Comments on: Rugby deserves respect…or at least a field

By: Brad Garrett

Brad Garrett — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 02:03:33 +0000

Hello webmaster…I Googled for brad garrett pictures, but found your page about or at least a field…and have to say thanks. nice read.

By: Freshman

Freshman — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 23:58:31 +0000

Club Rugby is the highest level of collegiate rugby available in the nation. There is no Varsity NCCA. So how can you deny the athletes who compete at the highest level they can in America the basic necessity of decent field space.

By: -Junior

-Junior — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 21:24:34 +0000

Varsity and JV Baseball have their fields that they don’t share with other teams. And your math on football is off.

Intramurals here are fairly sad, and they, unlike Penn Rugby, don’t play varsity squads, let alone other colleges.

By having ‘open field space’ you get a quick tragedy of the commons. Please look at the Hill mud and stone pits, or HRN field. By the by, next time you see 50 guys running around HRN playing a sport you know nothing about, it’s rugby.

By: Senior

Senior — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 19:04:48 +0000

Alumnus, you are correct that I don’t know everything about the ability of the Rugby team to reserve fields. I’m sorry about the team’s difficulties, but I maintain that a dedicated rugby space is not practical. More general field space, with better maintenance, is the best solution. That way, participants in any sport can use it, and it would not be dedicated to a niche sport that nobody outside those 120 students can use. By the way, 120 students is far from the “most popular sport.” Varsity football alone (sprint included) exceeds that. Varsity and JV baseball, combined with all of the intramural teams, undoubtedly exceeds that. The amount of students that recreationally play soccer surely exceeds that. Again, I do think that a solution that satisfies the rugby teams can be found. But the rugby teams are no more deserving of dedicated space than any other club team.

By: Alumnus

Alumnus — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 15:45:37 +0000

“Senior” you are ignorant. You have no frame of reference. You are like a child that walks into the middle of a movie. How would you have any knowledge of the demand of the rugby team if you weren’t on it? Four years ago the team was allowed to practice and host matches on Bower Field behind Franklin Field and the Palestra. Now the team has trouble reserving any time on Bower Field for practice and hasn’t had a game there in three years. The team forced to find space anywhere it can in order to practice.

Benham way to prance around in that picture.

By: A rugger

A rugger — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 03:41:13 +0000

The rugby team can’t reserve franklin field in the manner that a varsity club does. We play our games in Fairmount park, miles from campus. We practice on Hill and Bower, splitting time with every other club sport, which is why Hill and Bower are reduced to nothing but dirt and mud every semester. I assure you, the club soccer team and ultimate frisbee teams would love to hear that Rugby was getting its own field. Princeton, mind you, has plans for a $1 million stadium for Rugby, and Dartmouth has a $3 million rugby complex. Rugby is America’s number one college sport based on participant numbers. There is also a girls team which has been quite successful recently who faces the same problems, and a very well respected grad student team based out of Wharton. All told, over 120 students play rugby, which I am willing to bet means we’re Penn’s most popular sport, club or varsity.

By: Senior

Senior — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 00:01:37 +0000

Follow-up to my previous post: Here’s a link to the Club Sports page. http://www.upenn.edu/recreation/clubs/clubpages.htm

All club sports are listed there, while all varsity sports are on pennathletics.com. There’s no reason to make an exception for one club sport.

By: Senior

Senior — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 23:48:28 +0000

I’m not sure that the demand really is there. Besides the club teams, I don’t think that any students play rugby recreationally. The athletics department doesn’t have an unlimited budget, so I’m not sure they should be spending too much on a facility that benefits maybe a couple dozen students. And nor should they be spending the money just because it is a “major world sport.” And it’s not Penn’s responsibility to promote sports that are unpopular here. If so few students here participate in it, it’s not worth the money, no matter how popular it is elsewhere.

General maintenance of playing fields should be a priority, so I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be a space at all. But it’s not practical to create and maintain a dedicated rugby field. Plenty of teams play on fields also used for something else. Can’t the rugby teams reserve Franklin Field three times a week?

One other comment: There is no reason for rugby to be on official Athletics Department website. That website is solely for varsity sports, which rugby is not. There is a separate site, run by the recreation side of the department, that should have it listed. But a non-varsity sport does not belong on the main athletics website.