"PJ" Komongnan: watch this space
The Washington teenager, this week named to the USA 7s team competing in Thailand and Singapore, might herald a new wave of athletes coming into American rugby.
Komongnan, who is black, hails from Delaware State by way of a District of Columbia charter school. 7s Eagles have more typically been white, club players aged in their late 20s or early 30s, and affluent enough to take time off work.
Rugby has ever struggled to expand its reach into American society, particularly failing to access those sections that produce large numbers of college varsity and professional athletes. Komongnan’s alma mater, the Hyde Leadership Public Charter School, is a frontier outpost.
“PJ”, as he is widely known, is the most successful player to emerge from a startup XV which has taken its place among the school’s most distinguished teams. Hyde runs 12 varsity programs, and requires each of its 775 students to play three seasons of interscholastic sports in order to graduate.
The achievement of Komongnan as well as Hyde coach and athletic director Tal Bayer, earlier this year honored by the Positive Coaching Alliance (click here for Bayer’s enlightening acceptance speech), portends, at minimum, a changing demographic for American rugby.
Indeed, the success of youthful Komongnan, with nary a handful of age-grade seasons plus some club 7s and Under-19 experience under his belt, underscores the potential of recruiting collegiate varsity athletes. It is no wonder that chairman Kevin Roberts and chief executive Nigel Melville have been talking excitedly about converting football players.
