Father’s Day!

Happy Father’s Day to all our dads. All of our players should come to Revere Park this afternoon from 2:00-4:00 for a fun-filled afternoon of rugby, cookout, and kids vs coaches and parents action!

For those of you who have been looking to the site for updates, sorry about the hiatus. We have a parent who has volunteered to help us keep it more current.

Registration

Registration is still open for the 2013 season. Tackle practice is taking place now on Fridays and Sundays; touch season begins April 14. Register here for either program.

To Whet Your Appetite for the Season

Welcome to the 2013 Season

Welcome to the 2013 Wapiti Rugby Football Club

 

By way of introduction, I am Coach Hays, father to three Wapiti, Wapiti RFC board vice president, and head coach of this year’s inaugural tackle program. I will have several coaches assisting me, including Coach Palmer, a former USA Rugby Super League and Midwest Select Side player and Wapiti coach of our first two seasons, Coach Wilcox, new to Wapiti but with collegiate and women’s club rugby coaching experience, and Coach Daley, a current USA Eagle and North Shore Women’s RFC player and collegiate coach. Our objective is to have your player fall in love with rugby and have fun, while teaching them the game in a safe environment.

Important Information:

• Parent’s Meeting was Monday, March 11, 7:30 PM inside Revere Park, 2509 West Irving Park Rd.. Here is what was presented: Parent’s Meeting
• Practices will be Fridays from 4:30-6:30 PM and Sundays 2:00-4:00 at 600 West Montrose Drive (Montrose and Simonds near the beach house) beginning March 15. Please let me know if your player cannot make these practices, as we will only have eight practices before our first game. Depending on the availability of the other coaches, we may have an additional practice either Tuesday or Wednesday in the same location.
• Players will need:
  • Mouthguards formed to their mouths
  • Water
  • To dress for the weather (in layers!)
  • Cleats (soccer, not baseball or football, which have a cleat at the toe which is not allowed) or running shoes
  • To be prepared for contact. We will work on this extensively leading up to our first match, as for some of our athletes, this will be their first contact sport experience
• Matches:
  • The calendar is on the Wapiti web page. There is a Google calendar that you can add to your calendar or to Outlook (HTML, ICAL, XML) which has the dates and locations for the season, but not the times, yet.
  • Middle School rugby (7/8 and 5/6 grade) is played in Festival Format. This means that this year Wapiti will travel for all of our games, and next year, unless they change the format, we will only host one day.
  • The festival format allows all teams to converge on a given host field with their team, even if they have insufficient players for a full side. They would merge with or borrow excess players from another side in order to fill out a side (which is also why we do not know times, yet).
  • Matches are 15 a side rugby, not the 7s Wapiti players have been experiencing our first two seasons. Matches will consist of two 25 min halves, with free substitutions.
  • Wapiti are looking into the possibility of getting a charter bus service to pick up and drop off all of our players at Revere Park. This would allow us to travel as a team, be less of a burden for our parents, and be an opportunity for our players to engage the rest of the non contact players back at Revere Sunday afternoon upon returning from the festival.
• We could use more players. If you know of any of your kid’s friends that might like to give rugby a try, send them our way.
• Finally, if there is anything we are missing, any information you are seeking on the web site that isn’t here, please let us know. Thank you.

Thank you for your questions last Monday. Any additional questions you may have you may either send to me directly or reach out to any other officer or coach.

In Rugby,

Coach Hays

Important Changes

Welcome to the Chicago Wapiti RFC 2013 Season! Register Now.

We have a number of exciting changes for the 2013 season. See below the list for details.

1. Tackle! Wapiti have entered at least one squad in the Illinois Youth Rugby Association middle school competition. Teams will consist of either 5/6 graders or 7/8 graders. We will continue our non-contact program on Sundays at Revere Park.
2. Coaching: We are under more stringent guidelines. See the Coaches page for instructions. If interested in assisting the tackle squad, be sure to register for the Coaching Certification Jan. 26 in Chicago. Coaches.
3. U7: We have eliminated the 30 for 30 program and are now enrolling U7 players at the same level as all other club members, wherein they will have an hour of instruction and receive a club jersey.
4. Rates: The rate for 2013 is $135 per player. If you register prior to Jan. 21, you may register at the 2012 rate of $100 per player. Registration is now open.

Why Rugby?

Why Rugby?  To borrow the words of the International Rugby Board when they presented their case to include Rugby as an Olympic Sport in the 2016 games as well as the Pan American Games in 2011 – “Rugby has a long-standing ethos of fair play and friendship.” It is a free-flowing game designed for players of all shapes, sizes and athletic abilities. It involves many elements that kids love such as running, passing, catching, and kicking while engaging them in decision-making and supporting teammates. Rugby has a unique spirit as a team sport which stresses agility, camaraderie, courage, grace under pressure, respect and sportsmanship. As the newest addition to the Olympic Games, the popularity of rugby is sure to grow.

Currently there is no developmental youth rugby program available within the City of Chicago for this age group of 3rd thru 8th grade boys and girls.  Our program is officially underway. Please visit the Fundraising page to provide your financial support…

This idea for a Youth Development Rugby Program began several months ago when a group of fathers independently began searching out a way to bring their sons and daughters to the game of rugby. In realizing that there were no existing youth rugby programs in the City of Chicago, we began discussions on how to bring the game to our own sons and daughters. Starting a club with a dozen kids was not the answer as there would be no teams nearby to play. The natural evolution of the idea soon became to create an organization that could potentially have eight teams and close to one hundred participants so the kids could learn the game and play it in their own neighborhoods in a fun and safe environment.

When Rugby is introduced in the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Games, we would be very proud to be part of a five-year old program that has boys and girls as old as 16 years old playing who have the necessary skills to dream of playing for in the 2020 Olympic Games and to be able to help make that a reality.

Thanksgiving Day!

Come join us young and old for a run at Cricket Hill in Chicago, between Montrose and Wilson at 10 AM, to build up that appetite. See http://www.chicagoruckngobble.com for details.

Happy Thanksgiving!