Quad Rugby and the Expense of Excellence
by Ed Hooper

The very essence of sport is competition and that insatiable hunger for excellence; to be better; to be the best you can be; to play; to win. It's ingrained into our sport's psyche like a Michael Jordan game-winning jumper, or a Mark McGuire 500 foot blast. We love to see the best compete, and we strive to be the best ourselves. It's the one drug we sports minded animals absolutely must have.

Quad rugby is reaching a level of excellence that seemed light years away only five or six years ago. This is a good thing, right? I mean, will it be Bama or Shadow, Shadow or Bama? Or will Houston sneak in? Or the Generals? Or, who? Arizona? Realistically, there are only 3 or 4 teams with any shot at the National Championship. Many would say only 2 teams have a realistic opportunity.

This is the way sports goes, right? The best rule. The rest strive. It's the American way to have the top team/person that the rest strive to beat: the Yankees, the Celtics, the Cowboys, the Steelers, the Bulls, the fighters, the golfers, the skiers, and on and on. Quad rugby has seized the challenge and fought and clawed by hook, sometimes by crook, to excel, and a few teams have succeeded in bringing the sport to an incredible level of excellence.

But at what cost? Our league is in danger, everyone. The numbers are down, and any accountant will tell you that the numbers don't lie. There are less teams in the USQRA now than there were 3 to 5 years ago. There is a consolidation of talent (recruiting) that is killing off some great, great quad rugby programs while the top four or five teams pound on one another, trying to find a way to get an edge, trying always to get better. And while this ambitious train, albeit small, runs down the track, the USQRA is derailing, losing members because they can't compete.

And it's not just on the court competition, but off the court as well. What top player wants to come play for Sarasota Riptide, a hand-to-mouth team (like many) that is always a year behind on equipment and held together by the sheer will of 2 or 3 people who love the sport? I can already hear the refrain, "Stop whining and do something about it. Get better. Get organized." And you know what, that refrain is right in a perfect world. That is the American way -- competition and survival of the fittest.

But will that attitude save and perpetuate our sport? Sponsors are limited. They are hard to get and hard to keep. For most, quad rugby is not-for-profit. And there are no TV contracts pending, sellout crowds, or huge endorsements on the horizon. Without money, you can't get to tournaments and you can't get the equipment and repairs needed to compete. All of us know that playing quad rugby ain't cheap. And since many quads actually have jobs and families who they are committed to, the time-demands of just playing the game are difficult---never mind the rigors of trying to hold a team together.

Let us not forget that the real world of quads is very finite. There is not a big pool to draw from. The good players are few; the great players are precious. Many teams have only one impact player. If that player leaves the team, the team can no longer compete even at a so-called B level; therefore, the team gets frustrated -- along with the volunteers and sponsors --- until it eventually wears down and disbands. Meanwhile, what have we in the USQRA been doing? We have actively pursued this recruiting and consolidated talent to where five or six teams have cornered 90% of the great players. Along with great players comes great sponsors and state-of-the-art equipment. And the rich get richer. (To those homegrown teams, I apologize, but we're talking about trends here.)

And the classifications are—well, to be kind—a wonder. How does a 2.5 become a 2.0? Or a 3.0 a 2.5 or even a 2.0? Or a 2.0 a 1.5? Is there a class being held somewhere in how to get classed down? And, by the way, how did paras get into our league? Let's throw the bums out!

The dilemma is obvious. The very competition that drives us, is the competition that might destroy us. That is why the number one team in this league should actively care about the number 40 or 50 team, because this league cannot (will not!) Survive with 5 or 6 teams paying dues and playing each other 6 times a year. The irony hangs over us like a dark cloud: the very thing that created quad rugby—exclusion from sport—is the very thing that could spell the end of our game as we know it. We as quads should know better.

So, what do we do? Well, no one advocates teams not striving for excellence and competing at their highest level. That would undermine the very heart and soul of our game. But we can start by putting a stop to this recruiting that in some cases is downright ludicrous. And we can class more fairly and consistently. We can sit down as a group and face facts and decide what we can do to curb this decline and what we can do to make this sport grow again. Do we need a B league? An open division? Can the numbers support such ideas? Do we need a new point system? Equipment changes? Do we need more clinics? What?!

We can start by getting our collective heads out of the forest and start caring for the trees. If we, as a group, are as willing to expend the time and energy brainstorming new ideas and insights as we are preparing for our next tournament or our next recruitment opportunity, then we might save and grow this sport we all love. Working together as a team, we can do it. We must!

Note: This article was published in the April 1999 USQRA Nationals issue of Quad Rugby Today.