Rugby Rhetoric

This blogger analyses the composition and the abilities of the college rugby teams competing in the Las Vegas Invitational this weekend. One of these fortunate teams will come out on top as champions, but the blogger is opinionated more on the divide between the teams that tend to come out on top (according to him, Arkansas State University, Life University, University of California, and Brigham Young University) and the teams that dominate "locally in their respective regions" (Texas A&M, Texas Tech, and Baylor) are at a disadvantage as always in tournaments like this. For example, the blogger used results from last week indicating a Cal team dominating a "Tennessee team 99-0, an Arizona State team crushed 99-0 by Life University, and UC Davis losing to St. Mary's 81-0". Texas A&M's Rugby team was mentioned several times throughout this blog, but with very few positive notes from the blogger such as losing "70-7 to nationally ranked Arkansas State."

In other words, teams like A&M represent the crunched, middle class of the rugby hierarchy, while teams like Cal remain at the peak of the pyramid. The blogger, with minimum efforts however, uses logos to appeal to the readers the reasons (whether it'd be "money, commitment, university support, or athlete performance"). These arguments do make sense however, a university with more money would be able to afford to support the travel expenses and equipment maintenance for the players. Rugby is not a cheap sport to play, and if athletes have to "work at fundraising events or pay out of pocket to the point where playing is not affordable for certain players. Some teams have gone as far to offer scholarships, but most of these are based on high academic merits, while certain schools have enough cash subsidiaries to offer scholarships or loans to players with not-as-stellar qualifications.

The blogger asserts correctly that in the United States, rugby is NOT a varsity sport, but then he uses his own opinions without any factual support to say that it should be. His reasons are that 1) "varsity athletes can receive substantial support from the university, whether it'd be academic, physical or financial. 2) the program is affected as a whole, rather than if it were to recognize itself as a club," bringing with that label implicit and exclusive qualities.

His final argument, is the overall reason certain teams remain ahead of the pack in college rugby: admission requirements. As mentioned previously, he bases these facts with more logos, but with no hard evidence. (stats, expert input, etc) He states that universities with lower admission standards "have a substantial and some would argue, insurmountable advantage over schools that must rely purely on the relative academic merits and competitiveness of the student athletes to gain admission to the school of their choice." Overall, he argues that Arkansas State and Life University receive high performing athletes that were turned down by prestigious universities for academic performance and as such, remain at number one and two nationwide.

http://alliedrugby.com/blog/pre-season-and-vegas/