One of the more unappreciated domains of the sports world here at Oliver Ames is the rugby club. Although they are not officially a team, they still carry themselves with the poise of a collective ready to compete and beat any other team.
The rugby club has been built from the ground up on the hopes of a group of students who felt like the OA community was lacking in that niche environment. Through simple action and the help from the passionate Coach Alexander Schervish, the rugby team got off the ground.
“Two seniors asked me to start the club when I was in my second or first year of teaching actually. So Albert Bass and Chandler McLoughlin, who are locals. They were seniors, going into their senior year. And we went to Wes Paul, the principal at that time and we suggested that we would just have a club, we wouldn’t be a varsity team, but we could raise our own funds. There were plenty of clubs around us where they could play. They gave us the green light and we had 15, 16 players the first year in 2015” said Schervish.
Just like most other sports in the high school scene, the rugby club carries out practices everyday after school. Ranging from all areas of the game, every practice provides all team members with the correct amount of preparation for when it’s time to compete.
“A typical practice here is we run a mile before every practice. And before we even start to run the mile, we do injury prevention. So we do ankle work. We do lunge work, we work on typical PT movements that kids use to recover their hamstrings. So whether that be like single leg hops on your ankles forward and back, left and right or simple cross-leg squats where you’re still working on ankle strength. That’s a lot for injury prevention.” said Coach Schervish. “After that we go into passing almost every practice and usually we have a block of practice after that where we focus on our specialty of that day. Whether it’s physical contact or defensive strategy and structure. Another big thing is practicing our offense and defense unopposed to get everyone comfortable with it” Schervish explained.
The game of rugby doesn’t end at the high school level. People who decide to start their rugby journey here in high school are able to go on and be exposed to a multitude of once and a lifetime opportunities down the road.
“I don’t wish that kids do what they don’t want to do. It’s a sport that not a lot of people know about. A lot of parents come up to us and say, “Oh you have a rugby team?” But the program has presented many amazing opportunities to former students who stuck with it after high school. We have a kid playing at Tennessee right now at the D1 level who just won a national championship. Others have gone on to be captains of prestigious schools and have won leagues and titles all over New England. So joining the rugby program can allow students to go on and do many amazing things” Coach Schervish said.
