Dean of college rugby

When Josh Dean first arrived at the U.S. Air Force Academy three years ago, he and fellow Juneau cadet Christian Kolden saw a flier advertising the school's rugby program and decided to give the sport a tryout.

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That spur-of-the-moment lark changed Dean's athletic career. A former baseball and football player at Juneau-Douglas High School, Dean proved to be a natural in rugby and is now considered one of the top college players in the country.

"It was my first time playing rugby," Dean said of the tryout during a recent phone interview monitored by a member of the Air Force Academy's public relations department. "Me and him (Kolden) both decided to go play. I'd been thinking of baseball or football, and it (rugby) had never crossed my mind before. I knew nothing about the game."

It didn't take long for Dean to learn.

He and Kolden - who is no longer at the Academy - played on the Academy's B Squad during the 2000 fall semester. Dean moved up to the Zoomies' A Team soon after that (rugby is a club sport at the Academy). This summer he played on a Combined Armed Services Team that took second place to a Pacific Region All-Star team at a major USA Rugby collegiate tournament in San Francisco.

That tournament helped Dean gain national recognition. Dean, a Cadet Second Class (junior) business management major at the Academy, was invited to join the USA Rugby Collegiate All-American Team that was preparing for a late-September trip to South Africa.

On the tour, Dean won the inaugural Doug Edwards Best Tourist Award, an award honoring the member of the U.S. team who showed outstanding ability on the pitch and character off the field during the course of the tour. Dean also won the Goff on Rugby/Tullamore Dew Player of the Month Award for September 2002 from Goffonrugby.com, a Web site devoted to rugby in North America.

"I think Doug (Edwards, the former coach at Miami, Ohio, and one of the Collegiate All-American program managers who died this summer) would have had a lot of respect for Josh," Collegiate All-American team manager Jack Clark said in a press release from USA Rugby. "Josh is the type of athlete that Doug liked to recruit to the game, as well as a fine young man."

"Josh is a joy to be around off the field," Air Force coach Rob Holder said by e-mail. "He always has a smile on his face and he always maintains a positive attitude. ... While somewhat quiet and reserved, he is also growing as a leader. He leads by example, but he has learned to be an encourager and motivater on the team."

For most Americans, rugby is a foreign sport that few understand.

The sport supposedly started after a frustrated soccer player in Rugby, England, picked up the ball and ran with it more than a century ago. Modern rugby union rules are similar to American football in some ways, but there are some significant differences.

Instead of scoring touchdowns, rugby players score tries (worth five points) by touching the ball to the ground in the end zone. After a try is scored, teams can make a conversion kick worth two points. There are also penalty field goal kicks worth three points, which teams can attempt after the referee declares a foul, or a player can boot a drop-kick field goal (three points) while his team is advancing the ball.

Rugby teams have 15 players and the ball is larger and more rounded than an American football. The ball is advanced by either running with it or pitching it back to the next open player (similar to laterals in football). Forward passes are not allowed. A scrum takes place after a tackle, with six or seven players from each team locking arms together into one big group. A player from one of the teams, called a scrum half, will roll the ball into the scrum and the players in the scrum will try to kick the ball back to their side so one of their teammates can grab it and start the next series.

Dean plays a position called No. 8, eight or the eightman - the player who pulls the ball out of the scrum and gets the team's offense going.

He said the game seemed strange at first, but "after awhile the game started to make sense. There's a real flow of the game. And when you get tackled you keep going, there's not as much stopping. It's a lot more running."

Holder said it didn't take long to notice Dean when he first went out for rugby. Dean's potential caught Holder's eye during one of the first scrimmages.

"I'll never forget that scrimmage," Holder said. "Josh was playing against one of our bigger and more aggressive seniors. Early in the scrimmage, the big senior took the ball running at full pace, right at Josh. He was clearly trying to run Josh over. Josh ran back at the big senior and hit him with a textbook tackle, driving him back and dropping him on his head.

"The senior player was clearly aggitated and started kicking at Josh from the ground. Josh patiently got up and back into the play. A few moments later, the same thing happened again. The big senior ran at Josh and Josh dumped him on his head. This time the senior came up swinging at Josh, trying to start a fight. Josh took him down again, this time out of the context of the game, and held the big senior until some of the other players broke up the scuffle. During the whole event, Josh was even-tempered and never lost his cool. I remember turning to one of the other coaches and saying, 'I don't know who that freshman is, but he just made this team.'"

Holder said he knew Dean would be a good rugby player, but his expectations have been exceeded. He said three things set Dean apart - he's fearless (Holder said Dean played an entire game last spring with a broken sternum), he's an extremely quick learner and he's an extremely hard worker.

"He is an excellent runner from the base of the scrum and a fantastic tackler," Holder said. "Josh is developing into a great playmaker. Teams are starting to key on him when we have the ball and he has proven to be able to draw the defense toward him and put his teammates into space. Because he reads the game so well and he is incredibly fit, Josh always seems to be around the action, both in attack and on defense."

At JDHS, Dean played quarterback on the football team and third base on the baseball team. He also played junior varsity basketball. Before going to the Academy, Dean spent a year at Colorado State University where he played baseball for CSU's club team (CSU doesn't have a varsity baseball team). At the Academy, he just plays rugby.

Dean said he's been surprised at his success in the sport. Dean was honored to make the Collegiate All-American Team, and surprised when he won the Doug Edwards Best Tourist Award.

"I didn't even know about the award before the tour," Dean said. "I didn't score on tour. I was focusing on defense. I don't know how I got the award."

The All-American Team had four days of practice in Atlanta before going to Cape Town, South Africa, where it won two of the three games it played. The only loss, 45-21, came to Stellenbosch University - what Dean said might be the best college rugby team in the world.

"That was my first trip out of the country," Dean said. "It was a great experience to see how rugby is played over there. We went to a professional game and there were 60,000 people there."

Now that the tour is over, Dean said he's focusing on his college team. He said the Academy finished ninth in the nation last spring and the Zoomies were fifth the year before. He thinks the Academy might have a chance at a national title this year.

During the fall season - there are two college seasons, with the national championship in spring - Dean helped the Zoomies post a 3-0 record. Dean scored three tries in a 71-3 victory over Wyoming, including one on an 80-meter run from the base of the scrum.

"Josh's rise in the sport has been incredible," Holder said. "I knew he would be good, but he has exceeded even my lofty expectations. Other athletes who have had similar achievements in this sport have either exceptional athletic ability or they grew up playing the game. Josh has neither. ... His success is a testament to hard work and commitment."

Charles Bingham can be reached at cbingham@juneauempire.com.