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CRIMSON SHIELD
THE ONLINE MAGAZINE OF BROTHER MARTIN HIGH SCHOOL |
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| February 2011 |
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Head Rugby Coach Gary Giepert
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When Gary Giepert decided to end his football career, he turned to the sport that spawned American football.
- The 1980 Valedictorian, Gary played football at Brother Martin and threw the javelin in track.
- He played CB for Bob Conlin his sophomore and junior years and LB as a senior captain.
- He had offers to play football at smaller colleges and even signed a Grant-in-Aid with Nicholls State. However, he had always wanted to go to LSU. So he gave up the scholarship to walk on for Jerry Stovall's first Tiger team.
- After several months, he decided he wasn't going to make money playing football. "If I earned a scholarship, I'd have to live with these guys, only 5% of whom were interested in a degree."
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Shortly afterwards, he found out from Timmy Martin ('79) about "this great sport called rugby."
- "I went to practice on a Thursday and played in a match on Saturday."
- Rugby was (and still is) a non-NCAA Club sport at LSU and other universities. The students organized and ran the club. Some years a visiting professor from Australia or South Africa would coach the squad.
- The Tiger Club played USL, SLU, Spring Hill, Florida State, and SEC schools like Georgia and Kentucky. The team played in a tournament in Virginia and one in the Bahamas. The players paid their own way, piling into vans and staying 10 to a hotel room.
- Gary loved rugby because of the camaraderie it engenders. Tradition requires the winning squad to host a dinner afterwards for the losers. When you have a beer with an opponent after the match, you forgive him any transgressions that occurred during the fray. "You become part of a worldwide fraternity. Go anywhere, find out where the rugby club practices, and they'll let you have a run with them and dinner afterwards."
- Giepert earned All-American honors in 1985.
After earning a degree in accounting, Gary continued to play rugby while in LSU Law School.
- He dropped out one semester to tour with the U.S. Rugby team.
- Finishing law school in December 1987, he returned to New Orleans to join the law firm of Baldwin & Haspel. Eventually, Gary and a partner started their own firm.
Gary continued to play rugby in New Orleans but gave no thought to coaching until 2002.
- He and other veteran players began clubs for students at Brother Martin, Jesuit, and Shaw, none of which were directly affiliated with the school.
- Those three teams, plus one in Lafayette, held a state tournament, which the Crusader Rugby Club won.
Several years later, the Brother Martin administration asked Giepert to make rugby a school Club sport.
- 25-50 students have come out for the sport each year.
- They like the fact that they can earn a letter in a sport that doesn't practice every day – Monday and Wednesday nights from 7-9 on the practice track in City Park across from Gormley Stadium.
- Students like the rules of rugby that make all 15 players on each side ball carriers and tacklers.
- Like soccer, rugby limits substitutions. If a player leaves the field, he may not return.
- Forward passing is prohibited. Players may propel the ball forward only by punting it and then only the punter or a teammate behind him may recover the ball.
- Blocking is not allowed. Players must stay behind the play because they're useless once they get ahead of the ball carrier.
- There are no first downs. After a tackle, the ball carrier puts the ball back toward his team, which "drives" over the ball to keep control of it and continue advancing toward the opponent's goal.
- A "try" (touchdown) is worth 5 points, and the conversion yields 2 more. After a penalty, the offensive team can try an uncontested field goal worth three points.
Brother Martin graduates play at LSU, ULL, and other colleges.
- Adam Ducoing ('06) and Cullen Glennon ('07) competed for the 2009 Tiger team that advanced to the Elite Eight and the 2010 squad that reached the semifinals.
- Glennon played on the U.S. team in the Under 21 World Championships in Kenya. Ducoing followed in the footsteps of his high school coach as an All-American in 2008 and has also competed in international tournaments.
- Will McSweeney ('06) captains the ULL Rugby Club, which includes Corey Albert ('09) and Chris Bell ('09).
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So far, Gary has not had a single student who played rugby before joining the Crusader club.
- Unlike sports like soccer and lacrosse, rugby has not penetrated the playgrounds and grammar schools.
- Most school clubs field A and B "sides," and matches include a game for each group. "We play the A game to win. But in the B game that follows, we give everyone else a chance."
The 2011 BM squad will play an ambitious schedule.
- In addition to matches with the local clubs, the Crusaders will go to Jackson MS to meet several teams from Tennessee.
- The Sader club will also play Christian Brothers (Memphis) and St. Pius X (Houston) and participate in the annual Nash Bash in Nashville TN.
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Giepert instituted a new award this season in honor of a Crusader grad.
- James De Brueys ('06) was the only eighth-grader on the inaugural team. James' senior year, Gary started a tradition of awarding fifth-year players their jerseys.
- De Brueys was lost at sea last November while serving as a volunteer teacher for World Teach in the Marshall Islands. In his honor, Gary has named the 5-year Senior award after James. "He was really a great kid."
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James De Brueys
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