Interview: Sabercats’ Sam Windsor by John Granato
Rugby Gaining Mainstream Popularity –
Houston Sabercats’ Sam Windsor Interview
by John Granato
John Granato (JG): Your Season is coming up, tell us about it.
Sam Windsor (SW): Yup very close. We have two exhibition games before the league starts. January 11th is our first one, down at Constellation Field home of the Skeeters. That’ll be a return to Constellation for us; we played a nine-game exhibition season there last year so we’re really looking forward to going back down there. We had a great time there, the fans came out in the thou- sands, we put on a good show, and we’re hoping to repeat that this year. March 22nd is our home opener at the new Ave- va Stadium, down the 288 at the Hous- ton Sports Park and we’ll have five of our remaining home games played there.
JG: Is it already, how’s it looking?
SW: Not yet, it’s in progress. It’s looking great.
JG: How many will it seat?
SW: About 3 and a half thousand, which is modest for us. And if we pack that next year we can we can go to the city and say, “Hey we want more seats”. JG: Were you drawing that last year?
SW: We got 5 and half thousand to our home opener at Constellation and we averaged between 2 and 3 for the re- maining games.
Raheel Ramzanali (RR): So, the big thing with Aveva is just making sure that there’s a plan in place. You’ve got to build it up slowly and I think that it’s going to work for sure because you can actually serve stuff out there too, which is big because last year you couldn’t.
SW: Exactly, that was a big thing for the other games we played at the Delmar Sports Facility at Dyer Stadium, which is an HISD School so we couldn’t serve beer on site. So a few of the supporters got a bit angry at that and didn’t turn out. Plus we were playing in June and July where it was near 100 degrees and we wear a black jersey, black shorts. So it wasn’t great.
JG: Are tickets affordable?
SW: Tickets are very affordable. They’re on sale, single game tickets, sea- son tickets. Single game tickets start be- tween 20 and 30 bucks and you can get a season pass for under 300 bucks. Very affordable for a day or a night out for the whole family.
JG: How well do Houstonians know the game?
SW: They do! There’s surprisingly a lot of rugby in the city. There are over 50 teams from youth to both men’s and women’s. We’ve got a D1 team so they play in the national D1 competition. One of our coaches, Paul Emerick is here, he’s an ex-USA representative, he’s the coach of the West Houston Lions and he’s also the skills coach for us. He’s building a great program out there and it’ll be like our Triple A league, a feeder club for us. They’ve got players who are looking to take their rugby to the next level, so we’re giving them a platform to perform. We can see them play, track their progress, and in a year or two’s time we bring them in to the Sabercats program.
RR: And it’s really cool for these club teams now to have something to aspire for right here in the city. I know you found some guys at last year’s try-outs. You just want to get them in and maybe you discover somebody to be a part of your team.
JG: Did you find any talent in the try-outs?
SW: Last year we had 3 guys play consistently through the year. This year we had about 6 or 7 guys from our combine play for us in our exhibition games and our preseason scrimmages. So they’ll play a factor throughout the season and hopefully a couple of them will get a chance to play in the league.
JG: Were there any novices who didn’t know anything about rugby who came out?
SW: Last year I reckon it was 50-50, people who had seen rugby and people who had never seen rugby. And then that was sort of a weekly occurrence. So the crowds got bigger, and then the rugby lovers and rugby crowds got bigger because there were people who had never seen or heard about it who came and they fell in love with it from watching one game.
JG: We watch rugby on TV. We see the all blacks. Do you have to be a big guy if you want to play against those guys?
SW: For any rugby player, that’s probably the aspiration. You want to play against the best, you want to beat the best. So challenging yourself against the better teams is something that is part of rugby. I watch a lot of football and now that I’m living in the states I have a newfound respect for it. But foot- ball is a game where you run at faces not spaces, while in rugby you run at spaces not faces, if that makes sense. So you can be small and little, but if you’re nimble and fast, you can get past someone, evade them and juke them out, and you can play as long as you need or as long as you like. I’m not a big bloke in rugby terms, but if you’ve got your technique right when it comes to tackling and running then you can’t run without legs is what we like to say. So if you tackle someone by their legs, we tackle with our shoulders be- low the waist, that’s the most effective way to bring someone to the ground.
RR: Are you ready for a decline this year? Because you’re officially married and usually when what happens that’s it right.
SW: Nah, nah we’re still on the upward swing, we’re going good. My private life we’re on the up and rugby we’re on the up as well. We’ve got more fans, we’ve got a new team coming in, some new players, so we’re really looking forward to doing a lot better than we did last year, giving Houston something to cheer about and hopefully we bring another championship to this great city.
JG: Where are the other teams?
SW: We have Austin and New Orleans who are our two of our rivals, so we’ve got a couple good derby matches against them. We’ve also got San Diego, Seattle, Utah, Colorado, New York’s in it this year, Toronto’s in it this year, so it’s plenty of travel. Boys coming from overseas get a chance to experience America, different cultures and different cities. We’re trying to advertise it to the world and make it a viable rugby option for players who are still in the peak of their career but also guys who are starting out wanting to get a break in the profes- sional game.
JG: And it’s the premier league in th