The St. Thomas University men’s rugby team have been around since 1968, but you might not have heard much about them.
The team currently plays in the second division of the Atlantic University League along with Mount Allison University and the University of New Brunswick.
The first division is composed of UNB, University of P.E.I., Dalhousie University, St. Francis Xavier University, Acadia University and Memorial University of Newfoundland.
The team is a club and not a varsity sport, but they’ve been working hard recently to get “their name out.”
The distinction impacts the amount of promotion and funding. Varsity sports in Canada are inter-university competitions organized by a central governing body, while club sports operate independently and receive less funding. Also, club sports athletes do not have to attend their team’s university.
The manager of the club, Nicolas De L’eveille, said that the team is going through a “renaissance” stage after last season’s head coach Matthew Coffey stepped down and the team was “on the chopping block to be cut.”
“We’re in a bit of a rebuild because last year we only had 16 guys, but the majority of those players last year came from outside of STU.” De L’eveille said. “But this year, we started recruiting locally from high schools.”
Current head coach Kyle Leavitt said that along with De L’eveille and STU athletics, everyone has been working to keep the club running.
“It wasn’t surprising to me that there was going to be a little bit of chaos in trying to put something together before the season kicked off, but to see the performance of the guys on the field has been amazing,” said Leavitt.
Leavitt added that most of the players have never played rugby, but “it is a joy to see” how the players have taken on the responsibility and commitment.
“I remember our first game, we were playing against [Mount Allison] and when you look across the field and you see another team, bigger, younger, more experienced players, it could be quite intimidating, but our players took it in stride,” said Leavitt.
The former STU men’s rugby player said that now that they have given a structure to the club and there is a bigger opportunity to “make certain milestones to get where the team wants to go.”
“It is a challenge where we started, but as the club now is being reinvigorated, we’re going to be looking at doing further fundraising and hopefully, in two to five years we’ll have a more substantial part that we can draw upon to help improve,” said Leavitt.
For De L’eveille, the team is a brotherhood and it is exciting to see how far they can go.
“Everyone wants to have that one university experience and for me playing Tommies rugby is this one,” he said.
De L’eveille played for the men’s rugby team last year, but due to an injury, he has adapted his role to what the team needs, even as the team trainer.
“He’s so motivated and he’s such a wealth of ideas. His background in the military, he’s had lots of exposure and qualified in first aid. When we do practices, he’s there amongst us, giving hints and tips to the new players who have never played the positions before,” said coach Leavitt about De L’eveille.
Tai Chau, captain of the team, said that he feels undervalued as a sports team at STU but their main focus is on earning a name.
“What I’ve learned from coming onto the field in my first year is that we adapt well to being an underdog team,” said Chau. “Even though we don’t win as much as we would like to, we still keep the motivation high, we still keep people active and we still bring new guys in every year.”
