The University of California - Santa Barbara men’s rugby program has brought in a new Head Coach, with Neil Foote taking over the reins of the program.

Foote, who has been Head Coach of the San Francisco Golden Gate men’s club, and has been working with the SFGG HS team as well, has a long history of professional and high-level coaching, but this is his first foray into the college sphere.

“I’m really passionate about player development,” Foote told Goff Rugby Report. “I’m just so looking forward to getting hands on that program and getting into it. I really want to encourage people to express themselves. If we can teach them skills, to execute skills under pressure … it’s just a beautiful game to watch.”

UCSB has had a somewhat tough time of it over the last few years. The Gauchos went 0-6 in D1A’s California Conference in 2018-19, and 1-4-1 in 2019-20. They had already shown signs of improvement, going from an average score of 60-9 (loss) to 32-20 (loss).

“We definitely took a step forward last year,” said UCSB club president Willie Mein. “Now with Neil coming in, and this year seeing new kids coming in, we’re really excited.”

Mein had participated in camps run by Foote and said he was very impressed with the coach’s approach.

“He wants to make it fun and we creates a lot of fun games that teach skills,” he said. “With a coach like him with international and professional experience who also understand we need to develop basic skills, we can build this program.”

“My responsibility is just to turn out good people,” said Foote. “That’s my first priority. I want them to be proud of what they’re doing. I want them to have awesome memories of UCSB Rugby [and] I want them to join all the alumni who can’t stop talking about it.”