Lance with Mark Weidner 4/16/26

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3:01Russ Jackson, your producer. We roll till eight. Then it's the UC coaches show the final edition of the year. You'll get some football. You'll get some basketball and more Dan Horde and guest. 51 minutes from Merck. This week is a celebration of the 50th anniversary for St. X rugby. And when I found out about this, I thought, all right, I don't know how often or if I've ever done a segment on rugby, I said, I should probably do that because there's a lot I could probably learn about rugby, the growth, the popularity and specifically St. X rugby. So our next guest is the varsity rugby coach at St. X. He's here to talk about the sport and the weekend. What a treat to welcome in. Mark Widener. Mark. How are you? Hey, Lance. How you doing? I'm doing great. It is great to hear your voice. Congrats on the anniversary. Do I understand this correctly? St. X. Rugby is the oldest high school rugby team in the state of Ohio? It is. It is by far, actually. So they were formed in 1976.

4:05Indian Hill had a rugby team and in that students were playing on the Indian Hill rugby team and they weren't getting fair treatment, so they thought so they decided they were going to start their own rugby team. And so that was 1976 and 50 years later, we're still going in strong. St. X didn't like the rugby team and so they had to go off down the hill and play and be the North Bend Rugby Club for quite a few years and they came back up, re-adopted the program and so we're having a celebration. Before we get into the sport as a whole in a second, tell me about the festivities. What all's going on tomorrow on Saturday? So we've got a game at the... We essentially play everybody in rugby so that everybody who's on the team gets to play so there's different levels of rugby and so we've got our varsity VR second team that's playing with those A-team. Then we're going to have... One of Hill's is going to be playing our A-team at 430. We're going to have an alumni game at 530 where all the 50 years of rugby players are

5:08going to come and play each other. Wow. Yeah. And then at 630, the varsity will play an Oleants' hand here at State Final 3 match of the other football program. All right. So tell me about the sport in the state of Ohio. High school in Ohio, is it growing in interest in popularity? It is growing in interest. It's one of the fastest growing sports in the country. It's repeated. Rugby was the last time the rugby was out of 2015, the Olympic United States won it. So that was in the early 1900s and of course we grew rugby as an American football. But you know, it gets reduced back in the United States in the 70s and it's really growing now. We're getting a lot of youth programs that are forming. Cleveland's got thousands of youth program up there. We've got a hundred kids in our youth program down here now and we're just... People are getting back and starting clubs all over the city. So it's an exciting time for rugby and if anyone ever watched it and played it, it is

6:10so much fun. I played college football and I got introduced to rugby and fell in love with it and the best sport you could play. Mark if I... If I'm looking at what I was looking at earlier this morning, I think I've seen you guys have won 69 and nothing, 86 and nothing. Tell me about your season and how do you travel? I would think you have to travel in many cases to find opponents. What's that like from that standpoint? So there are... It really depends on the level of play that you want to find. So there are local matches and local games you can play but we're at a high level program so we have to seek out high level rugby teams. So we're traveling to St. Louis and playing over there. We've played a team from our cat and Wisconsin and teams from Orion from Tennessee. We've played teams in Kansas. So there is travel but it's not as much as you think. The Cleveland two teams, Ed and Ignatius are, you know, nationally ranked teams. I think it's one of the national champions of last year, the top 10 top 20 national

7:14program. We play them every year. Moller's got a program. They're an athlete rank program. We're an athlete rank program so we just go out there. Last year we played in North Carolina. So there is a little bit of travel. You know, you have to do that in order to seek out great teams. There are 30 teams in Ohio, you know, but some are better than others. It is my understanding that rugby world cup is coming to the U.S. for the men in 2031. The women in 2033 and talk to me about this because I guess since then he's trying to be one of the host cities for this event. True. That is true. So they've been world cup has been to the city of Cincinnati. I think you out stadium is going to be the host site for it. If it is, if it does come to Cincinnati and St. X will be one of the four locations for the host teams to practice that for the two weeks, that will be in Cincinnati. So at the exciting time for rugby world cup, I want to really reintroduce rugby to our country and the best way to do it is to bring the best teams in the world here to the

8:17United States and get that momentum rolling and get the sleeping guy going. Has Cincinnati, I guess, on the cut downs? Has Cincinnati made the latest, I guess they're still in contention for a possibility? Yeah, so we're down to the semi-finals. So I think that there's one more cut down and then they'll do the finalists. But they visited the five pines and I don't know that they would be doing that if they weren't serious about bringing it to here to the city of Cincinnati. So they love the stadium and the dimensions of that field and the actual graph location. That's super important for rugby because they don't want to play on turf. It is a, you know, where you don't have equipment and we don't be tackled on to that hard turf. So they want to, you know, play it on grass. Where does... Mark, where does the USA team stand in international as the sport continues to grow popularity more players, better athletes, better competition?

9:18Where is the US team like in the grand scheme of things internationally right now in terms of talent and level of play? Well, New Zealand is by far the New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, England, France. Those teams are far and above better than the United States. We're probably 15, 16th in the world. So we're not even close to competing against those other nations. We just don't have the athletes that play rugby in the United States just because it's not introduced to anybody. But, you know, the close comparison is people that are really really good at soccer, really good at football and good at basketball or the type of kids that you're going to want to play rugby. And, you know, obviously they're playing, you know, other sports here in the United States. So, you know, we just flagged from that. I learned something else today in an email I got from you that Richard Skinner calls your matches. Has he figured out, and I taught, I immediately called him and I said, wait a minute,

10:19you call the Xanax rugby matches? Has he figured out those hand signals and penalties yet? Or is that still a work in progress? That is a work in progress. He's starting to get it. We talk after games and I kind of give him ideas of what they're calling. For somebody that never had watched rugby before, he does that's an amazing job on those drives. Yeah. It's fun to listen to him. The kids really enjoy listening to him. And, you know, he's good at it and, yeah, we love it. That's awesome. That is awesome. So, for somebody listening now and they're going, huh, I didn't, I didn't know. I would assume they could come out to one of your matches and be a spectator and watch. Am I correct? That is right. That is exactly right. Yeah. So, we play on the south answers, which is across the street. So, we have a grass field over there with a locker room. And then our alumni, you know, 50 years of them donated enough money. So, we bought a, we built an international rugby field right over the hill from us.

11:20It's growing grass right now and it's going to be ready to play by next spring. So, we're going to have, you know, a enormous rugby field there for us to play. So, in that course, they're going to practice when they, you know, when the Internet's looking from here. That is outstanding. So, yeah. So, for 13, 630, so we play Old and Tangy in Wanda, and people could come. It's a fun game to watch. And, you know, more importantly, come and enjoy and play rugby because, you know, it's also really super fast growing in women's sports because there isn't a sport out there for women. And you saw the women get third in the Olympic this past year at the, in France. And there just isn't a sport for women where it's a full contact sport where the rules aren't any different from the men and the women. You know, you've got field hockey where they don't hit each other and you got lacrosse or they don't hit each other. But in rugby, they literally the same sport, the same physicality.

12:24And it's, you know, the type of, you know, there's just a body type and a type of a personality for the women. They just don't have that other than rugby. I am so glad you reached out to me. I learned something in many things in our conversation. And I like doing different things and things that can expose people to different things as well. And this was fun. Congrats on the 50 years. Have a fantastic weekend. And thanks for making time today. I bet. Can I mention one more thing? Yeah. In football, when they talk about the football and they always say it's a scrum, that in rugby side would actually be a mall where, you know, in, you know, drum is a very organized play. And you know, you got to eight on eight where they put the ball in the middle of the restart play. And it's very organized. And it's literally, you're trying to push them over the ball and push the other team backwards and games possession of the ball. But in a mall, it's a much more, you know, more of a free for all, but everybody's got

13:29to come through a gate and it's a much safer place. And if it goes to ground, then the, you know, the official immediately blows the whistle in case something gets hurt. But in football, that, that doesn't happen. And that's kind of where, you know, where, you know, people always call it a scrum, but it's not a scrum. It's a mall. So just something else I learned tonight as well. Mark, you're the man I enjoyed this. Thanks for your time. Thank you. I appreciate it. Take care. No, Mark Widener, uh, Mark Widener is the, uh, Varsity St X rugby coach, 50th anniversary celebration this weekend. Uh, I have checked the box. I'm pretty confident saying that's the first segment I've done on rugby. I love doing stuff. That's why I always say if you got, you got an idea, I may not get to it right away, may not ultimately be able to get to it. But I love different things to add into the mix and stir it around. Thanks at Lance Bacallister.com for all your ideas, suggestions and topics. Absolutely. When we come back, all right, let's get into the reds. I'm holding my head at this point because he was headache inducing your thoughts.

14:32My thoughts will share reaction to a one or three, nothing one hit loss today for the Cincinnati Reds. That is next. R&L carrier sports talk. Presented by Kelsey Chevrolet, 700 WLW the countdown is on for the 2026 NFL draft presented by Bud Light. Catch all seven rounds three days live from Pittsburgh, April 23rd through 25th. Watch every pick live on NFL Network ESPN and ABC. NFL Network is also streaming with NFL Plus. It all starts Thursday at 8 p.m. Eastern. Visit NFL.com slash draft for more information, subscription required for NFL Plus. Visit plus.nfl.com for turns. If you're tired of spills and stains on your sofa, wash away your worries with Anabay. Anabay is the only machine washable sofa inside and out. Where designer quality meets budget-friendly prices. That's right, sofa started just $699. Enjoy a no-risk experience with pet-friendly, stain-resistant, and changeable slip-cuffers

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