Professional athletes are nothing new in the USA. In a country that represents the biggest global sports market by a significant margin, pro athletes are a special brand of celebrity. Like mythical creatures, they are both figures of public adoration and yet nearly impossible to find in the wild. People make careers merely snapping pictures of them wherever possible. But, unbeknownst to most, a breed of athlete is returning to these United States that has not been seen here for many years. Rugby United New York’s Ross Deacon is one of those athletes.

Less than a year ago, an experiment began. An experiment to test whether a professional sports league in this nation under the rugby union code could long endure. Now, entering its second season, Major League Rugby still flies beneath most radars. Its heroes are not the national icons of other professional sports.

At least not yet.

Rather, they are people just like you and me. The vast majority have day jobs, often ones that provide the bulk of their income. They walk down the street unnoticed, in possession of athletic gifts that far outstrip their thus far meager celebrity. Like you or me, they get up, put on their boots and put in a full day of work. Then, when that’s taken care of, they switch to their rugby boots, and for a few hours, they become elite modern day gladiators. You can find these gladiators on CBS Sports Network, or on ESPN, or on SNY. You can find them in stadiums playing in front of thousands. Then, when the full-time whistle blows, the rugby boots come off and they are once again construction workers, bartenders, teachers, bankers, and the like.

It’s a throwback to the early days of sports professionalism, recalling tales of baseball players working full-time jobs in the offseason before reporting for Spring Training. Martin Pengelly of the Guardian referred to the league as “raw-as-hell.” It’s something being built from scratch. Being built from the ground up.

In 100 years, maybe professional rugby players in American will have become major celebrities, living in big remote houses and avoiding the paparazzi. And maybe Americans of those days will look back on this time and remember with wonder the sacrifices that were required from everyday folks to build it. Maybe they’ll look back at people like Ross Deacon.

Craig Gridelli: What I want to get at is your rugby story. You’re a guy who was born in the US but grew up overseas. Now you’re back here playing professional rugby.

Ross Deacon: I was born in San Francisco. Both my parents are Irish so when I was about a year old they moved back home to Ireland. Grew up my whole childhood in Ireland. Started playing rugby when I was about seven years old for my local club called Enniscorthy. Then, from there played for a couple of years in elementary school and really started to like it towards when I was going into high school.

Secondary school we call it. I went to secondary school at Kilkenny College, which is a boarding school and which is a rugby school as well. That’s where I pushed on and thought that I was going to try and make something of it.

Suffice it to say, rugby development is far more advanced in Ireland than it is in the US. In Ireland and other major rugby powers, long and well-tested pathways have developed from childhood all the way up to the national team. There are clubs, and age-based teams, and junior national teams (sometimes called “representative teams”). Coaches will have their eye on you from a young age and will nurture their best players through school, through professional academies, through the national under-20-years-old teams, and so on.

These are the pipelines that don’t quite exist yet in the US. But with MLR sides beginning to open their own academies and USA Rugby becoming more organized and professional, it’s all starting. And one is left with the feeling that something special is growing. It’s fun to watch it happen.

RD: “I played some representative stuff at underage as well. Played for Leinster Under 20s and had a brief stint with the Irish Under 20s. And I actually played for the USA Under 20s in France in the World Cup in 2013. That was a good experience as well.

“When I left high school I moved up to Dublin. I went to UCD, University College of Dublin and I played for Lansdowne Football Club. So I was in Lansdowne for about four or five years. Loved my time there.”

CG: And your coach there was a former Welsh coach, Six Nations Grand Slam winner?

“Yeah. Mike Ruddock. Learned a lot under him. His coaching style suited me a lot. Definitely learned an awful lot off of him.”

So Ross came from a great pedigree. And yet, as he left college, it wasn’t clear what his next rugby step would be.

“After that, I finished college and I was doing a bit of work in England. Going over and back and doing some construction work in the summer. I got a phone call from a Lansdowne guy in New York, here. He was coaching at [New York Athletic Club] – Mick Quinn.

“Quinny just gave me a call and asked if I’d come over. He knew I had the passport. I was keen for a new experience. It was kind of an overnight thing. I just decided to come over and give it a craic. So I started playing for NYAC then.”

New York Athletic Club is one of the premier amateur rugby sides in the US. At the time, it was coached by former USA Eagle head coach Mike Tolkin. NYAC is a perennial contender for the Men’s Division I National Championship. They’ve won it five times. When Ross crossed the pond, that was the highest championship attainable in American domestic rugby. He’s been here ever since.

And when this new professional league called MLR was kicking off, Ross was the perfect fit. He was already living in New Yor, and the New York professional team was going to be coached by none other than that same Mike Tolkin.

As MLR fans will know, however, RUNY didn’t officially join the league until 2019. For the inaugural 2018 season, Ross played with RUNY in its exhibitions and then was loaned out to the Austin Elite Rugby for the remainder of the season.

All the while, something strange was happening. The USA national team was quietly having its best year in history. Long a fringe rugby nation in search of success on the world stage, the Eagles got a taste in 2018. Suddenly with the benefit of seven professional teams to develop players, the Americans tore through the Americas Rugby Championship, going undefeated.

Then, incredibly, they beat Scotland. It was the first and only Tier 1 win since the tiering system was created. And it was the first win against a major rugby nation since the 1924 Olympics. Something was changing.

The USA would go on to a 9-1 record in test matches in 2018, losing only to mighty Ireland. It seemed as though a new age was dawning, in which professional players from a domestic league were infusing the USA national team with skill. Instead of USA doing its best to pick players based on limited and expensive scouting trips, there was all of a sudden a televised set of matches where selectors could watch the best of the best play against each other every weekend.

So your USA U20s experience was in 2013. Any contact with the USA national team since then? Is that something you’re pursuing?

“It’s always in the back of your mind. But I suppose you can’t let it dominate your thinking too much. You have to think of the here and now, especially when you’re playing MLR. If you think about that stuff too much, not saying that it would ever happen, but if it ever does, you can’t let it distract you from your current job. But look, if it ever happens, it happens. I’ll take it as it comes, I suppose.”

And so he will. And so do all the MLR players. They take it as it comes because that’s what has to happen to make this whole “raw-as-hell” experiment work.

What would you say are the biggest differences that stand out between playing for a pro or semi-pro or academy side in Ireland versus playing for Rugby United New York?

“There’s definitely a couple of differences. New York is just that kind of city. There’s a lot of guys that have to balance their day job and rugby as well. It’s a challenge in itself, so you have to be more regimented in your approach to your week and everything needs to be more planned out. But it’s a good challenge, you just have to make sure you’ve allowed time for everything.

“I did a good bit of training with Leinster my first year of college. We would have training early in the morning, then you try to get your college classes in between skill sessions. And then you’d be playing for Lansdowne in the evening. So that was difficult as well. It’s tough everywhere.

“But over here they are definitely approaching it the right way. This is Rugby United New York’s first year in the league, so there’s definitely going to be learning on the fly. It’ll come. But there’s a different challenge every week, I suppose.

“The traveling gets a bit tough. The last four games have all been away. That’s a different challenge in itself as well. You’re pretty tired during the week after all the travel. But it’s fine. So far I’ve been pretty happy with it. It’s just, with New York being such an expensive city you have to be able to work your other job as well just to survive.”

I imagine that must be extremely challenging to master the work-life balance. How tough is it to manage between your profession and your personal life and your rugby commitments?

“Definitely a massive challenge. I’ve been lucky enough so far that I’ve been able to make do with timing arrangements at work, and I’ve been able to get out on time to make it to training. It’s tough for different guys. You don’t know if your meetings are going to run long that day, or something unforeseen could come up that will lead to you missing a training session. It’s not ideal, but the coaches have to be a little more understanding here, just because of the nature of the beast New York is, I suppose.

Fast forward 10 years of MLR. Do you see the status quo [for kids growing up playing rugby in the USA] changing? How do you see it adapting to the overall American sports picture?

“Well, I know that the coaches and especially [general manager] James English are trying to do as much exposure stuff with clubs, even youth programs. I know a couple guys on our team are actually doing coaching for high schools and stuff like that.

“It’s a lot easier now that you can look at a TV screen and watch rugby on SNY or the different channels that we’re being broadcast on. It gives kids more of an insight. A few years ago, even, if you just asked kids if they knew what rugby was, they’d look at you blankly. They wouldn’t have a clue.

“Give it a couple of years. I think the youth in many of these programs will hopefully become a little bit more bolstered. The level of athletic ability of kids over here is phenomenal, it’s just trying to catch them early and give them those rugby smarts. That’s the key thing. In 10 years, I reckon, it’s going to be very strong over here.

You’ve been in New York for a while. What has the city been like?

“It’s been great. I’ve probably done the real stereotypical Irish thing. So I came over, I was playing rugby obviously, but I started working in bars. I worked in a bar for about a year. Then I moved into construction and worked with [team owner] James Kennedy and the guys here for about a year. I’ve just been working away on the construction site as well. It’s been good.

“New York can be a tough place to live, but once you get it dialed it’s a great city. I haven’t looked back since moving over here.”

What are your long-term personal aspirations? Are you planning to play until you retire? Are you interested in coaching? When you look down the road, what interests you?

“To be honest, that’s kind of a difficult question. I’m 25 years old, so I’ve still got a bit of time anyway I hope on the playing side. In a couple of years time I’ll probably make the decision of if I want to pursue coaching and stuff like that. Right now I’m pretty happy doing what I’m doing, working in the construction site, more project management or superintendent stuff. I’m open to anything at the moment. Going back to college even, or just experiencing something new on the American side. I’ve got some thinking to do about it, but I have some time.”

Next Friday [March 15], your first home game. What are you expecting? MCU Park, Coney Island, have you been to Coney Island before?

“I actually haven’t. I haven’t had a chance to get out there, but I’ve heard it’s a great facility. It’s a great spot to be able go to, because it gives people a good day out. Hopefully we can make a good day out of it as well. It will be nice to have our first game at home.”

What are your expectations for the season for RUNY?

“Look, I’d be lying if I said the end goal wasn’t to push for the title. That’s what you want.”

You guys were just out in Seattle. That was the only road bump of the season so far.

“Yeah. Look, they’re a good side as well. We coughed up a couple of chances against them. If you make mistakes against a team like that, they’re going to punish you. They had one or two, they probably had two breakaway tries. In the end, it kind of killed us. And their defense was good enough to hold us at bay towards the end, even when we were coming back. Look, those games are the tougher games. It’s beneficial to us as well because we can come back and go over it and see where we went wrong.

The tough loss would indeed be a learning experience for RUNY. They have since made two more road trips, one to Houston and one to Utah. And they’ve since delivered two convincing wins. With a 4-1 road record to start the season, the Roosters head home in a strong position for a playoff run.

But they also, thankfully, head home for a break in travel. Tellingly, during the interview, James Kennedy popped his head in to check if Ross had gotten enough sleep. In a moment of peaking behind the curtain, it was evident how tired these young players really are. How difficult it really is to compete at the level of a professional athlete while also upholding the jobs needed to live in New York City.

But, if nothing else, they have each other. Like any great team, RUNY’s mutual support network extends beyond the pitch. It touches every part of life, both professional and social. One wonders if, when all is said and done, it’s that support network that makes it all possible. It is what gives life to rugby in the Big Apple.

If you had a message for the kid who’s seeing the RUNY ad on the subway, or in Coney Island they see the stadium and they’re interested in learning about rugby, give me your sales pitch. Why should this kid think about taking up rugby?

“The whole culture behind it all. The whole team culture. Generally, it is a really really good team based sport. You get to travel. Basically, I got to travel the world because of it. Meet new people. I have friends all over the world now because of it.

“I just wouldn’t be afraid to ask. If you are that kid, ask anyone. If it means going onto Instagram or a comment on Facebook or something like that. Send someone a message. People are happy to help out. It’s a real community.”

How unique is that?

“I was never afraid to go and try out for a new place or get involved. If I had to move to another city, the first thing I do is go down to the local rugby club. It’s like when I moved over here, to NYAC, it’s all that core group of guys that are my friends still today. And once I joined with RUNY, it’s broadened.”

How strong are the off-field bonds in the New York rugby area?

“As good as anywhere that I’ve played, definitely, the culture on the RUNY team. It’s a good laugh. No one feels left out. I’ve enjoyed every minute of it so far, so I can’t complain.”

But the thing is, he could complain. He could very easily complain about 18-hour work days between construction and rugby. He could complain about the cost of living in New York City and the paychecks that don’t compare to those in other professional sports.

But he won’t. Because, for good or for ill, he’s part of something unique. He and the rest of the players in MLR are building the foundation of something in the hopes that it will one day grow into a mighty edifice in the USA sports world. But, for the foundation to be strong requires commitment, investment, and above all, hard work.

Ross Deacon may never be the celebrity that a rugby #8 is in other countries. And he will probably never be the iconic celebrity that is an NFL running back or an NBA power forward. But, one day many years from now, maybe his grandson will be.

And looking back, that grandson will think about Grandpa Ross and how he played #8 for Rugby United New York by night while working construction by day. And he and his friends will laugh while zooming around in their driverless flying cars about how strange it must have been back in 2019.

And that’s great. If rugby is to become something here, we all have our roles to play. For people like Ross Deacon, their part may be something even more unique than celebrity. Their part, if all goes well, is origination. It won’t be easy, and it won’t always be fun, but it will sure as hell be unique. And, achieving it, together and as a team, will be something worth remembering.

Here in 2019, that’s the life of a rugger in the Big Apple.