The PAC Rugby Conference is a

college rugby College rugby is played by men and women throughout colleges and universities in the United States of America. Seven-a-side and fifteen-a-side variants of rugby union are most commonly played. Most collegiate rugby programs do not fall under the ...

conference composed of four schools from the

Pac-12 Conference The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference, that operates in the Western United States, participating in 24 sports at the NCAA Division I level. Its College football, football teams compete in the NCAA D ...

that compete against each other in

Division 1-A Rugby Division 1-A Rugby (formerly known as the College Premier Division) is the highest level of college rugby within the United States and is administered by USA Rugby. Division 1-A rugby is modeled after NCAA athletic competitions, with the 67 D1 ...

. It was formed in 2012 with six teams, with conference play beginning in February 2013 to compete in Division 1-AA. In 2016, PAC added USC and

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

and dropped

Oregon State Oregon State University (OSU) is a public land-grant, research university in Corvallis, Oregon. OSU offers more than 200 undergraduate-degree programs along with a variety of graduate and doctoral degrees. It has the 10th largest engineering col ...

, and moved up to D1-A. Despite only recently moving up from D1-AA affiliation, the PAC has historically been one of the strongest conferences in college rugby, with five of its members consistently ranked in the Top 25 overall. The PAC Rugby Conference began play on February 2, 2013, with

Cal Cal or CAL may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Cal'' (novel), a 1983 novel by Bernard MacLaverty * "Cal" (short story), a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov * ''Cal'' (1984 film), an Irish drama starring John Lynch and Helen Mir ...

beating Arizona State at Witter Field in Berkeley.

History of rugby at PAC schools

Around the turn of the century, American football was frowned upon for its violence, and President

Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...

insisted upon reform or abolition of the game. During this period of uncertainty, rugby made a brief but important reappearance in many colleges, most notably at Cal and Stanford. It was these two Universities that supplied most of the players to the two U.S. Olympic rugby teams that won gold medals at the

1920 Olympics The 1920 Summer Olympics (french: Jeux olympiques d'été de 1920; nl, Olympische Zomerspelen van 1920; german: Olympische Sommerspiele 1920), officially known as the Games of the VII Olympiad (french: Jeux de la VIIe olympiade; nl, Spelen van ...

and

1924 Olympics 1924 Olympics may refer to: *The 1924 Winter Olympics, which were held in Chamonix, France *The 1924 Summer Olympics The 1924 Summer Olympics (french: Jeux olympiques d'été de 1924), officially the Games of the VIII Olympiad (french: Jeux de ...

. PAC Rugby was shown on television for the first time in 2014, when the PAC 12 Network broadcast Cal vs UCLA. Cal has long been one of the faces of rugby at the collegiate level. In addition, excellence by teams such as UCLA and Arizona, as well as recent growth by USC, have made the conference one of the toughest in the country.

Members

Results

PAC Sevens Rugby Tournament

This PAC Sevens Rugby Tournament occurs every fall. The winner of the tournament receives an automatic berth to the

USA Rugby Sevens Collegiate National Championships The USA Rugby Sevens Collegiate National Championships is an annual competition among the top college rugby teams in the country to decide a national champion in rugby sevens. USA Rugby organized the championship to capitalize on the surge in pop ...

. The tournament debuted in 2011 where Colorado beat Utah in the final match. In 2012, all 12 of the Pac-12 schools participated for the first time and Cal won. In 2016 the tournament was hosted in

Tucson , "(at the) base of the black ill , nicknames = "The Old Pueblo", "Optics Valley", "America's biggest small town" , image_map = , mapsize = 260px , map_caption = Interactive map ...

, Arizona for the first time, where it was won by Cal for the fifth straight year .Recap: Cal claims fifth consecutive Pac Sevens Rugby Championship, Nov. 13, 2016, http://pac-12.com/videos/recap-cal-claims-fifth-consecutive-pac-sevens-rugby-championship

References

External links

* {{Rugby union in the United States College sports in California 2012 establishments in the United States Sports leagues established in 2012