Athletic Director Dennis Francois sat down with The Observer to discuss both men’s and women’s Rugby losing varsity sponsorship. The two programs have seen much success over their ten year spans, with CWU alumni representing the Wildcats at the professional and national level.

When rugby was originally brought to CWU with varsity sponsorship in 2014, the decision was made by Francois and former President James Gaudino under one condition:

“We will bring rugby within our athletic department as long as it doesn’t impact the student athlete experience in our other sports,” Francois said. “It was more of a need to make sure we have the resources in order to successfully support them without pulling from the support that we’re providing our current programs.”

Francois commented on how the final decision being made so late may affect the athletes who planned on being here next year. “We made the final decision sometime in February,” Francois said. “There is no doubt it turns their world upside down and impacts the lives of these young women and men in a very significant way and the implications of those go beyond what we foresee sometimes.” 

“I know the impact it has on student athletes, especially if someone just made that choice to come to that university and then a year later,” Francois said. “Regardless of what year you are, it is a difficult thing. And you know, we kind of knew our decision and what it was going to be … watching our team compete, being out there for senior day and things of that nature, it feels really unfortunate this was going to be the last time.”

When breaking the news to the athletes Francois said he went into the meeting with zero notes and spoke from the heart. “I am a pretty direct person you know, right, wrong or indifferent. I am not going to beat around the bush or try to sugar coat anything. It’s devastating,” Francois said. “And it was really tough to sit there and look at their faces.”

Looking at the financial side, Francois touched on the money being saved by cutting varsity sponsorship. ”The operational costs, that’s everything they do, recruiting, travel gear, purchasing equipment, laundry and so on and so forth. That’s about $450,000 in terms of those two programs in terms of cash amount. It is probably a little bit more when we look at some things like athletic training and travel.” Francois said. “There are a lot of other expenses we are probably not calculating on top of that.”

“We are facing a lot of different issues at the university level. And of course drop in enrollment is probably the main factor of a lot of these problems, issues and challenges that we are facing. Athletics is not exempt from that. We’ve lost about $450,000 of funding from the student fee perspective since the [fiscal year] 2020 due to low enrollment,” Francois said.

Rugby is not a NCAA sport and that played a role in the final decision. WIth rugby not being a part of the NCAA, it meant that travel for playoffs is not covered compared to rugby’s CWU Athletics counterparts. 

“We’ve got 13 sport programs that are NCAA sports and there are benefits associated with that. A big part of that is post season travel,” Francois said. “The NCAA pays for all of it. All the travel, hotel and meals. Basketball this year made it to the [NCAA Division II National Championship Playoffs] and that was fully paid for by the NCAA. Unfortunately with rugby not being an NCAA championship sport, we operate under the guides of USA Rugby and they do not support that … I communicated with those [rugby] athletes that if they had won that last round, we would have been paying another $40,000 to $50,000 and that’s the price of success. It is really tough to budget for.”

Throughout the course of the season, rugby athletes were raising money for their teams and raised over $6,000. Some of the athletes were worried that they were not getting that money back and that it is now in the schools pockets. “Traditionally, when a person donates to the university’s foundation, it is not common practice to return funding. But that is something that our Vice president of [Advancement], Paul Elstone, is well aware of and looking into,” Francois said. 

The idea is that fundraised money would still be used for rugby, but in hopes of reviving the rugby club if students show interest. 

“Each of our programs have foundation accounts, men’s and women’s rugby are of course no exception. Those monies, we have communicated with people, will stay in those accounts, and should a club program develop those funds would be utilized or turned over for the club for their use to continue to participate in rugby and expenses that they have,” Francois said. “[The money] would still be held, they wouldn’t be used for anything but rugby. The rugby program is the ideal use for that for sure.”

Looking back at the past success that the rugby clubs have had, Francois is confident the club, if brought back, can get back to its success over ten years ago. “The club on the men’s side was highly competitive. We were battling with University of California and St. Mary’s University and those schools on an annual basis. It has to be a student initiative though, it has to be on their end driven by them. It can not be driven by us and that’s why it’s important to keep all of our equipment, uniforms and things of that nature. That way we can hand that off to them and hopefully eliminate some startup expenses.”

When it comes to the CWU athletes, we have seen some of them move on to the professional or national level. However, that is not Francois’ main goal for the student athletes at CWU. “From day one when athletes go to student athlete orientation you talk to them and you will ask ‘what does Dennis say?’ I say first and foremost we are here to get an education, that is our role here. Not to say you’re not going to go play professionally, we don’t want to crush those dreams. We want to support those dreams. That’s way down on our list for us in terms of what our purpose is here,” Francois said. “We hope you can achieve those goals and we’re going to hopefully provide you with the resources and experiences to achieve that. But at the end of the day our job is to make sure that you get a great education and leave with a meaningful degree that’s going to pay dividends for the rest of your life and career.”

Francois said there were other alternatives to this decision. “There were definitely other conditions. I talked to our student athletes, coaches and support staff just saying to them that the alternative to this would go against a commitment I made ten years ago when we added rugby. Going in and cutting a third of our basketball operating budget and volleyball operating budget to make up for this would lower our competitiveness of all of our programs on top of going against the commitment and what I feel is right in that regard.”

“We’re doing everything we can to hopefully provide the opportunity for those wanting to transfer from here to play at a different level. We are really trying to support that,” Francois said. “We are also honoring any of our athletic waiver scholarships for another year here at Central so hopefully that will provide a bridge for those individuals who feel like they still want to play but feel like transferring is not in their best interest.”

Both men’s and women’s rugby have made it an emphasis to make an impact on not only the CWU community but Ellensburg as a whole. Helping out with Ellensburg Youth Rugby and assisting the youth as their love for the fast growing sport continues. “Their actions, they represent us incredibly well, in competition, in the classroom, in the community and all they do,” Francois said.