A rugby draft

(Rugby Action Photo)

The 2008 NFL draft will be held this weekend in New York and it will undoubtedly dominate the mainstream sports news headlines.

Given all the media hype leading up to the draft, here's some food for thought on a hypothetical rugby version.

In the unlikely event that you've missed the media saturation, in a nutshell, the draft is the biggest day of the year for college football players looking to embark on a professional career.

NFL teams will make their picks, starting with the teams that fared the worst last season, from the 2007 crop of college guys. This year the Miami Dolphins, who had an abysmal ’07 season, got the first pick and didn’t waste any time in going with their #1 choice - Michigan offensive lineman Jake Long.

The 6’7” 315 pound Long stitched up a cool, five-year, $57.5m deal to move from Ann Arbor to South Beach. Not bad for a guy who hasn’t played a single down in the NFL, and let’s face it, who can blame him. Get the money while you can, right, not to mention better weather.

Jake Long

So, all of the media hype this week on Miami signing big Jake got me thinking what if rugby had its own draft? If nothing else, it would certainly be unique to American rugby and that wouldn’t be a bad thing. Kind of like cheerleaders, you know. I’m a big fan and I think we need more cheerleaders in rugby, particularly when the Eagles play home games, but I digress.

If you read our editorial last week on the huge drop-off rate of college rugby players who don’t continue playing after graduation, you’ll appreciate that ‘Houston we have a problem’ in terms of keeping these young guys in the game. And by the way, the word ‘game’ does not require a capital G, okay.

Think about it. A draft would go a long way towards legitimizing rugby in the eyes of the mainstream American sports fan, many of whom still confuse it with lacrosse. And on top of that, it would give college players a reason to stay in the game.

I get that in order for a rugby draft to actually become a reality one day in this country, our sport would need to go fully professional and that’s probably a topic for an entirely separate Op-ed piece, but for now go with me on this and let your imagination run wild with the possibilities.

One of the benefits of a draft would be that it might help bring some parity to Super League and Division I. Check it out, RSL teams such as Washington, Philadelphia-Whitemarsh, and Old Puget Sound Beach, all of which have been largely irrelevant for years, could benefit from getting the top picks from the college ranks.

In DI, clubs like the Atlanta Renegades, San Fernando Valley, and Metropolis might be able to bolster their rosters with some gun college guys. And who could argue that all of those clubs couldn’t use some help.

The biggest beneficiary of a draft would be American rugby because college players would have something to strive for after their five years of eligibility other than trying to find a job somewhere. And here’s the thing, college rugby is unquestionably where the future of the game lies in the US.

(Bronislaw Grala photo)

There are more good players than you can poke a stick at playing collegiate ball, but we lose most of them because there’s little incentive for them to stick with it.

Occasionally a guy will get a gig with an overseas club straight out of college. Volney Rouse of St Mary’s springs to mind as a recent example, although he’s more the exception than the rule.

Of the college guys who end up playing for domestic clubs such as Rob Weedon of Cal and Mike Petri of Penn State for example, it’s often a result of their college coach being good buddies with the coach of a men’s club.

The point is there is no formal playing pathway for university rugby players to follow, unlike their football brethren such as Jake Long.

Of course this is all totally moot until such time as the game truly goes professional in the United States, but it's interesting to contemplate isn't it.