The Clark Model

By Alex Goff for Rugby Imports
September 30, 2004 — Jack Clark enters his 22nd season as head coach of the Cal rugby team, and currently his team sits #1 in the GoffonRugby Top 20 collegiate ranking. Long known for excellence on the rugby field, Cal is also famous for creating an enviable model for American college rugby, using significant alumni support and an unmatched support system to create a truly varsity program.

We sat down with Coach Clark to discuss why the winners of 13 of the last 14 national championships have achieved respect on the Cal campus, and what other college programs can learn from the Cal experience.

GoffonRugby: How long has Cal Rugby been a varsity sport and what circumstances had to be in place for that to happen?

Jack Clark: We of course started out as a varsity sport, then slid into a kind of no man’s land between Intercollegiate Athletics and Rec Sports in the 1950’s. We regained our varsity status in the early ‘90s. We won our first seven or eight National Championships as a non-varsity sport. Not much has changed in the way we operate the program in the move back to varsity.

When we were administered in no man’s land with no official status, we held ourselves to the principles of ‘high performance’ athletics. We probably operated on a more varsity level than some of Cal’s anointed varsity programs.

GOR: But that’s one of the things college teams have in common – they are club sports that play on an inter-collegiate level. That can make working with recreational administration difficult.

Clark: We didn’t have a bad experience working with Rec Sports, it just wasn’t a perfect fit. Recreational Sports is centered on the lessons of participation and student organization. There is nothing wrong with this philosophy, I mean who doesn’t need some recreation in their life? But rugby at Cal has always been about rugby as a study. We pursue rugby. We are trying to excel at it.

GOR: So one approach isn’t better than the other?

Clark: Right. This is not a conversation of which approach is better, or what are you entitled to. It is about a different type of experience and a different set of lessons. The lessons of high performance athletics are embedded in the rigor of pursuing excellence. The fact is rugby at Cal has more in common with the women’s varsity softball team than it does with any of our club sports.

What I want university rugby teams to understand is that your institution can label where you are administered, but they can’t decide your mission. I sense that most university rugby clubs are comfortable in Rec Sports because it is a good fit for what they want from rugby. But if not, any team is free to adopt a high performance or varsity ethos.
And be clear, this is not about winning and losing. A lot of very recreational rugby teams win their share of matches. It is about what lessons and experiences you want from your rugby.

GOR: In an environment where some teams have trouble securing a halfway decent field, how did you convince the Cal administration that rugby deserved varsity status?

Clark: If the question is why did the athletic department agree to include a non-NCAA, large male squad sport into intercollegiate athletics, I believe the answer is;
1. Tradition is our strength at Cal. Rugby at Cal was started in 1882 and is the oldest sport on our campus
2. As I said before, we had for many years been conducting our affairs in a professional, or varsity-like, manner.
3. The rugby team didn’t ask for anything from the department. No request for scholarships, funding, facilities. All we wanted was the honor of wearing the ‘Big C’.
4. Non-revenue sports have always been appreciated at Cal. Don’t get me wrong, Pac-10 football and basketball are the kingpins, but our stakeholders have always shared our belief in the benefits of a broad based varsity sports program. Cal athletes won 15 Olympic Medals in Athens this past summer. Our medal count put us ahead of 170 plus countries. Cal sees itself as a world class institution and global sports are part of that identity.

Our rugby alumni are proud people. We didn’t feel entitled to anything from the department and therefore didn’t ask anything of the administration. Receiving a varsity letter is important to us. It is just a piece of cloth, but to us it is a symbol of much more. It is recognition and respect mostly. Rugby at Cal started as a non-scholarship sport 125 years ago and it remains so today.

GOR: So the clear this one up once and for all, Cal rugby doesn’t give scholarships.

Clark: No, we don’t. We don’t offer scholarship or financial assistance of any type.

GOR: Does being a varsity sport mean Cal men’s rugby gets any money, or access to facilities?

Clark: Cal has 27 varsity sports – 13 men and 14 women. Two of the 13 men’s sports, crew and rugby, are non-NCAA sports. The best way to explain the benefits of varsity status is to first understand that at most universities, varsity sports programs are tiered. Revenue sports like football and basketball enjoy significant support, whereas a sport like rugby would receive far less. We don’t receive any funding from the athletic department. Our rugby alums at Cal have created endowments, which financially support the program. We have also funded the construction our own facilities, both Witter Rugby Field and the Doc Hudson Fieldhouse, where we have an office.

I’m quite proud of paying our own way. I think the entrenched attitude of entitlement you see in some varsity sports is unflattering. Rugby is a sport played by bright, resourceful people. The‘handout’ mentality is alien to many of us. Certainly the Cal Rugby faithful had no intention of living on the trickle down income from football. It is just not our style. Raising money to support and grow rugby is a critical part of the mission, but money alone doesn’t guarantee success. We can look no further than across the bay at Stanford. They have millions of dollars in endowment, a wonderful rugby complex, paid coaching positions and they have really struggled as of late on the pitch. Then take a hard look at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. They have almost nothing in the way of budget or facilities, and they are one of the top teams in the nation.

The issue with funding rugby is simple. It is our job. It is not the job of the athletic administration or the revenue sports. We should leave that model to the subsidized sports. Rugby people are loyal and generous stakeholders. Rugby funding is about getting organized and building a program people can be proud of, then as simple as it sounds, just asking your stakeholders for support.

GOR: So how has Cal Rugby been able to fund itself?

Clark: We have three sources of funding; endowment income, annual (non-endowment) gifts and commercial income.
It is pretty uncomplicated. We receive interest from the endowments. The principle of the endowments are never tapped and therefore a significant amount of endowment principle is required to provide a modest amount of income. Thankfully, some supporters prefer to give to annual accounts where their entire gift is available. It is important to have a balance in these types of gifts to both provide for the present, as well as the future.

Commercial income is gate, concession, merchandise and sponsorship. It is event related, which means we need to really invest ourselves in our match day presentation. Match day is an all-hands-on-deck outing. Anyone who has ever been to Witter Rugby Field has a story about the players dialing the facility in before the matches and breaking it down afterwards. As a team, we are responsible for most aspects of the event. We sell, usher, and operate the scoreboard and PA system. We hoist banners, flags and erect the sponsor billboards. We regard the garbage as ours to pick up. You name it, and we as a team do it. I don’t know what your readers think when they hear varsity rugby, but I assure you in our case it is not about entitlement or privilege. It is an A-Z ownership model.

GOR: This is all stuff other schools can do, and some have started doing.

Clark: Absolutely. All programs can build rugby on their campus, it’s a decision. Raising money, building facilities and taking rugby as serious as traditional varsity sports, is a choice. Not every rugby program will take this on, but more and more rugby leaders are driving their teams in this direction. The hair I am splitting here is that building rugby is not the administration’s choice, it is our choice.

GOR: Does being a varsity sport give the rugby team access to any special facilities?

Clark: Yes. We receive access to the Athletic Study Center, which is an academic facility housed with tutors and advisors.
We train as a team in the varsity weight room and of course we are provided with medical. And let me say this about athletic trainers and ‘risk management’ procedures in general; irrespective of where a rugby team is administered, shame on any school administration that doesn’t provide proper medical for its rugby teams. The rugby team is different from the ultimate frisbee club when it comes to ‘safe play’. It seems that some Rec Sports administrators are more fixated on behavioral issues than some kid making a safe tackle. The Cal administration has been very alert to ‘mitigating the risk of injury’, but if they weren’t we would raise whatever funds required and contract with an outside provider.
As is, we train and play with professional medical services. Our physician and athletic trainers usually end up looking after both teams in our matches.

GOR: Are there any downsides to Varsity status?

Clark: Are you trying to make me sound like a whiner? There are not really any significant downsides. There are rules above and beyond club sports, but they don’t bother us. We are limited to a total head count of 50 players, which is a bit of a pain. The student body’s interest in rugby participation at Cal is much higher, so it is disappointing to not be able to serve a higher percentage of students. It is clear that participation caps in male varsity sports is about Title IX compliance and we are understanding of the difficulties.

The most significant complication we face is self-imposed. As a rugby program, we have spent the last 20 years investing in our infrastructure, at the expenses of an international touring experience, which is the historical essence of Cal rugby. We recognized in the mid-eighties that university athletics was going to experience significant change. It has been a very dynamic couple of decades. We have witnessed the co-mingling and divestiture of men’s and women’s, recreational and intercollegiate athletic departments. We have seen excessive commercialization, federal law mandates concerning gender equity and across the board budget difficulties. Our plan was to get organized and plan for self-sufficiency. Building out our endowments and funding our facilities were the priorities within the plan. We didn’t want to be a victim to all the change that was occurring. We don’t have any second thoughts, but the plan required a lot of discipline and focus. We just could not afford the luxury of international touring.

GOR: Speaking of gender equity in sports, several of the rugby programs around the country that are trying to improve their facilities and their image are treating men and women’s rugby equally – they share the facilities and the responsibility. What is the situation at Cal?

Clark: It is a ‘same sport, different department reporting lines’ situation.
I’m all for women’s rugby, but my responsibilities are centered on the men’s team. As you might expect I work under a very specific and detailed contract at Cal, and as broad as the job description is, I don’t have a role with any other teams.
If I was offered a different role, in this regard from the University, say as the director of rugby for men and women I would consider the role. As is, we assist where appropriate. Our women’s team now has a six figure endowment, which is funded primarily from the generosity of a few of the men’s team longtime donors. It is a larger endowment than all but a few of the men’s teams have.

GOR: What’s your reaction when other programs say Cal has an unfair competitive advantage?

Clark: Two thoughts; first, we as Cal rugby people have worked for everything that we have. We are trying to put down permanent rugby roots on our campus. The body of our work is about building rugby at our university, not about building an advantage over anyone else.

Second, we choose to be inspired by the good work of other rugby programs. The establishment of rugby endowments at Harvard and Stanford gives us a spark. Hearing about the new rugby complexes being planned at West Point, Penn State and Dartmouth is motivating to us. It demonstrates that our sport is making headway. Every time I think about St. Mary’s College rugby here in Northern California, I am moved to try harder and work longer. They are a Christian Brothers school of 2400 students, less than half of which are male. They don’t have much budget, play in a mud hole out front of campus and will beat your ass with good coaching and player commitment. In reality, much of our sport probably does under achieve our potential. So personally, I filter out the complainers and focus on the people and programs that are making it happen.

GOR: By all accounts, Cal is coming off an outstanding recruiting year, and perhaps more than at any other time we have found ourselves talking about the recruiting class of a college rugby program. What is your recruiting approach and what do you think of this year’s class?

Clark: We are particularly hopeful for the Fall 2004 class. Recruiting is a bit like collecting wine. If you store good wine in the cellar, you will most likely take good wine out of the cellar at the appropriate time. What gets interesting is when good becomes extraordinary over time, and as the saying goes "only time will tell."

So we are hopeful for these lads. Collectively, they will have little to do with our Spring ’05 team. This class is about the 2007 and 2008 campaigns. In general, when young guys play early it’s really more about deficiencies in your team than freshman prowess. This class in general has less rugby in them than some we have had, but they are all athletic. Rugby was the first sport for only a few of them. Most of the class has only a year of rugby under their belt, so rugby skill was not the attraction in many cases.

Our recruiting philosophy is very straightforward; we are trying to make a match. We intentionally don’t sell. We are not trying to talk anyone into attending our university. Berkeley is a tough urban environment. Academics are over-the-top challenging, even for the brightest of students. We spend a lot of time in the recruiting process trying to paint what a ‘hard graft’ experience Cal can be. You have to really want to chase excellence to survive.

I heard the former football coach at Michigan, Bo Schembechler say about recruiting, " If you don’t get a player you want, it’s OK, he will only beat you once a year. But if you successfully recruit the wrong player, he will beat you every day." I believe Coach Schembechler had it right on this. We are trying to match our opportunity here at Cal with recruits who are searching for us. If a recruit wants a more social, recreational rugby experience, they would be miserable in our program.
There are about 25,000 high school rugby players in the United States, but less than 5% are academically eligible for admission to Cal. Then there is cost. Academic fees are still pretty affordable for in-state residents, but quadruple for out of state students. Therefore, our percentage of viable recruits is further lessened. We need to be very efficient in our recruiting process to find eligible prospects who are a match with us.

We broaden the pool by including some non rugby-playing athletes in the group and accept the task of teaching them the game. Most of the players we recruit are never recruited or even contacted by another school for rugby. Historically, only a player or two from our recruiting class has the ability to be selected for the U-19 National Team. But if we ‘match well’, the right student athletes will be attracted to us. What we don’t do is put our arms around a player and say "come to Cal and we’ll give you this and that." We don’t believe in it, and we can’t do it even if we wanted to.

GOR: What role does your summer camp play in recruiting?

Clark: The primary purpose of our summer camps is about spreading the good word of rugby in our Bay Area community. The curriculum is aimed at enjoyment, skill development and a tactical understanding of the sport. Then, there is a healthy dose of honor the game stuff; pull your socks up, tuck your shirt in, take off those basketball or soccer boy shorts and don’t even think about trash talking or taunting. The feedback from parents has been exceptionally good. It is attractive to parents for a rugby camp to be the place where their son is going to hear a seminar on topics such as academic planning and drug and alcohol prevention.

Our camp serves around 200 campers now, which is about our limit. Our goal is to be an excellent camp. We don’t care who or where the largest rugby camp is. What has been an absolute blast is our camp for middle school boys (ages 11-14). Coaching the ‘young brothers’ as we refer to them, is my favorite week of the year.

To answer your question, yes the camp helps with recruiting. You get to know a lot about a young man during the camp assembly. Not just as an athlete, but also what kind of guy he is. Certainly the campers get to window-shop us as well. Our whole staff participates and it is a resident camp, so we spend quite a bit of time together. Remember, we are trying to make a match and the camp goes a long way to facilitating this.

GOR: You had a long time role with USA Rugby’s National Team, as a player, coach and general manager. Can you explain this relationship as it exists today? Both between yourself and as it pertains to Cal?

Clark: We are supporters of USA Rugby and its National Teams here at Cal. Always have been and always will, full stop.
Cal as a rugby program doesn’t need anything from USA Rugby. We feel it is our job to support the national governing body, not the other way around. If we can offer a service, facility or support of any kind, Cal like a lot of clubs is happy to do so. I last coached and selected the national team in 1999. But I was the General Manager from 1993-2003. I had a duel responsibility to look after both Cal and the national team, which was ridiculously challenging, as well as a great honor.
Today, I have no role with the National Team and have dedicated this stage of my career, outside of my work at Cal, to assist in the development of the next generation of players and coaches. I am not interested in evangelizing against social rugby, but I want to be one of the people working in support of high performance rugby.

I have coined the acronym ICD, which stands for identify, commit and develop. So this chapter is about ICD for players and coaches. The recreational side of the game is crowded with people and ideas. But I feel there is room to still make a contribution in the high performance area.

GOR: What about Tom Billups role at Cal?

Clark: He works as a coach, when he is available. Tom is greatly admired on this campus. Personally there is no person in rugby that I have more respect for. Remember, I have been at this post for a while. I have been blessed to work with lots of assistant coaches over the last 20 plus years and the last four years with Tom and our current staff have been among the most enjoyable.

GOR: Any advice to those involved in college rugby?

Clark: Tell your collegiate readers to ignore the cynics. Remind them that we have two fundamental assets in rugby; a great global game and ourselves. We are our own best resource. Our game is being grown in pockets, because we have pockets of rugby people who have empowered themselves to make a plan and build rugby. As simple as that.

What all these rugby pockets have in common is they are not waiting for their ship to come in. They are not waiting for network TV, the USOC, the NCAA or any other organization. They have rallied their stakeholders and they are building rugby. So my advice is to ignore the cynics and look for inspiration to fuel your growth. You want to find a real up hill battle? Check out the Hyde High School team from Washington, D.C.. These guys are building rugby against all odds and doing it more right than anyone else.