NEC7C Stays Active with Flag 7s

There is little optimism relative to Covid-19 and rugby, but now that communities are coming to terms with what the rest of the year (at least) is looking like, there’s opportunity to optimize it. Chip Auscavitch is a champion in creativity and knows that the customer service-oriented New England Collegiate 7s Circuit (NEC7C), and its tenets of flexibility, superb communication and organization, can help colleges sustain themselves through the pandemic.

Auscavitch has perspective. He helped reorganize the college game into conferences when that structure was introduced last decade, and took note as politics and excess layers of government prevented the full realization of a product that the American public could recognize. Those experiences influenced his future moves, including creating an independent group of referees, to serving as founding commissioner of Rugby Northeast, to founding the NEC7C.

“I have a good relationship with all the conference commissioners [in New England]. They don’t always talk or see eye-to-eye with each other,” said Auscavitch, who is also secretary for the New England geographic union (NERFU). “I see myself as a person to bring everyone together and get them the info they need, which is ironic because I was one of the ones who got the colleges to leave NERFU to form conferences. I’m posting on Facebook, sending e-mails to commissioners, college directors or different groups with updates, just so we’re all seeing and hearing the same stuff.”

Auscavitch publicly tracked the suspension of colleges’ fall sports seasons, one by one, until it became clear that there would be no fall rugby on campuses in New England, and beyond.

“We have all the info we’re going to get for the fall,” Auscavitch said. “But my plan is to continue to operate in case those states and schools that currently don’t allow rugby decide to change course. UMass Lowell, for example, was one of the first schools to have their rugby seasons canceled. But it wasn’t all club sports or varsity sports, it was just rugby, because it’s considered a high-risk sport. We need rugby to move out of the high-risk category, and we can do that with a hybrid [version of the sport] or with different formats.”

Auscavitch wants to set up the NEC7C for flag 7s and have it begin earlier in the fall. The tournaments would be open to any college from any conference, and embrace the flexibility needed for group activities during Covid-19. Auscavitch also has the financial means to support such an endeavor. When Covid-19 canceled the spring portion of the 2019-20 series, he gave member teams the option for a dues refund or combination of credit and reinvestment into the competition. Most picked the latter option.

“So if you’re a team that is not fully open for business,” Auscavitch referenced the Return to Play guidelines, “then this will be an option that invites competitive play, team against team, and still be as safe as humanly possible. It’ll be totally opt-in and offer opportunities to recruit, build skills and operate outside of the classroom.”

Auscavitch reached out to NEC7C members for feedback, and a handful of teams expressed interest, especially if that’s the level of participation that they’re allowed. But it’s not about just staying active and keeping the current team engaged; the fall is recruitment season, and teams are worried about Covid-19’s impact on rosters and program longevity.

“You’re going to have schools that handle it differently, but there are club sports directors who have been furloughed and there is no plan to hire a replacement because there are no club sports [for the fall],” Auscavitch said. “There is so much lost room-and-board revenue that you might see schools kill budgets for these [rugby] teams or their coaches’ stipends, and then coaches might not return. There are so many teams, even ones in NIRA, that barely have 15 players, so if the fall recruitment season is gone, where are the bulk of your players going to come from? I hope NEC7C can help preserve some of those teams.”

The NEC7C transcends conferences, organizational bodies, state lines, and allows recruits to see the game in motion. This flexibility is needed, as Auscavitch foresees endless conflict as a disconnected system attempts to survive Covid-19 and USA Rugby reorganization.

“Rugby teams are independent,” Auscavitch said. “They join a conference or a union to play in a league, but they’re independent entities. USA Rugby is the only governing body as far as I know – and maybe [National Collegiate Rugby], too. NERFU at one point was the governing body for all things rugby in New England, but then the [State Rugby Organizations] and conferences formed, and now NERFU is just a league. Your team could join multiple conferences if you wanted – put your A side in this one and B side in this one – but you’re not accountable to them if you play outside of the league.”

That arrangement is at the core of the NEC7C’s lure and success. The competition is not beholden to anything – including access to referees – but its members, and that freedom allows for customer service to flourish. As NERFU secretary, however, Auscavitch is able to witness conflict at more established levels of the game. After USA Rugby shut down and disabled insurance during the pandemic, NERFU then canceled a popular end-of-season tournament in May. The GU learned that teams were still practicing and grappled with the appropriate response.

“I’m not sure to what extent [teams were congregating] but it was, ‘Woah, are they representing us, or rugby?’ Should we sanction them,’” Auscavitch said of teams practicing in public arenas. “We all sort of took it in stride and had a conversation with the team. ‘Maybe it’s not the best idea right now,’ and they seemingly agreed and shut it down. There was no tension or conflict, but who knows [what’s coming]. Vermont is a state with few Covid cases; they’ve been minimally affected by this. They could easily say, ‘We want to play and there’s no reason we shouldn’t.’ I’m not sure what we [NERFU] can do or should do.

“The referee thing will boil up, too,” added Auscavitch, an independent referee who is insured by the National Association of Sports Officials. “At some point you’ll want to play and you’ll need refs. Will they come from the referee society or us [the independent group of refs]? Do you need the union to say this is a sanctioned game? Will teams even register with USA Rugby come September 1?”

And in what shape will USA Rugby be if it can’t collect full dues? The national governing body is offering a Covid-19 special, where teams can register and receive insurance for practice-only seasons at a reduced rate. Those memberships will upgrade to full status once the pandemic eases, but Auscavitch is skeptical that that offer will entice the masses. Not only will college budgets decrease, but clubs that received no refund for their lost spring seasons might not be eager to shell out another year’s worth of dues before there is more confidence in USA Rugby. With drastically reduced income from dues, what is the likelihood that USA Rugby will emerge from bankruptcy as anticipated? Those scenarios will take time to evolve, and in the meantime, teams in the same region, state, town have the opportunity to partner in ways that the busy fall didn’t previously allow. But are there more barriers awaiting?

“What if you want to get clubs to reach out to colleges, because clubs have more flexibility for practices and colleges are more likely to shut down [their teams or leagues],” Auscavitch said of clubs building local feeders. “But what if that club is registered with USA Rugby and the college is in NCR? How does that work? So a college player might be reluctant to play with a local club because they might have to pay two sets of dues. And then there is an eligibility issue: Is that player allowed to go back to their college team? Someone needs to say, ‘Yes, you can come back to your college team and there is no penalty,’ but no one is at that point yet. No one is bridging the eligibility gap in terms of understanding it.”

These uncertainties encouraged Auscavitch to promote the NEC7C, which operates in a space that allows independence from some of these strictures and ultimately serve the teams that have simple goals: Play rugby, safely.