Portal:2018 02 Alumni Newsletter

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Schedule. Spring season will soon be upon us and our coaches have given us some good feedback about how the teams are preparing... lots of good energy and excitement for a good season! As many of you know, the spring is mostly focused on sevens, but there will be a few 15s matches sprinkled in, and the men will be playing 15s during their spring break trip to England. See the full schedules here:

For Men http://usafarugbyalumni.com/index.php?title=Portal:2018_Spring_Men For Women (not yet updated) http://usafarugbyalumni.com/index.php?title=Portal:2018_Spring_Women

Commandant's Cup. Some of you will remember we had a Men's "Commandant's Cup" competition when all the service academies played each other.. that kinda went down the wayside during the years when it was not possible to play each other, but it is being resurrected! I seem to remember some hardware associated with this informal Cup..... Where might that trophy be??? What is your recollection ?? Kudos to Denny and the coaching staffs for thinking of this again.

(as yet unnamed) Army/West Point competition Cup. As you know, we have a special award for the winner of the Navy/Air Force Rugby match, the Kevin Shea cup. We would naturally want to have a similar recognition for the winner of the Army/Air Force match. Am throwing that thought out there for any of you who may know of a similar heroic rugby person who can relate to both teams in a similar fashion the Kevin did. There is no rush to come up with someone or a name, but if there IS such a story, let's bring it forward. Anyone??

Women's Service Academy competitions. Any suggestions for a similar traveling trophies for the ladies??

Patches/logos. I have tried to capture the history of that which has reflected our identity over the years. Since I was not around the Academy during the entire 50 years of our existence, please take a look at what I have written to make sure it is accurate. Let me know if you recall differently !

http://usafarugbyalumni.com/index.php?title=History_of_our_patches

50th Anniversary Celebration. Hopefully you all have made plans to attend! The dates are over the weekend of the Navy game, 5-7 October. The teams usually have a practice on Thursday, which we all are invited to, and the matches held on Friday afternoon on the Terrazzo. Tentative plans are for a gala event Friday or Saturday evening, and perhaps an all rugby tailgate before the game. If you have any other suggestions, please send them to Jim Lamar (copied, for ease of contacting)

Women's Crowd Funding. We have less than a month left and are 35+% of the way to the target to replace the funds expended to get our ladies to the regionals. Please consider throwing a few dollars their way to help offset those costs so they can have a well funded spring season: https://falconfunder.usafa.org/project/8743?clid=lBWaQW8NiimH4E2bYlXiSO&utm_campaign=amb_share&utm_medium=plain&utm_source=scalefunder&utm_name=4td69s7gyo0tpqxcnsndnc5

2017 Fund Status. The end of year figures are below. Certainly, the stock market run up has helped our account balances, but we are no where near the place the board would like us to be (so we can fully support our teams). The board is investigating what it would take to be accepted as Intercollegiate teams, which is our ultimate goal, which will most certainly involve some sort of annual financial commitment. More on that later. Balances: Vern Francis Perpetual Fund (men) $169,067 (Gifts Received: $39,943 Interest Gained: $25,822, Number of 2017 Donors: 90, Pledges Remaining: $36,775)

Alan Osur Perpetual Fund (women) $42,741 (Gifts Received: $12,125 Interest Gained: $5,656, Number of 2017 Donors: 26 Outstanding Pledges: $10,350) Men's Operational Fund; $12,180 (Gifts Received: $34,161, Expensed: $39,860, Number of 2017 Donors: 67 Outstanding Pledges: $13,010) Women's Operational Fund: $4,914 (Gifts Received: $8,582, Expensed: $20,032, Number of 2017 Donors: 36 Outstanding Pledges: $2,850)

Marine Corps. And in case you did not notice, the Marine Corps and USA Rugby just announced a partnership, which you can see in the latest Marine Corps ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yotXRoLxFhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yotXRoLxFdYdY The back story, related by a two star MC officer, is that the sporting activity they previously supported (NFL) did not exemplify the warrior spirit they wanted to portray for the Corps. They looked around for a sport that better represented their values and ethics and decided on rugby. Go figure! (BTW, the girl in the ad was coached by one of our grads, Sarah Emory!)

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Alumni game. I've loaded all the info I had on Alumni games on to our alumni site, but I have nothing (zippo, zilch) from 73, 75, 76 and 86 on... I don't even know if there WERE alumni games scheduled for those years! Please help me out, even if all you can say is "I don't recall us playing the alumni that year" The games were usually held in the fall, to align with reunions. What do you recall???? [and if you have pictures, send them! I posted all I had.... ] http://usafarugbyalumni.com/index.php?title=Service_Academy_Scores

Finally, if you received two of these messages, it is because I am sending it to both primary and backup emails I have for you. Please let me know which one you prefer to be the primary.

Thanks Again for everyone's support of our rugby teams!

GO ZOOMIE RUGBY!

For the board, Harry

PS Let me know if you want a copy of the "Osur Family Letter" for this year

Team Store: the team store at Canterbury is open until the 15th and the team gets a 10% credit for the gross.