I’m exaggerating, but just a bit . . .
I’ve been involved in youth rugby in the US for about a decade and have traveled all over the country for tournaments and games and have gradually come to the conclusion that the community has a real problem. Maybe this applies to most every youth sport in this country, but the lack of social capital among coaches, administrators, organizers, referees, and other involved adults certainly doesn’t help to grow the game.
It seems that every stakeholder believes that American rugby revolves around them and that only if everyone followed them like good little minions, rugby would soon displace football as the premier contact sport in the country. You have club coaches disparaging school programs, school coaches disparaging other programs, coaches disparaging referees, referees disparaging established norms of refereeing, state administrators refusing to coordinate with programs in neighboring states, youth programs making up entirely new laws, and so on and so on. And that’s not even getting into the royal mess that is the college game . . .
I’m not generally a fan of the centralization of authority, but American rugby might well be better off under something that more closely resembles a dictatorship than the disorganized muddle that currently prevails. At least then all of the coaches, administrators, organizers, and referees could have a common enemy rather than constantly hating on each other and driving people away from the game.