Rugby loses its playing field, but finds time to volunteer

The Norwich rugby teams saw their home away from home completely flooded by the torrential rains brought by Tropical Storm Irene.

"We're just trying to make the best of it, and just go from here, take it a day at a time," said men's rugby captain Jaimes Plamondon, a 21-year-old criminal justice major from Biddeford, Maine.

The field was covered in six to eight feet of water, and remains unsafe for use, according to Tony Mariano, the Norwich athletic director.

"We don't know right now when it will be safe for use, we have to get some warmer, drier weather first," said Mariano.

Mariano worries the field will need to be stripped of deposited silt and planted with new grass, which poses a problem for teams in the immediate future.

The teams are using other practice fields on campus and sharing with other teams, such as lacrosse, if there are time constraints.

Men's rugby coach, Bob Weggler, compared the practice situations to the winter. "We're pretty resilient; in fact, even in the winter time, we're pretty used to having to practice inside or not on our pitch, so we're handling it about the same way."

The fields are being shuffled around on a day-to-day basis, according to Mariano, while more permanent solutions are sought.

"We're going to try to give them a space with lines drawn specifically for rugby so that they can play a few home games," Mariano said.

Both the men's and women's teams have home games scheduled this season, and are trying to reschedule.

"We're trying to just find places and times to practice, working around other teams' schedules and stuff. We don't know what we're going to do for home games; thankfully we don't have too many," said Plamondon.

Scheduling, fields and equipment are the immediate needs of the team itself, and while those things are being tended to administratively, the teams know there are those who suffered much more damage from the storm.

Women's rugby coach Austin Hall is making sure that the team is tending to those in the community.

"First of all, our primary concern is helping out the people in town, making sure that they're OK. Their needs are greater than ours," Hall said.

"We haven't been able to practice a lot, but we've really been able to help out in the community and really connect with them," said Richard Shear, a 22-year-old criminal justice major from Sacramento, Calif.  

Katie Hathaway, a 21-year-old political science major from Amesbury, Mass., and captain of the women's rugby team agreed.

"We want to help out in the community, and we know people have it worse off than we do, so we want to make sure they're OK as well. Then we'll just bounce back and we'll hit harder than Irene did."

Both rugby teams have volunteered, helping clear out debris in town, and bringing residents anything they might need.

"It really showed us what we can do as a team, not just for ourselves, but for the community as well," Hall said.

Volunteering has become a morale-booster and team building activity for both teams, who try to help out as much as they can.

"Leadership hasn't changed at all, and helping out the community was a nice little booster (for us)," Shear said.

Overall, team morale and intensity has not wavered.

"We're just trying to keep it light, try to take it one day at a time, take every game at a time," Plamondon said.

"We are focusing on team chemistry, being there for each other, on and off the pitch," Hathaway said. "It's rough, but people have it worse than us, and so we're using that as motivation and this will be our most memorable season ever."

Coach Hall's words to the team are simple: "We just have to make do, the same things that happen on fields, are the same things that happen in life, and you just have to keep on."