Napa Stormers

In my latest Q&A here on LLR the NAPA stormers are the center of attention. Founded in 2012 the Stormers have experienced nothing but amazing success for such a relatively new program, tucked away in the North Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area it is quite easy to overlook this small program in such a major rugby hot bed in America. Napa is known to be wine country and a place to visit for honeymoons or getaways, but what Napa is also slowly becoming is a Rugby Town. Thanks to the Napa valley Register residences in and around Napa last year were able to fallow there teams season, for a high school rugby team to get constantly written up in the local paper in the bay area speaks volumes to how rugby is coming to light in a very crowded Sports market.

LLR- Name and Rugby history, position held within the program?

 TT- My name is Trevor Terrill, I am one of the coaches for the Napa Stormers, and I also serve on the Board of Directors as the Vice President, in charge of marketing. I previously played prop for San Francisco Golden Gate in 2012, and 2013. I still try to sneak in a few games here an there when i'm not coaching.

LLR- When Where the Stormers founded ?

TT- The Stormers were founded in the late winter months of 2012. Our Captain, Bernard, was born and raised in South Africa. When he moved to the U.S.A he had the dream of playing professional rugby. Well when he got into high school, there wasn't a rugby team in the immediate area, and was convinced by his football coach to "start his own". Well he took the advice, rounded up some friends and started a team. They didn't have to look too far to find Head Coach Phil Hansell, but the South Africans did have to suck up a bit of pride to allow themselves to be coached by a Kiwi!

       

LLR- Why stormers?

TT- This question is kind of funny.  The Stormers name and logo inspiration comes from the South African Super Rugby Team. I think the story goes that when they were deciding on a team name, the house was divided between their favorite teams; the Cheetahs, and the Bulls. Neither side wanted to give in, and they selected the Stormers as the neutral choice! We then also found out after the club was formed, that the local Napa Valley College "mascot" was called the Storm, so it worked out just fine! Our primary colors of Navy and Gold were chosen because they were the only two colors not currently being used by another team in our league, and they look sharp.

     LLR- How has the city of NAPA and the surrounding area       embraced the club

 TT- The Napa Valley has really embraced the Stormers, it has been incredible. I think a big part of it has to do with the wine industry, and the people that come to the valley from all over the world. Rugby is one of the top sports in every other major wine growing region of the world (France, Italy, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa etc.), and people from these countries move to Napa all the time to study and make wine. On average, we have had about 200+ people attend each of our home games, and our first major fundraiser last year was sold out, and saw an attendance of 300+ people. The kids love playing in front of a big crowd, and we have a jersey full of local business sponsors that support the club.

LLR- Have you found it easy or hard to recruit kids to play rugby, and how has the reception been with local high school football coaches when you try and talk to football players to come out

TT- Recruiting really has not been a problem at all. It all started with that first group of players (our founders as we call them), and getting all of their buddies to play after football was over. That very first season we played with one Varsity Silver team, and i think we had about 30 kids. Of those 30, only Bernard had ever played rugby before, and we still finished with a winning record, and our first playoff appearance. With the success of the first season, we put it out there that we wanted to field a Junior Varsity team (made of 8th-10th graders), and the boys again did their own recruiting to fill both the JV and Varsity teams. We have been pretty blessed that as coaches we have not had to do any actual recruiting, the boys have done all the work to bring the bodies in. Once they come to their first practice, they are usually hooked. 90% of our players do come from playing football in the fall, and the reception just keeps getting better. I think at first the football coaches were concerned about off-season injuries etc, but quickly realized the benefit when their players come back after a season of rugby much more confident, skilled in tackling, and fit. We have developed a great relationship with our high school football coaches.

LLR- How many kids are expected to be registered this year ?

TT- I think we are expecting about the same amount of kids to register this year as last, which would be between 50-60 for the combined two teams. Realistically, this is also what we are comfortable with as a coaching staff without having to make the decisions of adding additional teams, or reducing playing time of the field.

LLR- What division in the NorCal Youth Rugby Association do the stormers play in?

TT- We have two teams, JV Silver (8th to 10th graders), and Varsity Silver (typically 11th-12th graders), both playing in the Redwood Empire of the Northern California Youth RugbyAssociation.

LLR- Last year was a pretty remarkable year for the program, how do you being to build off of it?

TT- Last year was an incredible year. First, our Varsity team loses only one game during the regular    season, wins their first playoff game, and finishes fourth at the NCYRA championship. Then, our JV shocks us with an undefeated regular season, and wins the JV Silver Championship. Needless to say, we have definitely set the bar high for ourselves going forward. We had a fairly small graduating class last year, so fortunately we have a lot of the same player personal. The fun part is that most of our JV team has moved up, and will be trying to fit into the Varsity squad this season. We're not going to fix something that’s not broke, and stick with a similar game plan. We'll ramp up the speed a bit, but I’m looking forward to seeing this core group of guys that have been playing for three years together to show their experience and carry this team to the next level.

LLR- For those who are interested in watching a game or want to see practice where do the stormers practice and play home games ?

TT- We will start practices with our annual Kick Off Camp on November 30th at 10am at Napa High School. After that we will go into our normal practice schedule of Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday nights, also at Napa High. Once we get into games, we will play our home games at Redwood Middle School, or locally known as "Raiders Field" as this is the facility that the Oakland Raiders host their annual preseason camps at. It should go without saying that the fields are fantastic, and makes for a great place to play rugby.

  
LLR- Is there any news comeing we should keep an eye out for ?

TT- I think the biggest piece of news that will come out of the Stormers camp within the next couple weeks will be the announcement of our annual fundraising event, the Frosty Toss and Brewskies Corn Hole Tournament. As I mentioned earlier, this event was a HUGE success last year as we sold out a full 64 team corn hole tournament, and had a ton of fun doing it. People still talk about this event all the time, and let us know how much they are looking forward to the next one.

LLR- How can people outside of NAPA help support the Stormers this year and going forward?

TT- Its funny you ask this, because for some reason over the last 3-4 days, we have had a bizarre influx of likes to our facebook page from all over the world. Paraguay, France, Italy, Norway, Argentina, Iran and South Africa have somehow found the Napa Stormers online and are fans! If there are people that would like to support us, donations are always welcome to help off-set our low player dues, and we also recently teamed up with WorldRugbyShop.com to offer our logo'd apparel on their website. We are an official non-profit organization, so most donations to the club would count towards a tax deduction.


Twitter: @napa_stormers
Facebook: www.facebook.com/Napastormers
Website:  http://www.napastormers.com/

*now it should be noted the reason why i do these Q&A's is to help bring to light rugby programs that maybe getting over looked in other media outlets and in turn help people become familiar with these club over time and to revisit them with updates to help keep ruggers locally , nationally and internationally up to date with how these programs are doing.
with that said , i absolutely wish the Stormers all the best this coming year and hope they have another amazing season. there truly is something special being done up in the north bay and it is only going to get better.   keep eyes out for fallow up Q&A at end of season to recap how the stormers did.