools. (You can check which schools are sanctioned at http://web1.ncaa.org/onlineDir/exec2/sponsorship.) Sacred Heart has announced that they will move their women's rugby team to NCAA Division I for 2015-16 and will become the seventh sanctioned team. While Army Brown, and Central Washington may consider their teams to be "varsity," they all compete in ACRA, and none are sanctioned by the NCAA at this time. Lindenwood competes in USARugby and does not even list rugby as one of their 27 NCAA "varsity" sports. There is no way that either Davenport University or Life University could have NCAA sanctioned teams, since neither is even a member of the NCAA; both schools are NAIA members without the dual membership that some Division II and III schools hold. These are the reasons for the reversion of these schools' inclusion in the list of NCAA sanctioned programs; in short, they were deleted because they should never have been included. GWFrog (talk) 04:01, 9 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

Also removed University of New England, which declares on their website that their team is a "club" team... A club moving up in its level of competition does not automatically make it an NCAA sanctioned program, which also was apparently the assumption made when Lindenwood was included... Sanctioning must be requested and the request examined before sanction is awarded by the NCAA... GWFrog (talk) 04:14, 9 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

@GWFrog: Thanks for the explanation and for sharing the link. We might be talking about two different things here. Your message above objects to "these schools' inclusion in the list of NCAA sanctioned programs." But the article refers to a list of "current and planned varsity women's rugby programs." Some schools may grant their rugby programs varsity status even though those programs are not NCAA sanctioned. Therefore, a list of varsity programs may contain different schools than a list of NCAA sanctioned programs. That's why I think the previous list was correct. I think it would be appropriate to restore the list as it was. Or if you prefer, we could restore the list but this time make clear which varsity rugby programs are NCAA sanctioned and which varsity programs are not, which may be an improvement over the previous format.

There seem to be only two schools — Lindenwood and New England — for which you challenge whether the schools have decided to grant their rugby programs varsity status. I am curious if you had read the citation provided for each school before you removed those schools from the list. The article cited for Lindenwood discusses the school's "decision to create both a men’s and women’s varsity rugby program." The article cited for New England mentions the school's announcement that they are "promoting their women’s rugby program to varsity status" in 2015. I think that's pretty clear support that both schools have decided to grant their rugby programs varsity status. Barryjjoyce (talk) 03:32, 10 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

When the section opens, "The National Collegiate Athletic Association has identified women's rugby..." one can only presume that it is talking about NCAA sanctioned programs... This, then, would seem to eliminate any non-sanctioned program.

As to both Lindenwood and New England, yes, I did read the ref cites... I also read the schools' webpages., which make it clear that the athletic departments (which are the administering agencies for any school's "varsity" sports programs) declare them to be "club sports" and not under their jurisdiction. There are cases where athletic departments operate some club sports (men's rugby in the Pac-12 is an example of this), but these programs are not among them.

As for other programs which the schools consider to be "varsity," they may have the school's full support (even including athletic department sponsorship), but they are actually only competing at a higher level of commitment until the school takes the step of requesting and receiving sanction from the NCAA. Women's rugby in the NCAA will continue to be merely an "emerging sport" until such time as there are a sufficient number of participating, sanctioned teams to allow the creation of a championship playoff. (Under NCAA rules, that number is currently a minimum of 32 teams.) Going one step further, an eventual NCAA national championship could be held in conjunction with one of the currently existing organizations, such as ACRA; this type of dual sponsorship already exists for some "Olympic sports." GWFrog (talk) 21:06, 10 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

@GWFrog: Ok, thanks, now I understand what lead you to misread the list. I will re-do the list to make clearer the distinction between varsity and NCAA sanctioning, and I will also tweak the opening text in that section to make the distinction clearer. As to New England, it's no surprise the school's webpage currently lists rugby as club — the ref (and the old version of the list) make clear that New England plans to promote rugby to varsity next year. So that leaves Lindenwood. I don't know what to makes of the fact that we can find sources that describe it as both club and varsity. I think I'll drop a note to make that point clear. Barryjjoyce (talk) 14:31, 13 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

The list of women's varsity programs needs updated. Notre Dame College, for example, is listed as a varsity program on the NCAA link provided in the above section and on their website. I believe other programs are missing from this list as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.211.68.212 (talk) 15:47, 21 May 2018 (UTC)Reply

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BYU was recently stripped of its 2015 Varsity Cup championship title due to using an ineligible player. (reference: http://www.rugbytoday.com/college/varsity-cup-shuffle-byu-stripped-title ). I wasn't sure how to format such a change or note, so I did not edit the article... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dcbrc2 (talk • contribs) 20:01, 13 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

I edited the section with the Varsity Cup winners to reflect the stripped title. Jeff in CA (talk) 04:43, 14 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

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Some editor keeps adding NEC to the list of men’s varsity programs. The NEC website lists rugby as a club sport, not varsity, I cannot find any source stating they are now or have committed to become a varsity program. I’ve said as much in my edit summaries when I have removed this info. But he keeps adding it back. Thoughts on how to proceed? CUA 27 (talk) 00:03, 20 May 2018 (UTC)Reply

There are a lot of annual results from various divisions, and these are getting quite lengthy. Should we restrict this page to listing annual results for Division 1 only? I don’t think most readers care about who was the Division 3 champion in say 2013 or any other year. CUA 27 (talk) 00:39, 2 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

Well, most readers don’t care about 99% of the content of Wikipedia and most encyclopedias. People care about what they care about, and encyclopedias provide that content. I oppose restricting the page content in this way. Jeff in CA (talk) 16:54, 2 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

The section § Division 1 National Championships (15s) is an almost word for word duplicate of Division 1-A Rugby § D1-A Championships results. Does anyone object if I replace the text in that section with a link to the relevant article? Compare College football § National championships, which is far more readable. Shpowell (talk) 02:13, 10 September 2023 (UTC)Reply

I would not favor this, as such replacement is unnecessary. Other than the list of annual results, it’s not word-for-word. And it’s convenient to have the information in both places.Jeff in CA (talk) 22:50, 11 September 2023 (UTC)Reply