About four years after its formation, Point Park’s Rugby Club remains a student organization, rather than a fully involved part of the athletic department, leaving the club without a coach or home playing field.
“Becoming a sport has been thrown around a lot,” Alden Roth, junior cinema production major and president of the organization, said in an interview at Village Park. “We like being a club because it gives us the freedom to run ourselves.”
Still, Roth said he wants the club to experience continual growth, and he does eventually want it to become a part of the athletic department.
“I haven’t heard anything, but we would love being part of the athletics department,” senior broadcast production and media management major Nathan Keenan said. Keenan, who is the vice president of the organization, also stated that being part of athletics would help the team with things such as recruitment and awareness.
“A lot would change,” Dan Helbling, a junior cinema production major and club treasurer, said. “My position would become obsolete, the president and vice president, too. The captains would be all that’s left.”
The team doesn’t have to be part of athletics to play competitively, according Dan Swalga, Point Park’s Director of Athletics, who said he doesn’t know of any plans to bring the Rugby Club into the athletic department.
All three officials for the club also play on the team, and consider the other members their brothers. Keenan said that he would like the idea of forming an alumni team to keep the spirit of the team together and to play against other alumni teams.
Although the club is not a part of Point Park’s athletic program, it competes against other school’s rugby teams in the Three Rivers Rugby Conference. The conference consists of other college teams from around Pennsylvania.
“We’re the only team [in the Conference] that’s self-run,” Roth said.
The club doesn’t have a coach because it’s not part of the athletic department, according to Roth. “We have captains that know how to lead the team.”
Including the club’s elected officials, the organization has about 30 members this semester.
“We always attend the club involvement fair,” Roth said. “Sometimes we’ll see a really big guy and try to lure him in.”
The Point Park University Rugby Football Club formed in 2010. Since then, the team has adopted a highway, donated to and worked for multiple charities, gained a supportive fan base and has been recognized as an outstanding student organization by Point Park faculty, according to Roth.
The club received about $2,700 dollars this semester from USG, according to Helbling, which gives the organization enough money to afford necessary resources such as equipment, apparel and insurance for the players. The club does not have a home field, so it holds practice at Dan Marino field in Oakland, according to Roth.
The team hosts events to raise money for itself and charity. The team also works with the Campus Activities Board (CAB) to host events such as the Rent-A-Rugger date auction, which will be held Oct. 22 this year.
“Giving back is just as important, we always want to be even more involved,” Keenan said.
“We want to maintain a good relationship with the University,” Keenan said. “We deserve a shot for more University support, but we want to keep the same structure we have now.”
I want people to recognize rugby the same way they do baseball. You know, let’s go to the rugby match,” Roth said. “It’s not big now, but it’s getting there; it’s growing.”
