Orchestrating the overhaul of an 87-year-old athletic program isn’t a job many would dare take on willingly, but that’s exactly what three ambitious coaches at the University of Toronto intend to do.
The Varsity Blues men’s rugby program is one of the oldest in Canada, and despite coming up short on the scoreboard over the past few seasons, it owns more titles than any of its competitors in the OUA.
Some of U of T’s most famous alumni have taken to the field with a rugby ball in hand. The current mayor of Toronto, David Miller, played for the Blues in the early 80s, a period during which the coveted Turner Trophy may as well have been an honorary member of the team.
With an established tradition of excellence, and a list of accomplishments that could make Leafs fans cringe with embarrassment, it’s almost understandable that the need to revamp the program has been overlooked until now.
The Blues have been sitting uncomfortably at the bottom of the league they belong on top of for a little too long now, and failed to even tie just one of their season games last year.
And at the end of November 2009, head coach Garth Gottfried — who planted his rugby roots as a U of T student in the early 90s — decided enough was enough.
Gottfried called a team meeting that has since begun the transformation of the Varsity Blues men’s rugby program.
The problem was neither the ability nor talent of the players, the U of T veteran realized, but rather the culture surrounding the sport at his alma mater.
“There’s so many issues at U of T that you don’t get at any of the other rugby schools,” explained Gottfried. “We had to change the things that we were doing and get a new culture going here.”
First and foremost, the University of Toronto has incredibly high academic standards, and as third-year law student and standout player-coach Haddon Murray pointed out, “It’s hard to get in at U of T. To consider coming here you’d need a high average.”
Fortunately for the Blues, Murray, who plays the critical and demanding position of 8-man for Team Ontario, is equipped with both brains and brawn. With a BSc in Psychology from Queen’s University, he brings with him years of experience playing with the top-ranked Gaels. Although he wasn’t involved in with the Blues during 2009, it’s pretty safe to say that he’s already indispensable.
The coaching team for 2010 is rounded out by Paul DiCarmine, a second-year chemistry PhD student who has seven years of experience playing with the powerhouse program at the University of Western Ontario.
And while U of T’s seemingly deterring academic reputation serves as a barrier to recruitment in most cases, a number of players on the Blues roster this year are graduate students who have, as DiCarmine said, “developed outside of the program.”
Another major challenge for building up men’s rugby at U of T is the fact that the campus is split into three. Regardless of where students are based, they’re going to have to travel to practices (which are held downtown at St. George) or to games (which are played at Scarborough), if not both.
But the current team members show a level of dedication that would impress even the strictest of coaches.
Last winter, as part of Gottfried’s refurbishment plans, team training to build upon and maintain fitness levels during the colder weather was introduced. Practices were held in the covered dome at Varsity Centre at either 7 a.m. or 4:30 p.m. every other Thursday.
Zack Remez catches the ball at one of U of T’s men’s rugby practice sessions. Alex Nursall/The Varsity
According to the coaching team, talented rookie player and commuting student Nader Mohamed got up at about 5:30 a.m. to make it out to the early morning winter training sessions.
DiCarmine has good things to say about Mohamed.
“You could see the improvement,” he said about the dedicated player. “The effort was a good example of what we wanted.”
With Murray and Di Carmine on board to run practices and set up for games, Gottfried will be spending the bulk of his time dealing with complicated administrative details, an important and often unforeseen element of managing a successful athletic program.
“There’s a ridiculous amount of red tape in a full contact men’s sport. Garth basically single-handedly makes this legal,” laughed Murray.
And it’s not just the coaching staff of the men’s rugby team that has gained some valuable newbies, either. Beth Ali joined the management team of the Varsity Blues Program in August 2010 as the Director of Intercollegiate and High Performance Sport. After meeting with her prior to the start of the 2010 season, Gottfried began to look extremely optimistically at the future of men’s rugby at U of T.
“They want U of T athletics to be much higher in the pecking order,” explained Gottfried. “Beth said her door was always open and has been very supportive so far.”
“In terms of long term goals, we want to link our program to the intramurals,” Murray added. “We have numbers — there’s got to be over 100 people playing in intramurals with no real coaching.
“Rugby’s a sport where effort really will pay off. Our goal is to be in a position where serious rugby players want to come here for the program.”
