In June of 2023 the US Rugby Foundation had the opportunity to provide Rookie Rugby Cleveland with a $5000 dollar grant to help spur the organizations growth. Through the dedication of the Rookie Rugby Cleveland staff, they've used this grant to help galvanize youth athletes through social media.
Growing the game of rugby is an old-fashioned business in many ways— with good coaching and an enjoyable experience and kids will come out—but you also have to keep an eye on the modern world, too.
So while the massive growth of Rookie Rugby Cleveland has to be due to the attraction of the game, the support of volunteers, and the ethos of sportsmanship, you can’t overlook the social media aspect.
With social media, any organization can add a little glitz to what they do. Certainly Dan Arbeznik, who oversees and runs Rookie Rugby Cleveland, understands that.
Arbeznik brought in Hanno van Vuuren to work on marketing for RRC and Karla Swanepoel to handle social media to help drive participation. Not a social media slouch himself, Arbeznik realized he needed someone else to handle it and raise the level of engagement. Using van Vuuren, who was pursuing a business degree at Notre Dame College while also coaching the rugby team, and his partner Swanepoel, made perfect sense.
Rook-cruiters
Among the programs van Vuuren looked at was simply to go work with the kids where they already were. Van Vuuren used 12 Notre Dame College students, both male and female, to go out to schools and introduce rugby to kids. Dubbed them Rook-cruiters, these 12 introduced Rookie Rugby into Phys-Ed Classes in kindergarten to 2nd Grade mostly in Catholic schools around the city, reaching about 270 kids.
They then followed up with educators, giving them access to a rugby curriculum (backed by RRC and also by a Rookie Rugby initiative from USA Youth & HS in conjunction with Major League Rugby). The educators were left with youth-size rugby balls to continue the rugby classes.
And that’s only a start. This fall they are following up and working once again with these schools to get the kids a little more familiar with rugby.
“The Rook-cruiters response was overwhelmingly positive,” said van Vuuren. “The kids absolutely loved having younger coaches working with them. The teachers took to the drills and small-sided games very well and jumped in and started coaching rugby like seasoned coaches. We had Rook-cruiters from the UK, Chile, US, and South Africa and the kids felt they were being coached by international coaches.”
