New Trier Rugby Club: A Band of Traveling Gypsies

The sport of Rugby is a fast growing and soon-to-be-featured Olympic sport of which the United States is the reigning international champion.

Locally we have a team who has had incredible on-field successes, including Midwestern tournament champions in Sevens, Highland game overall champions in Sevens (a fast paced game which will be the format for the Olympic add-on), and a second place finish in the state tournament in the previous years playing season.

We have a healthy roster of mostly New Trier High School students. Of the 60 to 70 players, nearly all the players are from the New Trier school district.

However, for the last four seasons the club has been like a group of gypsies, traveling from one borrowed field to the next, with no place to call home.

The members played at Gilson Park three years ago, but the announcement of a sod replacement project beginning two weeks before our season forced us to buy time on a field over 30 miles away. We had to either adopt a home field or forfeit our home games. (Wilmette park district never did the sod replacement and still has not to date).

Winnetka was kind enough to provide a field last year, but this spring we will once again be looking for a field due to an Astroturf project, which will be underway for the length of our season. We were and are grateful to Winnetka for opening their doors to the boys for the previous season.

But here we are, again homeless.

A few points about our program and our search for a home field:

• It is a new program (five-years old with new coaches Malcolm Hurcomb , Leo Sheridan and Tim Sheridan).
• Our members all carry insurance and our home schedule calls for less than six games, so our needs are simple.
• Our fathers club maintains the fields, if needed, and we are willing to pay reasonable fee for use.
• Our players are all local kids who should have access to athletic fields just as soccer, lacrosse and any other sport should have.
• We have spoken to New Trier High school with no success even though they have field space available.
• We would play anywhere where we could find a 110 yard by 80 yard open space, and we can install and remove our field goals before and after every game if need be.
• The forest preserve would be acceptable if we could get space there.

We would be glad to speak to anyone who has a viable option and appreciate your helping us get the word out about this worthy and successful program. It is open to all boys between the grades of eighth and senior year and all kids play regardless of skill level.D

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Dennis Nolan(a Rugby Dad)

dn@exclusiveconstruction.net

312.375.6260