How one man nurtured Las Vegas’ relationship with rugby

USA Sevens Rugby • Tickets: $22-$1,111 at usasevens.com • Thursday, March 2: Opening ceremonies and Parade of Nations, 6-8 p.m. at Fremont Street Experience • Friday, March 3: Sam Boyd Stadium gates open at 8 a.m.; first women’s match at 8:17 a.m.; first men’s match at 4:17 p.m. • Saturday, March 4: Sam Boyd Stadium gates open at 7:30 a.m.; first women’s match at 8 a.m.; first men’s match at 1 p.m. • Sunday, March 5: Sam Boyd Stadium gates open at 10 a.m.; first match at 11:24 a.m.; last match TBD

Nearly 30 years ago, Rob Cornelius came to Las Vegas like so many others do, as a transplant from another state looking to find his way in a new land of opportunity.

He hoped to walk onto UNLV’s football team after starring as a defensive end at La Junta High School in rural Colorado. But his attention was diverted during a brief encounter on campus: Walking through the student union, Cornelius was approached by a player from a travel rugby team.

“I had never seen or really heard of rugby; there wasn’t internet when I was a kid,” Cornelius said. “I started playing, and I fell in love with it. And I’m still in love with it. There’s a fraternal bond when people play rugby; there’s such a global level of respect that’s unique to the sport.”

Cornelius, now 46, spent most of the next 17 years playing rugby, captaining the Las Vegas Blackjacks Rugby Football Club, which made it to the semifinals of USA Rugby’s first-division national tournament — the highest level of rugby in the U.S. — in 2006.

He also worked, as director of special events at Hard Rock Hotel, to bring the USA Sevens tournament to town in 2011. The tournament, one of 10 international World Rugby Sevens Series events in 10 countries annually, features 28 men’s and women’s national teams March 3-5 at Sam Boyd Stadium.

Now USA Sevens Rugby’s vice president of business development, Cornelius attended the event for years, first at the Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif., then at San Diego’s Petco Park, before luring it to Las Vegas.

“It was during the height of the recession. We heard it was up for a bid, and they had reached out to me about an amateur event that we used to run called Midnight Sevens,” he said. “It just fit everything we needed at the time, and we figured there was an opportunity there.”

The event drew 24,000 attendees in its first year here in 2010, and nearly 28,000 the next. United World Sports, a local public relations firm, then recruited Cornelius to work full-time on growing the event.

Cornelius said last year’s tournament drew 84,000 visitors from more than 25 countries, and he expected more than 90,000 this year.

Former Las Vegas Blackjacks players aren’t surprised by the success, considering the diligence and care for others Cornelius showed during his playing days. Dallas Orchard, an Australia native who now lives in Las Vegas, said the team was always unified partly because Cornelius made the international players feel at home.

“He was always bringing the team together, just a great leader,” Orchard said. “On the field, he was always one of the toughest players.”

“Rob is hard-nosed, always wanting to learn,” added Rick Coome, another former teammate who co-founded the Las Vegas Rugby Union Football Club in 1975. “He’s one of the reasons that club stayed together for so many years.”

Cornelius’ efforts with Rugby Sevens are perhaps more relevant than ever as the sport was featured in last summer’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro — rugby’s first appearance in the Olympics since 1924.

And while traditional 15-man rugby was first played in the Olympics in the early 1900s, the 2016 Games featured the faster, higher-scoring Sevens. Matches in Sevens-style rugby last 14 minutes, compared with the traditional 80-minute game.

Of the 364 players representing 16 men’s and, for the first time, 12 women’s national teams in this year’s local Sevens event, Cornelius estimated that 90 percent of the teams’ rosters would mirror last year’s Olympic squads.

The tournament also draws 30 percent of its fans from outside the country. Cornelius said more than 8,000 Kenyan nationals attend each year.

“All of a sudden we’re getting the Kenyan ambassadors, their government officials in D.C. and L.A.; they come out for this event because they speak with the masses of their fellow countrymen,” Cornelius said. “This is a festival and it’s a cultural celebration, and that’s a big part of rugby.”

Cornelius often gets together with old rugby buddies, even lacing up his cleats and hitting the field twice a year for recreational tournaments. He and his wife, Dionne, have traveled as far as Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand and the United Arab Emirates to observe how other Rugby Sevens events attract visitors.

In Las Vegas, Cornelius has included the International Beer, Wine and Food festival inside the Sam Boyd concourse, serving plates unique to the countries of participating teams in the weekend event.

His favorite international gathering? Cornelius said the excitement of the 2016 Olympics — where he networked with sponsors, mingled with sports fans and visited the NBC booth with commentator Al Michaels — was an “incredible” experience.

“It’s just all of the cultures, and everybody’s just having a good time,” he said. “It expands your brain to understand what goes on outside our world.”