KEARNS loves their high school sports from football, to basketball, to baseball, but one sport stands out most for the community: rugby. Rugby is the cornerstone of Kearns High school sports that attracts many families and students to the sports.
While many are familiar with the sport of rugby, they may not be familiar with its origin. Rugby originated in 1823, invented by a young boy named William Webb Ellis.
IN England, picked up a soccer ball during a soccer game and ran with the ball to the goal. But it’s just a common legend to the sport. Nobody really knows how it started. In 1863 boarding schools and clubs started playing rugby football until 1871 the Rugby Football Union was formed. The first game of professional rugby was also the first international game. England vs Scotland with Scotland beating England 1-0.
In 1900, rugby was made an official sport for the summer Olympics with teams like France, Germany and Great Britain. The person who suggested the idea was Pierre De Coubertin. France won gold in the 1900 game.
THAT game drew the most crowd then the other sports in the Olympics. Throughout the Olympic games rugby drew the biggest crowd until the Olympics dropped the sport in 1924. A little fun fact: the first haka was performed in a 1905 game by New Zealand. New Zealand faced Wales. The Welsh respond by having the singer Teddy Morgan perform the Welsh national anthem which was the first national anthem sung in a sports event. The first rugby World Cup was in 1987, New Zealand vs France which New Zealand won with their star player Grant Fox scoring the most in the game. In 2009 the Olympics committee voted that rugby football should be back in the summer games which was upheld and rugby football still continues to be in the Olympics to this day.
THE new questions that run through people’s minds are. How did Utah get rugby? Rugby wasn’t really on the radar in Utah due to the rise of American Football but until 1962 a former student from BYU named John Segger helped found the sport in BYU. After Seggar graduated from BYU in 1967 he became the head coach for BYU he coached there for 15 seasons. In 1987 coach Seggar retired after byu couldn’t play in a tournament due to the date getting changed from saturday to sunday. BYU rugby has been a power house in the NCAA Rugby winning five national championships within the 2000’s and 2010’s era. And producing players that will go on and play professional rugby and being on the USA rugby team.
ONE of the greats in high school rugby is Highland, being coached by the great Larry Gelwix. He is the main corner for Utah rugby or better. Gelwix started playing rugby in 1972 for the legendary BYU squad then transitioned to coaching football and wrestling but the sport he was an expert in is rugby. With that knowledge that he got from BYU he built a dynasty and a legend of himself with highland he coached for 36 years having the varsity win and loss record of 418 – 10. His winning percentage was stacked 95.6% he was named “winningest coach in America” beating coaches by a long shot in both high school and college.
In a 36 year run won 20 Usa rugby high school national championships. In 1979 Highland was the first high school to compete in New Zealand.
Kearns is no different winning five Utah cups in 2010’s. Kearns is still dominant, competing and winning games. If interested in playing as a student of Kearns High talk to Coach James at [email protected].
