Houston Strikers' first rugby combine another promising step

The Houston Strikers held the first of two summer combines Saturday, July 15 at the Athlete Training and Health - South campus. The combines, along with a concerted effort by head coach Justin Fitzpatrick to scour the city and meet with the various rugby clubs and unions that already exist, will serve to give aspiring pro rugby players in the Houston area a chance to make the city's Major League Rugby team's roster. less The Houston Strikers held the first of two summer combines Saturday, July 15 at the Athlete Training and Health - South campus. The combines, along with a concerted effort by head coach Justin Fitzpatrick to ... more Photo: Tony Gaines / HCN Photo: Tony Gaines / HCN Image 1 of / 14 Caption Close Houston Strikers' first rugby combine another promising step 1 / 14 Back to Gallery

Justin Fitzpatrick isn't shy about talking roots.

Fitzpatrick knows that simply bringing professional rugby to America is not necessarily that difficult. It's been done. Recent history is littered with attempts – the PRO Rugby League was a five-team league that, per Wikipedia, 'began play in April 2016' and 'ceased operations in January 2017' – to bring the sport to the New World, but most leagues floundered before playing games, and none has yet proven financially and competitively viable over the long term.

The more difficult task is making pro rugby stick once brought, and that means winning hearts and minds. Emails from Fitzpatrick – or player-coach Sam Windsor or team president Jeremy Turner – close with the line, 'Inspiring Houston to fall in love with Rugby,' and Fitzpatrick's Twitter header photo is the Houston skyline.

That's putting down roots. Signing players like Christopher Slater (Cy Ridge, Sam Houston State University), Jack Riley (Katy Rugby) and Jackson Slater (The Woodlands High School, Baylor University) that come from the extant Houston rugby scene is putting down roots.

For the past four months that he's been in town, Fitzpatrick has been touring the city, meeting with existing clubs and teams like the Cy-Fair Warriors and the Houston Athletic Rugby Club. Call that Phase One. Phase One is crucial.

"It's incredibly important," Fitzpatrick said. "It's incredibly important for those that are, like myself, not from here that we embrace the city and its people, and we fully intend to do that, and are doing that. We expect to have a strong contingent from Houston and the broader Texas area as part of our squad, and that will help keep the rest of us coming from a little further afield."

Culling players from the local pool of rugby talent, and ultimately fielding a Houston Strikers team that earns the 'Houston' qualifier, is the equally-crucial next step. Call that Phase Two.

Phase Two launched Saturday, at the Athlete Training and Health – South campus, as roughly 30 or so pro rugby hopefuls turned up to compete in the first of two Strikers combines.

Fitzpatrick stalked the sidelines of the field, observing closely as athletes ranging in age from recent high school graduates to mid-forties fought through drills like the 'Bronco,' a 20-meter sprint up and back, followed by 40 meters up and back, capped with 60 meters up and back – five times. 1,200 meters and 30 direction changes later, more than a few of the combiners stumbled off the pitch and immediately vomited.

Then, mere seconds later, they were ready to Bronco again in the 93-degree, 91-percent-humidity outdoor sauna of July-time Houston. What Fitzpatrick was looking for, he saw, checking figurative boxes as the Broncos and other demanding drills piled up.

"I'm quite sure, even as we're only starting here, that I can see some players starting to tick some of those boxes," Fitzpatrick said. "That's really, really good from our point of view. It's what we hoped for, what we expected."

The exact structure and format of the campaign Fitzpatrick and the Strikers are gearing up for is unclear. Major League Rugby, the nine-team league in which the Strikers are to compete, is debuting right alongside the Strikers, and logistical details like the number of games in a season and scheduling have yet to be worked out. What Fitzpatrick does know is that by mid-September, he and the rest of the city will know who is – and is not – a Striker.

"In due course, in very, very short due course, that's all [scheduling, etc.] going to be released," Fitzpatrick said. "We'll be playing from November onwards in exhibition-type games. We'll be bringing the squad in together in September, and hopefully some of these guys [here today] will be joining us."

Between the trips all across the Greater Houston area – at 10,062 square miles, only slightly smaller than the state of Massachusetts – the combines and the hyper-accelerated grapevine of the close-knit Houston rugby community, Fitzpatrick is confident that anyone with the desire and ability to play for him will have the chance.

"I'm a firm believer in the cream rising to the top," Fitzpatrick said. "Those that have the ability and the want to be a professional rugby player will appear on the radar. And we will pick them up and give them their opportunity."

"We're very happy. We're on target."

In addition to Houston, MLR will debut in eight other U.S. cities: Glendale, CO; Kansas City, MO; Dallas, TX; Austin, TX; New Orleans, LA; Seattle, WA; Minneapolis, MN; and Salt Lake City, UT.

During the early stages of MLR's run, the teams won't just be competing against one another for league dominance. They'll also have to battle, to varying degrees, the public's apathy towards, or ignorance of, the sport of rugby, itself, in order to generate real interest and engagement.

Of the nine possible locations to be headquartered, Fitzpatrick was pleased to be in the Texas Triangle, and all the more so to be in the intensely diverse, port city of Houston.

The Migration Policy Institute reports that in 2013, of Houston's 6.3 million residents, 1.4 million were foreign born (roughly 22 percent). The growth rate in foreign-born residents from 2000-2013, 59 percent, was more than twice the national average.

The results are far-reaching, awesome and touch every aspect of every Houstonian's life, but specifically relevant to Fitzpatrick and the Strikers is that there is already a strong community of Australian and European expatriates, drawn to the Gulf Coast largely by the oil and gas industry, that grew up playing and loving rugby. They're ready to embrace it, says Fitzpatrick.

"There's a surprisingly large rugby community here in Houston and in Texas," Fitzpatrick said. "It's a sporting state, a sporting city, and I think people will be excited. People that aren't already excited about rugby, once they see it and the team resonates with them and the city, they're going to get really excited about it."

A built-in familiarity and comfort with rugby is terrific, but Fitzpatrick says that even Houstonians who have never so much as seen a rugby ball before will likely find much to connect to and much to enjoy.

"I think there's lots of similarities to other, popular American sports," Fitzpatrick said. "American football is a derivative of rugby. Basketball was invented by a rugby coach to keep his players fit in the offseason. There are a lot of things that you see in different sports that, when you watch rugby, you go, 'oh, I kind of get that.'"

Fitzpatrick was referring to Dr. James Naismith, who drew from a number of popular sports, including rugby, to arrive at the primordial, 13-rule game that eventually became basketball as it is played today.

For fans of the Golden State Warriors' wide-open ball-movement aesthetic, rugby offers much of the same up-and-down excitement, with the possibility of some thrilling, big-time defensive plays not likely to be seen in basketball (apologies to the Bad Boys-era Detroit Pistons).

"There's a lot to get excited about," Fitzpatrick said. "It's free-flowing, with a lot of action, big hits – even while being safer, statistically, than a lot of other sports, including football."

It's early days for the Strikers and the MLR. Anyone and everyone with a stake in American pro rugby is keeping a close eye on the new league, assessing its viability and comparing it to the litany of failed efforts in the past.

Those watchers on the wall – like Grant Cole of This is Texas Rugby, who was on hand for Saturday's combine – have been burned before, but the current attitude seems to be cautious optimism, with appreciation for how MLR at least seems to be learning from the mistakes of its predecessors.

Hard to say yet, but Fitzpatrick liked what he saw at Saturday's combine from Houston's assembled rugby talent, and he likes where the Strikers are, as the inaugural season looms.

"I'm very excited about it," Fitzpatrick said. "We're very happy with where we're at. We're on target for what we set ourselves as a management team, in terms of build up to the preseason. This is a very important part of our selection process, as well. We feel confident that, come the start of the season, we will have a very, very competitive squad."

The Houston Strikers will hold a second (and, as of this writing, final) combine August 19 from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the Athlete Training and Health – North campus, 19392 Stuebner Airline Rd., 77379. For more information, visit https://www.facebook.com/StrikersRugby/