Dear OSU Rugby Community

This is my first message to you all as the Head Coach. It is a fantastic privilege to have the players endorse me in the role and I am spoilt for guidance with Mark still involved with the club as the Director of Rugby and Development. For those of you who I played with, coached or have become friends with through my 10 year history with the club may you soon be joined as friends with those of you I am yet to meet. There are literally thousands of people who have had a role in the club's 50 year history, and we all have a stake in beginning the next 50 years with gusto.

We have plenty to do with the NCRC League season on our doorstep. Clear goals and structures are now in place for our campaign for 2012. Playing in May is a goal defined and shared by the players. I will be working with the Club Officers and fellow coaches John Queen, DeVon Cutrell, Dave Dickson, Gabe Iltis and Greg Van De Grift to ensure that we facilitate and deliver a program that enables attainment of our goals and comprehensive development of our players. Mark will be ever present in off field matters with an eye to further developing key initiatives for the club's future.

The team is back at practice today after Winter break. I hope you all had a great Holiday period with your family and friends and relish the refreshment and challenge the New Year brings.

The OSU Rugby Club heads to LA this weekend for the Dennis Storer Classic hosted by UCLA. This is the beginning of a big 4 week block of games for the Club with 3 League games in succession following this short tour. Having finished the Fall with a record victory over Oregon, this tour against quality opponents will prepare us well for our NCRC campaign.

The IM Fields on campus will host the event and can be found at Westwood and Sunset Blvd (map below). There will be 6 of the Pac-12 clubs participating with OSU drawn in Pool B with Stanford and hosts UCLA. Pool A sees our neighbors Oregon drawn with USC and National Champions Cal.

The Challenging Schedule for Pool play on Field 1 is as follows on Saturday:

• 9am - vs Stanford
• 11am - vs UCLA
• 2pm - vs Cal (Pool A crossover match)

Sunday will see the play-off games across Pools based on placings for the Dennis Storer Classic Championships. All Pool games are 2 x 25min halves, Sunday play-off games may be up to 2 x 30min halves based on both clubs mutual agreement. The tour party flies out of PDX just before noon on Friday and will be staying at the LAX airport Hilton returning late Sunday evening. The players really appreciate any support they receive on the road, so please come and stop by to watch some matches or for a catch up at the hotel if you are in the area. If you can't make this tournament, please pencil in these dates for our upcoming matches:

• January 21 vs CWU - League (Peavy Fields, Corvallis, OR)
• January 28 @ SFU - League (Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada)
• February 4 vs UBC - League (Peavy Fields, Corvallis, OR)

Happy New Year!

With the new year comes an updated training schedule for the Oregon State Rugby team.

Winter Practice Schedule
M - 4pm-6pm -  IM Field Turf
Tu - 6am-7am - Truax Indoor Facility
Tu - 4pm-6pm - IM Field Turf
Th - 6am-7am - Truax Indoor Facility
Th - 4pm-6pm - IM Field Turf

IM Field Turf is the newly constructed Student Legacy Park located next to Dixon Recreation Center - http://oregonstate.edu/recsports/slp

Traux Indoor Facility is the indoor practice facility located next to Reser Stadium and Prothro Field

Donating to OSU Rugby is now easier than ever!  You can now donate securely online to both the OSU Rugby Team Fund and the Valley Memorial Rugby Endowment Fund through the OSU Foundation website.