The Quad

Issue date: 3/17/08 Section: Sports

While talent, experience, speed and strength are essential to any successful rugby team, there is one more ingredient that any sports team will ultimately fail without; a coach to guide them along.

Tony DeRemer, head coach of the women's rugby team, has the credentials to take them all the way.

DeRemer is currently in his twelfth year coaching rugby here at West Chester University. It is an interesting story of how he actually acquired the coaching job here. Back in 1996, the women's rugby team was only a club sport. There were two volunteer coaches at the time. They asked Tony to come out and watch a couple of practices, and afterwards told him that they "no longer want to coach the team, it's yours now."

The two men knew that DeRemer knew the sport inside and out. Like most rugby players, he didn't start playing rugby until his college years here at West Chester University. After college, DeRemer kept it up, participating in multiple rugby leagues in the Jersey area, as well as attaining a referee certification.

When DeRemer first acquired the team, it consisted of about ten girls. The sport was very new to the nation, and very few colleges had rugby as an actual collegiate sport. He began to advertise the sport more around the campus, and added more players to the team every year.

By 1997 they had advanced to Division 1 in the Eastern Pennsylvania Rugby Union, and the next year won the championship. Since then they have won three more EPRU championships, making themselves the only other team except for Princeton to have won three since 1983.

After becoming the first NCAA II rugby team in 2004, the girls have made the sweet 16 every year for the past three years. DeRemer feels that in the past, the thing lacking that kept the girls out of the final four was their lack of speed.

"We've added some speed to our lineup this year and I think we are in a much better position to compete with the final four teams," DeRemer said.

He also mentioned three core-leading seniors on the team that, since their first year in 2004, "take control of the match."

The first of these three seniors is Whitney Hartshorne, who, as DeRemer described her, "leads by example and is very vocal on the pitch. She is always directing traffic on the field and is one of the smartest players on the team."

Hartshorne is one of the few players on the team who grew up playing rugby in high school, and her experience and confidence shows on the field.

Continued...

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