Daneille Stiegler: When did you come to the glorious sport of rugby?
Kathy Flores: I did not come to rugby until I got out of college as a graduate student and when I came down to Florida State University, people were telling me “there’s this great sport, you should play its like football – I really liked football – and you have to tackle and all that kind of stuff.” So I ended up learning from these women who were pretty amazing. I don’t know how Florida got such a strong team, but just a bunch of very competitive women that allowed me to learn the sport. I fell in love with it and have been involved with it ever since, 1978.
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DS: How did you get dialed into coaching?
KF: I came to coaching pretty early, maybe a year or two after I started playing. I’ve always been the kind of player that was very interested in technically and strategically understanding things. When you are that kind of player on a team at the time when there aren’t coaches, or there weren’t very many coaches on the rugby scene, you become a person who is a player-coach. I had a career where I played for FSU, then for the Berkeley All Blues and for the US Eagles. I learned a lot from the coaches that I had and decided, well if I can’t play any more I’d like to coach. As they say, coaching is not playing but it is probably the next best thing to it.
DS: How did you come to the Eagles?
KF: I was always interested in coaching at that level. If you are a competitive player and wanted to play for the United States and were able to, then your next goal as a coach would be to coach the United States. I happen to come in at a time when I was able to pick up the reigns of the national team and see what I could do with it. I was coaching the All Blues leading up to my position with the Eagles and as 2010 season was ramping up I stepped away to coach the Eagles. It was not until after the World Cup and my tenure [with the Eagles] completed that I returned to the All Blues.
DS: While at the All Blues, you also worked with other local teams, University of San Francisco women’s, the FOG men’s club. What is the main difference in coaching a WPL or National team to coaching Collegiate Ivy League rugby?
KF: I like all aspects of coaching. Since I love the sport, I enjoy teaching people how to play. When you get up to the national level you are not teaching as much as trying to coordinate and manage. At the less experienced levels its about teaching, which is why I wanted to help University of San Francisco when they were looking for a coach and trying to get a program started. I want girls to have the opportunity to play rugby. Typically when a school like USF starts up a rugby program, you don’t often get people who know what they are doing but you get those who have played themselves and want to give back, which I think is fantastic. I feel like I have a lot of knowledge and I’d like players to learn things from the high level stuff that we do. There is no reason you need to be a high-level player to learn those skills especially if you learn how to do them right away, and safely. This was a great chance to bring this knowledge to a developing program like the one at USF.
The FOG men are our local gay rugby team and I’ve always wanted to work with them. I have done a few clinics with them when they started back in about 2000. I always wanted the opportunity to work with men, and particularly gay men. I believe that they are much more open to a woman coach, and to be fair, sometimes men have trouble coaching men which is why they seek out a woman. Often young men can be hard to work with, though I have not coached college men so I cannot directly say. I feel like gay men are very appreciative of someone who wants to spend time and teach them how to play.
DS: Have you notice gender take any meaningful role throughout your coaching career?
KF: I think it really just depends on whether the guys (or gals) want to learn. Often men and women have different coaching styles. Sometimes men are tougher on boys than I think I might be on boys, and I think I’m more interested in understanding and learning as opposed to yelling at them, though I know plenty of men coaches that are not like that. Until I have really worked with a group of young men who have either been really receptive or really not receptive, it feels unfair to generalize.
DS: You’ve been at Brown for three months now, what is it like to be at an Ivy League athletics institution?
KF: It is kind of hard since I got here and really hit the ground running and plug myself into Ivy League athletics. It’s very much about the Ivy’s. There is no greater concern about collegiate athletics, it’s about the Ivy’s, and winning the Ivy’s and being good in the world of the Ivy’s. What I really like about them is that academics are very important. As much as I love rugby we are in college. I want these girls to be focused on their education, sometimes that’s to the detriment of coming to my practice. After graduation you will have the opportunity to play but you most likely will not make money, especially for women. It is very important to focus on your education and go from there.
Not having been to other colleges I cannot quite tell what the difference would be compared to another college. Being in the Ivy’s is basically like having your own conference. It’s a matter of just getting into that and having more time with the players to be able to be competitive. I believe we were .500 this year and hopefully as we move forward with varsity status (though the school will not promise anything), we will climb the ladder.
DS: How inclusive is the school to the rugby program?
KF: I’m a club coach. But its sort of like I’m a club coach that is actually a staff and employee of the university, which is unusual. It is a step in the right direction though it is made very clear to me that I’m not varsity. We don’t get preference with fields. I’m part of the athletic department, but I was not welcomed among the other (varsity) coaches when they are welcomed. I’m in this nebulous territory and I don’t think they are willing to transition into varsity at the moment.
In order for Brown women’s rugby to be successful, they will eventually need to go varsity. Now, whether the school is going to eventually agree, they are not will to do so right now. I think Brown already has somewhere around 37 varsity sports which is pretty amazing for its size, so I see why they might be anxious to not add something else. But I think it is important for women to go varsity, and I know there will be plenty of people who say its not. To add that kind of prestige to the sport for women, to have the admissions, to be able to get young women into scholarship opportunities, health care taken care of.
I think part of it is there is no perceived advantage to men for women to become varsity, they think. But there is. I think by women going varsity, it helps men’s club sport and if you have a good relationship between your club men and varsity you can grow the program together. That’s just my own feeling about it.
DS: What is next for women’s Ivy League rugby, is there anything coming down the pipeline?
KF: Well you know Harvard has gone varsity. I think they would like other teams to go varsity. The others that could go varsity that are in the higher level would include Princeton, Dartmouth and us. Princeton says they are not interested, but it’s a big family at Princeton and I think the men have convinced the women they might not want to go varsity.
As stringent as NCAA can be, I still think the advantages for women will outweigh what will happen for them. Restrictions could limit team tours due to the amount of games you are allowed to play. Its very restrictive, but rugby Sevens and XV’s has all been lumped together and it really cannot be. You could easily play half of your allowed contests within one Sevens tournament. Because Sevens is going to be an Olympic sport, it almost has to be treated different in terms of NCAA. There is a lot to be hashed out and this could be something that holds people back.
Ultimately, in having access to health care when you get injured playing, having a trainer (which is all part of your club budget) and access to weightlifting. All of these things are part of the varsity program and would not come directly out of the team’s budget otherwise. It should be available to young women who play rugby.
In terms of where Brown is, it was made clear to me that there is not time line on the ‘varsity thing’. I’m very interested in being moved into the varsity status. Moving into varsity will certainly change what rugby is. A serious club rugby player does not go out drinking every night anymore, you don’t party like you used to. Things have evolved from the sport that all the Europeans brought over here on their holidays and they drank and they played and everything else. You may still have some of that as social clubs and that is great, but if you want to be serious and want people to look at you as a serious sport, then everything has to evolve.
DS: On the topic of rugby’s equality of rules for men and women:
KF: In an email the other day, I got a question of what I think about women playing with a smaller ball. And I have in the past supported it. Now, I don’t. I think going to a smaller ball is one way to marginalize women. What I love about rugby, there is nothing that is different between men and women. In lacrosse you see two completely different games. Rugby is one of the few sports where everything is exactly the same. And once we start going to a smaller ball, do we go to a smaller field; do we go to less time because women are less fit or have less endurance or are not as powerful? I worry that it will become a way to marginalize women through a sport that has so far been even across the board. So I no longer believe we should try throwing with a small ball – the women on the Sevens international pitch seem to throw it just fine.
DS: Rugby fundraising has always been interesting. Many clubs use a calendar as a way to make some extra money. Have you seen Oxfords calendar that was just released? What are your thoughts on this method of fundraising?
KF: How do I feel about women taking their close off on calendars to make money? You know, it’s never been my thing. But to me it’s always been sexist, but now men do it too – the firemen calendar comes out every year for example. So is it really sexist if women are doing it while men are also? I guess if both men and women are participating than that’s one thing. But mostly it has been women taking their clothes off. And I’m not about having to be naked to do stuff, but it is more about sexism.
Even Olympians do it! I don’t inherently think its bad to be little clothed for a calendar as long as it is happening across the board and your not using women and sex to make money, depending on what the calendar looks like. I never liked it when it was just women, because before men did not take their clothes off to fundraise in this way. It was always about sport shots for men, but the calendars I like is when someone has an action shot of themselves or doing something really great, and then a shot of them being a regular person. This shows the world they are athletes but they are also chemists or people in managerial positions or whatever it is they do.