Date of birth | December 6, 1951 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Place of birth | Erie, PA, United States | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Height | 5 ft 11 in (1.80 m) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Weight | 185 lb (84 kg) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Rugby union career | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Mike Purcell (born December 6, 1951) played wing for the United States national rugby union team from 1980 to 1987, earning 14 caps and scoring 4 tries. [1] The U.S. Rugby Foundation inducted Purcell into the United States Rugby Hall of Fame in 2015. [2]
Purcell played for the U.S. at the inaugural 1987 Rugby World Cup where he scored two tries — the first in a victory over Japan, the other in a loss to England. [3] Purcell also played for the U.S. national rugby sevens team. He played for the first U.S. sevens team at the 1981 Hong Kong Sevens, where he scored the U.S. team's first ever try. [4]
Following his playing career, Purcell coached rugby. He has coached Davis High School. [5] He was the head coach for the UC Davis Aggies, which won the 2015 Pac Western conference and the D1-AA national title. [6]
The France national rugby union team represents the French Rugby Federation in men's international rugby union matches. Colloquially known as Le XV de France, the team traditionally wears blue shirts with a Gallic rooster embroidered on the chest, white shorts and red socks in reference to the French national flag. Les Bleus mostly play home matches at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, near Paris. They compete in the annual Six Nations Championship along with England, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales. France have won the tournament on 26 occasions, winning the Grand Slam 10 times.
The United States men's national rugby union team, nicknamed the Eagles, represents the United States of America Rugby Football Union in men's international rugby union. USA Rugby is the national governing body for the sport of rugby union in the United States, and is a member of Rugby Americas North, one of six regional governing bodies under World Rugby. Until rugby returned to Olympic competition, with sevens at the 2016 Rio Games, the United States was the reigning Olympic rugby champion, having won gold at the 1920 and 1924 Summer Olympics.
Richard Dean Davis is an American former soccer midfielder, and former captain of the U.S. National Team for much of the 1980s. He is considered by fans the best U.S.-born player of the North American Soccer League era and is a member of the National Soccer Hall of Fame.
The USC Trojans football program represents the University of Southern California in the sport of American football. The Trojans compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the Big Ten Conference.
The UCLA Bruins are the athletic teams that represent the University of California, Los Angeles. The Bruin men's and women's teams participate in NCAA Division I as part of the Big Ten Conference and the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF). For football, they are in the Football Bowl Subdivision of Division I. UCLA is second to only Stanford University as the school with the most NCAA team championships at 123 NCAA team championships. UCLA offers 11 varsity sports programs for men and 14 for women.
Christopher Scott Petersen is an American former college football coach. He was the head coach for eight seasons at Boise State University; Petersen guided the Broncos to two BCS bowl wins in the 2007 and 2010 Fiesta Bowls. He is the first two-time winner of the Paul "Bear" Bryant Award, which he won in 2006 and 2009. Petersen also won the Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Award in 2010. At the University of Washington, Petersen led the Huskies to the College Football Playoff in 2016, but fell to Alabama in the Peach Bowl. Petersen announced his resignation on December 2, 2019, effective after the team's bowl game.
The Arizona State Sun Devils are the athletic teams that represent Arizona State University. ASU has nine men's and eleven women's varsity teams competing at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I level as a member of the Big 12 Conference. The mascot was adopted in 1946; earlier nicknames were the Normals and later, the Bulldogs. The Sun Devil mascot, Sparky, was designed by Bert Anthony, a former Disney illustrator. ASU's chief rival is the University of Arizona Wildcats, and both universities' athletics departments compete against each other in the Territorial Cup Series.
George Henry Raveling is an American former college basketball player and coach. He played at Villanova University, and was the head coach at Washington State University (1972–1983), the University of Iowa (1983–1986), and the University of Southern California (1986–1994).
The United States national rugby sevens team competes in international rugby sevens competitions. The national sevens team is organized by USA Rugby, and was led by Head Coach Mike Friday from 2014-2024, when he resigned and was replaced by Simon Amor.
The Louisiana State University Rugby Football Club, often referred to as LSU Tigers Rugby, represents Louisiana State University in college rugby and rugby sevens. The team is part of the Southeastern Collegiate Rugby Conference (SCRC) and they play their home matches at the UREC Field Complex on LSU's campus.
Division 1-A Rugby 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 40 D1-A rugby schools divided into seven conferences: East, Midwest, Rocky Mountain, California, Big Ten, Lonestar River, and Independent.
The Collegiate Rugby Championship (CRC) is an annual college rugby sevens tournament. The CRC began as the highest profile college rugby sevens competition in the United States, with the tournament broadcast live on NBC from 2010 to 2017, on ESPN News and ESPN3 from 2018 to 2019, The Rugby Network in 2021 and 2023, and on CBS Sports in 2022. The CRC capitalized on the surge in popularity of rugby at major universities following the 2009 announcement of the addition of rugby sevens to the Summer Olympics. Beginning in 2021, the tournament has been organized by National Collegiate Rugby (NCR) under license for the name and logo. Since the CRC franchise was licensed to NCR, the tournament has primarily featured comparatively smaller universities, as USA Rugby, recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as the sport's National Governing Body (NGB), holds the official championship in June 2024.
Mike Tolkin is a rugby union coach who served as head coach of the United States national team from 2012 until 2015. He was the head coach for Rugby United New York for the Major League Rugby 2019 Season. He is the current General Manager of Premier Rugby Sevens.
The California Golden Bears rugby team is the college rugby team of the University of California, Berkeley. The Golden Bears have won 33 championships since the national collegiate championships for rugby began in 1980. Current head coach and Cal alumnus Jack Clark took over the team in 1984, and has achieved prolonged success, leading the Bears to 28 national titles, including twelve consecutive championships from 1991 to 2002, five more consecutive titles from 2004 to 2008, and back-to-back titles in 2010 to 2011 and 2016 to 2017.
The PAC Rugby Conference was a college rugby conference composed of four schools from the Pac-12 Conference that competed against each other in Division 1-A Rugby. 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 and dropped Oregon State, 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 beating Arizona State at Witter Field in Berkeley.
Emil Signes is a former coach for the United States national rugby sevens team. He also facilitated the inclusion of the rugby sevens in the Olympics, due to his promotion of women's rugby worldwide. He is the founder and coach of Atlantis, an invitational 7s rugby team for developing rugby talent among both men and women.
Robinson M. Bordley is an American former rugby union player who played as a fly-half and fullback for the United States men's national team. He served as captain of the national team in its first two modern-era test matches in 1976.
San Diego State Aztecs Rugby Club is the rugby union club that represents San Diego State University (SDSU). The men's team competes in Division 1-A in the California Conference and the women's team competes in Division II in the Pacific Desert Conference. The team plays its home games at ENS 700 Field.
Christopher Lippert is an American retired rugby union player who played at prop for the United States national rugby union team and the Barbarian F.C.
Stephen Finkel is an American former international rugby union player and coach.