Photos: Jackie Finlan (repost with credit)
High school teams take all shapes and sizes. They can hunt trophies, prioritize travel and touring, or emphasize select sides, or seek out college connections – and in some cases, high school programs can be all of those things. McMinn Tribe is one example of a team producing well rounded and recruit-worthy rugby players, due in large part to the direction of Buck Billings, our High School Coach of Spring 2017.
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In 2016, Billings wanted to gauge his squad’s talent, so McMinn played in tournaments and participated in camps from Georgia to New Jersey. Along the way, his players drew attention from Scion Academy director Joanne Liu and Girls’ High School All-American (GHSAA) coach Farrah Douglas (resulting in academy team selection and camp invites), as well as Morris, N.J., coach Tom Feury, who encouraged McMinn to apply to single-school nationals. After winning the Tennessee state championship – McMinn’s first – Tribe traveled to St. Charles, Mo., for the first single-school event, but lost to Catholic Memorial (Wisc.), State College (Pa.) and Warsaw (Ind.).
The eighth-place finish wasn’t ideal but it did lay that important base layer of experience. With an eye toward an improved performance at the 2017 national tournament, the team upped its strength & conditioning and challenged itself at the Las Vegas 7s, Nash Bash, Maryland Exiles International Youth Festival and D.C. Ruggerfest. The heavy road schedule was also necessary due to the anemic local league.
Again, those venues put McMinn players in front of next-level coaches, many of which converged on 2017 nationals in Elkhart, Ind. Coach Billings wanted to make sure that scouts could watch a player, quickly identify her, review her high school achievements and understand her collegiate goals. So in advance of the tournament, Billings circulated a roster that included players’ basic stats (height/weight, positions, GPA, grade, etc.) as well as three sets of jerseys numbers for the home, away and practice kit. He has his players write and update rugby resumes (that look like professional job applications), regardless of grade. The resumes also include insight into collegiate, career and rugby goals, as well as personal accounts of rugby’s role in the player’s life. And this was all available to coaches in advance of nationals.
“They will do the research of schools offering their major and have rugby. After that they start networking and sending them out and building relationships,” Billings explained.
This outreach is of course backed by on-field performance, and the Class of 2017 is heading to Davenport, Life University, Quinnipiac and Queens University of Charlotte. Billings plans to keep this routine in motion and continue building the program’s on-field successes.
In the team’s return to the single-school tournament in Elkhart, Ind., McMinn entered as the eighth seed and had the weighty task of facing Divine Savior Holy Angels (DSHA) in the first round.
“I told the girls: If you’re going to win [nationals], then you’re going to have to go through DSHA, so you might as well play them first,” Billings said.
The players took it to heart and came out firing. After a few fiery minutes, DSHA wrestled control of the first half to put some tries on the board.
“This is our second trip to nationals and that [experience] helps, because you’re going to make mistakes, and when you’re playing in a national championship, the team that responds well from their mistakes is going to have an advantage,” Billing said. “Last year we made some mistakes and it set us back 10-15 minutes of play. This year, we made some mistakes, hit the reset button, and got right back in it.”
McMinn regrouped in the second half to score some points and ended with a 28-12 loss to the eventual champions.
“After we lost I told the girls that the second-, third- and fifth-place teams are going home 2-1 and everyone else is going home with a losing record,” Billings said. “We wanted that 2-1. That’s what we played for.”
As it worked out, the final two games were against 2016 opponents, and McMinn banked some redemption in addition to a fifth-place finish. During the second round, Tribe defeated Warsaw 10-5 and faced State College, which had defeated St. Joseph Academy 23-7 in the fifth-place semifinal, for fifth.
State College took a two-try lead into the half before McMinn was able to mount a comeback. Then, with no time on the clock, senior captain Mariah Pruitt scored the tying try, and replacement kicker MaKayla Lowe lined up the conversion. The team’s regular conversion kicker, BreAnna Gable, had remained in Tennessee for high school graduation. Lowe sent a dropkick through the posts for the 19-17 win.
It was a great way for the seniors to end their careers with McMinn, but watch for notables like Lowe, Destiny Henry, Onycha Pruitt and more as they make their mark on the collegiate rugby sphere. And take note as players like sophomore center Bailey Grubb, who “gets crazy eyes when you talk about tackling,” according to Billings, considers her place in rugby. She plays softball and drew attention in Elkhart.
For Billings (inset: after the congratulatory cooler drenching at nationals), there is still more to do. Although his girls’ and boys’ programs receive good support from the school and community, he’s looking for more.
“I’m going to start trying to get corporate money to help fund our program,” explained Billings, who has started grant writing. “I believe we are doing a great service for our student athletes and I hope to share the message. We have a great thing going and I think it is pretty unique. We just need to find the right financial partners and we can do even more for our kids.”