Back To Washington State, Rugby Hotbed
Back To Washington State, Rugby Hotbed
Shawn Pittman talks Rugby Washington.
Starfire Sports Complex hosts the USA vs Uruguay this coming weekend, and it's becoming a home for the game on the West Coast.
The Seattle Seawolves are selling out games at the venue, which is just a few miles south of the city of Seattle, in Tukwila, WA. But there's been more rugby than that at Starfire. Major all-star tournaments, a USA Rugby Club 7s Championships, and other major games have been held there before.
Watch USA vs Uruguay LIVE on FloRugby Saturday, March 2. KO 7pm PT
USA forwards coach Shawn Pittman has played there, suiting up at No. 8 for the Rugby Washington Loggers high school all-star team that played a touring Australian team in 2006. He now returns to the state of his birth along with Davis Ainuu, current USA prop who graduated from Capital HS in Olympia and played with the Liberty club near Tukwila.
Washington has a strong history of producing USA players, despite the main high school league being very small. And it hasn't been just one club, either.
There are five teams in the Rugby Washington Boys D1, and all five have produced Eagles: Budd Bay (Scott LaValla), Chuckanut (Shawn Pittman, John Wallace), Eastside (Aladdin Schirmer), Tacoma (Pat Blair), and Liberty (David Ainuu).
That's a remarkable situation, as usually when a state boasts production of national team players, it's a small percentage of high school teams that produce them.
The Rugby Washington league has started, and this weekend Liberty won't be playing Chuckanut, so at least Pittman and Ainuu won't be rivals for the weekend.