FW: What USC Rugby means to me - Alex Duran '19

[Dominic Riebli]

In addition to reflections from alumni, I’ve also asked some players to provide their thoughts about their time on campus and what rugby has meant to them.  First up is Alex Duran, who transferred to USC from St. Mary’s College a few year back as part of a joint engineering program.  He played rugby for three seasons with the Gaels and won a National Championship in 2017.  Alex brought a “professionalism” to the team that many players sorely needed.  He showed up early to training, left late, always did what we asked of him, and lead by word and deed.  Fifteen Alex Duran’s equal a championship every year.

 

To help USC Rugby continue to improve, please contribute to our fundraising campaign (link here).

 

PS: I’ll have a Pac7s match report tomorrow.  I’m just waiting to see if we can access video, which currently resides behind the Pac-12 Network paywall.

 

From: Alejandro Duran [mailto:]
Sent: Monday, November 4, 2019 8:39 PM
To: Dominic Riebli <dominic...@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: What USC Rugby means to me

 

USC has been a great learning experience for me as someone with the desire to coach someday. Here at USC, we get a lot of freshmen who don't know much about the game of rugby but are willing to learn and more importantly are coachable. As a player with 7 years of experience, I get the opportunity to teach the young guys how amazing this sport is, through team-building skills and accountability. It is both physically and mentally challenging and every day we come in and push each other. At USC I found that while young and inexperienced, we never roll over to our back and let people walk over us. We fight on no matter what the score is for the full 80 minutes. This to me is the most valuable trait we have as a team and I am proud to be apart of this program. With your donations, we will be able to get our players more exposure to the game with the needed equipment and additional games throughout the year.