All Americans at SEALs Training

The Men’s All Americans visited the Navy SEAL training base in Coronado, Calif. this week during their training for their three-game series with New Zealand Universities.

“That was a trip I’ll never forget,” said co-captain Ryan Roundy. “It was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life. We pushed ourselves, and getting just a little taste of what those guys go through day-in, day-out, makes me so much more grateful for what I have.”

The players were put through a series of training tasks – running, obstacle courses, team tasks, and were worn out in just a few hours.

“It was an awesome team-building experience and was not easy by any means,” added co-captain Blaine Scully. “It was an honor to be allowed to train with one of the greatest teams on the planet. We learned a lot in a short amount of time and came away with 100 different lessons on mental toughness. The SEALS are a really high-performance team that operates with the highest stakes. It was a really good experience to see the kind of pressure they put themselves under.”

Roundy said he was struck first of all by how taking even a second off in a team is exposed in SEALS training. With seven men carrying a log above their heads, if one guy drops his hands, everyone feels it. It’s not so exposed in a rugby game, said Roundy, but the lesson holds.

The BYU captain was also humbled by what the SEALs personnel are expected to do as a daily lifestyle.

“Even with us I could say to myself, OK, two more hours and we’re back playing rugby and having fun; these guys, they do it every day, so they can do it as a career and keep our country safe,” said Roundy. “Once we’re gone, they don’t leave.”

“We came out of that with more of a sense of our collective identity,” added Scully. “We know we can handle any situation, any time. We’ve been through tougher times.”

All Americans coach Alex Magleby has a tough job this summer, because as well as selecting his All Americans and getting them ready for New Zealand Universities, he has to scout, select and train a 7s team.

While All-Collegiate 7s teams have taken the field before (Emil Signes put a team in the 7s NASC in the late 1990s), this is the first time that an All American 7s team has officially taken the field.

We at RUGBYMag.com thought we’d help Magleby out with our selections for a 7s All American team.

First, some disclaimers. We decided to go with players who are available. So, while we would love to have Thretton Palamo on this team, he’s now playing football for the University of Utah. Taylor Mokate is injured. Scott LaValla, who led Trinity College, Dublin University, to an All-Ireland 7s title, is in training with Stade Francais

So they are off limits.

Similarly, the military academy players are also largely unavailable, and that keeps Dave Geib, Ben Leaatigaga, Will Holder, Seamus Siefring and Nate Arnsberger off the team.

What we also struggled with was predicting who might be good at 7s even if we hadn’t seen a player perform at 7s. Pat Clifton took a few more flyers than Alex Goff on that level, but either way, while it’s not difficult to predict whether a player might have 7s potential, predicting whether a player can perform at a high level is much tougher.

Pat Clifton’s best 14 players:
Prop: Cam Dolan (Life)                Shaun Potgieter (Arkansas State)
Hooker: Nate Ebner (Ohio State)     Seamus Kelly (Cal)
Prop: Ryan Roundy  (BYU)           Benji Goff (Tennessee)
Scrumhalf: Peter Tiberio (Arizona)    Tonata Lauti (Utah)
Flyhalf: JP Eloff (Davenport)                Shaun Davies (BYU)
Center: Don Pati (Utah)                 Jarred Whippy (BYU)
Wing: Blaine Scully (Cal)         Rocco Mauer (Bowling Green)

Alex Goff’s best 14 players:
Prop: Cam Dolan (Life)                      Ryan Roundy (BYU)
Hooker: Nate Ebner (Ohio State)         Rob Carlson (St. Mary’s)
Prop: Nate Brakely (Dartmouth)           Blaine Scully (Cal)
Scrumhalf: Peter Tiberio (Arizona)         Dylan Lubbe (BYU)  
Flyhalf: Nick Downer                           Tonata Lauti (Utah)
Center: Don Pati                                 Seamus Kelly (Cal)
Wing: Rocco Mauer                             Tim Stanfill (CWU)

This list misses a bunch of players. Tim Maupin and Bubba Jones of St. Mary’s, Danny Barrett of Cal, Duncan Kelm of San Diego State, Brett Thompson of Arizona, Nick Viviani of Bowling Green, Adam Ducoing and Bobby Johns of LSU, Kellen Gordon of Central Washington, Tanner Scott and Chris Downer of Dartmouth, Alex Lee of North Carolina, Chris Saint of Penn State, Tim Acker of Kutztown, Gareth Jones of Temple, Danny James of Utah, Dave Martini of UCLA and several others. But it’s a start – an opportunity to consider how much 7s talent there really is out there.

We’ve played fast and loose with some positions, but that’s a good thing. Effective 7s players should be able to play wing and prop (Blaine Scully) and a smart halfback should be able to step in at scrumhalf or flyhalf (Dylan Lubbe, Don Pati, sort of).

Tell us who you like …

BOULDER, Colo. – USA Rugby All American Head Coach Alex Magleby today named his 2011 Men’s Collegiate All-Americans Touring Squad. 

The team consists of the top men’s collegiate rugby players in the country and will assemble for a training camp at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, Calif. in early July to prepare for a three-match series with the New Zealand Universities team.  The 30-man squad has players from the roughly 22,000 men’s collegiate rugby players in the country. 

The matches against the New Zealand Universities are to be held in San Diego (July 9), Santa Barbara (July 13) and Stanford (July 16).

“The players we selected for the Touring Squad are athletic and experienced. There are some exciting players who earned their spot in this squad through their outstanding play this season and will get to experience in an Olympic training environment, take on the challenge of representing their country against a formidable international opponent, and have the opportunity to put their hand up for future selection into the senior national teams,” Magleby said.

The coach also noted that many of the players at this camp will be Olympic hopefuls for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

The All-American pathway, beginning with the High School All-Americans, is a proven route to playing for the Eagles.  In fact, four of the players on the touring squad; Cam Dolan (Life University), Ryan Roundy (BYU), Blaine Scully (University of California – Berkeley) and Peter Tiberio (University of Arizona) have all represented the USA at the senior international level.

Nine players on the 2011 All-American Touring Squad have played for the High School All-Americans (Under-17s) or the Junior All-Americans (Under-20s).

Scully and Dolan are also included in the USA’s 50-man preliminary squad that Eagles Head Coach Eddie O’Sullivan submitted last week to the 2011 Rugby World Cup (RWC) organizers.  Nineteen of the of the 50 RWC hopefuls named in that squad are former Collegiate All-Americans.

2011 MEN’S COLLEGIATE ALL-AMERICANS TOURING SQUAD

Forwards:
James Besser (University of California – Berkeley), Matt Crawford (St. Mary’s College of California), Zach Fenoglio (Loyola Marymount), Ray Forrester (BYU), Nick Mostyn (Utah), Mike Su’a (BYU), Andy Cooke (St. Mary’s College of California), Mark Bonham (BYU), Nate Brakeley (Dartmouth), Nick Civetta (Notre Dame), Chris Parker (Texas A&M), Derek Asbun (University of California – Berkeley), Jordan Badia-Bellinger (Claremont Colleges), Cam Dolan (Life University), Garrett Lambert (Life University), Dave Martini (UCLA), Shaun Potgieter (Arkansas State), Ryan Roundy (BYU)

Backs
Shaun Davies (BYU), Chris Saint (Penn State), JP Eloff (Davenport University), Pat Sullivan (Arkansas State), Benji Goff (Tennessee), Gareth Jones (Temple), Seamus Kelly (University of California – Berkeley), Duncan Kelm (San Diego State), Kyle Grossheider (Life University), Dustin Muhn (University of California – Berkeley), Blaine Scully (University of California – Berkeley), Peter Tiberio (University of Arizona)

Considered but unavailable:
Danny Barrett (University of California – Berkeley), Roland Evans (Arkansas State), Taylor Mokate (University of Oklahoma), Don Pati (University of Utah), James Bailes (University of California – Berkeley), Dylan Lubbe (BYU), Will Holder (Army), Thretton Palamo (University of Utah), Jared Whippy (BYU), Tyler Harrison (University of California – Davis), Ben Leatigaga (Army), Sione Lauti (University of Utah)

2011 MEN’S COLLEGIATE ALL-AMERICANS v. NEW ZEALAND UNIVERSITIES SUMMER TOUR
July 9: Little Q (Old Mission Bay Athletic Club) | 3 p.m.
July 13: Harder Stadium (UC- Santa Barbara) | 6:30 p.m.
July 16: Steuber Rugby Stadium (Stanford University) | 1 p.m.

Since the announcement that there would be a Collegiate 7s All-American squad competing in the Club 7s National All Star Championships in Chula Vista, Calif. in August, we haven’t heard much else, until now.

We now know the 7s AAs will assemble in Chula Vista for a camp Saturday, August 20, six days prior to the kickoff of the 7s NASCs. The budget for this assembly is still undetermined, so it’s unclear how many players will be invited. Eagles 7s coach Al Caravelli said he’d like to see 20, and 7s AAs head coach Alex Magleby indicated between 12 and 20 would be invited.

The final selections will be made by Magleby, but the Dartmouth head coach is conferring with Caravelli on a regular basis.

“It’s a separate deal than the international setup, just like the 15s team is, but we’re measured on how many of our guys eventually become National Team players, so it behooves us to make sure we’re coordinating as much as we can with the National Team coaches,” said Magleby. “That’s what we’ve been doing in 15s, and it’s what we’ll do in 7s.”

The group to be invited to the August camp will named next month, as will the rest of the 7s AAs staff. Magleby said his staff has already been identified, but did not want to divulge too many names before the coaches’ work and travel situations could be sorted out. The one coach Magleby did say would be on staff is David Fee.

Fee, Magleby’s former teammate with the 7s Eagles in the early part of the century, was also on staff with the High School All-American 7s team that won its division in the Las Vegas Invitational in February. During the spring, Fee coaches Brother Rice High School in Chicago.

Magleby said the All-American camp selections should preempt any territorial all-star selections, giving those who don’t make the AAs a chance to still compete in the NASCs in front of national selectors.

“Certainly, any of the college guys that don’t get picked that Al believes have a shot, he’s got the relationships to kind of build on that and get them into their all-star territorial teams,” Magleby said.

Caravelli seems upbeat about the direction the NASCs are heading, and specifically the formation and inclusion of the AAs.  

“The new guys that have been coming onto our team. last year was the first time in three years that a guy came out of a club championships, and it was only one guy,” said Caravelli. “The rest of the guys have been coming out of our collegiate ranks.”

RUGBYMag.com intends to name its 7s All-American team before USA Rugby tabs its first squad, so stay tuned to RUGBYMag.com for both lists and any news concerning domestic 7s this summer.