Club Sport Spotlight: Pete Kohnen

Pete Kohnen is the coach for the men’s Rugby Club at Oakland University. During his first year as coach, he saw tremendous growth in the number of new members and in the development of the team as a whole. Kohnen spoke with us about his first year as coach and what it means to coach a team at the Division II level.

What got you involved with coaching and how did you end up coaching for a club sport at Oakland University?

I’ve been coaching in some capacity since I was a freshman in high school back in 1999.  I was coaching little league football back then.  I did that for the four years I was in high school then started coaching middle school football and track while I was in college.

After college, I started playing rugby and about a year after I started playing, I helped start a high school rugby program in Akron, Ohio.  I spent a few years in Ohio before moving back to Michigan and took a break from coaching to focus on playing for the Detroit Tradesmen Rugby Team.  After my body was no longer able to sustain the high level of play that Division I Men’s rugby requires, I hung up the cleats and started focusing on coaching.  I was on the coaching staff for the Tradesmen for about a year and a half and spent most of that time with their women’s team.

About that time, one of OU’s graduates who was playing for the Tradesmen informed me that the OU team was looking for a coach, and since I was going to be enrolling at OU, I decided to see if I would be a good fit for the OU program.

I’m going back to school to become a teacher, so being a coach requires a similar skill set, so this is really an opportunity to combine two things that I am really passionate about.

What was it like starting out with OU Rugby and what were your goals coming in?

Becoming the head coach of a college program was a little intimidating at first. Up until now, I had never coached a high level men’s club, and I had the added pressure of having the referral from a team mate so I didn’t want to let him down.  The guys on the team were very welcoming and I’ve seen firsthand how much of a brotherhood the team really is.  I am happy to be a part of this family.

As a coach (and a teacher soon) my primary goal is always to be a source of encouragement.  Over the past two seasons here, I have seen so much personal growth in so many of the guys on the team.  Not only that, but I’ve seen this team grow together and really become something great.  I’m really proud to know these guys and be a part of their life.

A close second to that, is that I am incredibly competitive.  I always want to be the best and I want to help everyone around me be the best.  I want to help elevate the level of competition at OU so that we’re consistently in the discussion for nationally ranked rugby programs.  We haven’t earned a ranking yet, but we have taken some great steps.  In the spring, we had a one point loss to Notre Dame University who is a division above us.  Twice a season, we play Grand Valley who is perennially a top 10 team in the nation and we played them really close this year.  In the spring season, I am fully confident that we will continue to improve and earn our way into the national discussion.

My next goal would be to consistently schedule a second match to follow each of our home matches.  We have grown quite a bit this season and now we have more guys who deserve to get more playing time.  Because of the subbing rules of rugby, it’s hard to give our depth the playing time they’ve worked for, so my goal for the upcoming spring season is to encourage more guys to come out and give them a lot of playing time so that they can get even better.  A great team has great depth and I will spend a lot of effort developing our depth.

Additionally, we’ve been able to [field] a women’s rugby team this season.  This was something I wanted to accomplish here eventually, but thanks to the hard work of Abigail Massman, Rana Issa, Emily Hranchook and a handful of other hard working OU women, this long term goal turned into an immediate reality very quickly.  The primary reason this was a personal goal of mine is that I want to be a source of encouragement for anyone I can reach.  I want to encourage young women to be confident in themselves and to help facilitate a strong community for them.  Women should not have to feel ashamed for playing an aggressive sport, being “rough” or especially feeling confident in themselves, and the girls on the OU team I think have really embodied these ideals.

 Biggest hardships/issues?

The hardest part about being a coach is separating yourself from the team in order to be able to make the difficult decisions that a coach sometimes have to make.

A secondary hardship I see as a coach is finding time to get everything done.  I’m on campus from 7:30am until about 8-9 pm ever day during the season and managing my time becomes increasingly difficult as the semester goes on.

What does coaching mean to you?

Coaching for me is a way to give back to a sport that has given so much to me in the relatively short period of time that I’ve been playing it.  The sense of community that rugby has to offer is unparalleled anywhere else, and this is a global phenomenon.  I went to Ireland a couple years ago and someone recognized my Tradesmen jacket because our Tradesmen U19 team went on a tour there.  We spent quite a while talking to each other about our rugby experiences.  Being a coach allows me to stay a part of this community and bring more people into it.  Being part of a rugby club is being a part of a family and as a coach, I can help grow this beautiful family.

What have you learned in the past year?

In the past year, I’ve learned that coaching and rugby will always be a piece of who I am.  With as busy as I have been, I always found a way to make time for the teams.  I’ve had a few people ask me if I would take some time off of rugby to focus on all of the other things I have going on, and I learned that I don’t have it in me to stop.  This is my adrenaline rush and this is what I have committed my pride to.  My teams are my family and I will always be there for them.

What are your plans for the next year with the club and where do you see the club going?

I have big plans for both teams.  Within the next year, I want the guys to make it to the playoffs for the first time in the club’s history.  We were edged out by Grand Valley this year, but I think we’re putting the pieces together and we have the ability to usurp Grand Valley’s place at the top of the conference. Within the next 5-10 years, I want to earn a spot in Division I and compete with teams like Michigan and Michigan State.

The girls already made a statement this year with their only losses coming at the hands of Indiana and Michigan who are perennially top programs in the country in Division I.  In the next year, I expect them to continue to progress and become a top Division II team.

Are you involved with anything else on campus?

I’m actually involved with a bunch of things on campus besides the men’s and women’s rugby teams.  I work for the tutoring center, I’m an SI for two classes this semester and I volunteer a bunch of tutoring hours when I can on top of all that.  I recently joined the Society of Scholars which has been hosting structured study nights.  I’m also in the Masters of Arts in Teaching program which has me student teaching at a nearby high school one full day a week.

If you are interested in keeping up with the Rugby Club, follow them on Facebook, Twitter, or go to their website here.

Winter Guard Creates Upset with Continuous Wins

Winter Guard didn’t shoot to the top of their division easily. They had to fight through multiple competitions and climb their way from rookie status to the very top in Michigan.

The climb began in early March where the Winter Guard club had three Michigan Color Guard Circuit (MCGC) competitions: Novi Winter Programs, Troy Athens & Alias, and Chippewa Valley Boosters. After winning the first place trophy in the first two competitions, the club pushed themselves up into 2nd place out of the seven in their division. The team in first? University of Michigan.

After back to back wins, the club made a three-peat first place win and then is bumped to the first place standing, beating out University of Michigan by less than a point. They made it to the state championships in the first year of their program.

As Winter Guard President, Laura Coan, explains, ” it was really anyone’s game as the top 3 were rather close in score”.

Coan describes for us what it was like going through state championships as the rookie team from Oakland:

On the day of state finals we gave it our all, and being on that floor as the crowd went crazy for our show was an amazing feeling.

At the end of the evening we lined up for awards, as they started calling out our class the excitement was building as we got closer and closer to the top without hearing our name, my goal and what I would been pleased with was placing 3^rd or better. As they called third and it still wasn’t us, I knew we made it, I mean second place is amazing.

Then they called second place, Michigan Winter Ensemble. I almost fainted. Literally. We came in first! Against a team I had always looked up to! A team that I thought was amazing! I could barely catch my breath, as they called “And in 1^st place with a score of 80.26…Oakland University Winter guard!”

I was beside myself, quite literally sobbing as we accepted the award. It was a moment that I feel words don’t do it justice! Afterwards I had people I did not even know congratulating me and saying my reaction was priceless, this must mean a lot to me, they thought I was going to faint right on the floor! All I can say is that truly is how much it means to me. It is everything to me, having built it up from nothing to where we are now!

I am surprised in a sense of I would never imagined we would be here this soon after starting it! We had an amazing team pulled together and amazing instructors that helped pull this off! It took a lot of hard work and the title of state champions is definitely deserved.

First place trophy for the MCGC

Oakland’s Winter Guard club shook things up for the other Michigan Winter Guard teams. As a first time team starting from nothing and making it to first place in the state championship really shows how much dedication this club sport has to its sport. “I am sure those against us will be out next year to beat us” says Coan,  “But at the same time we will be working to maintain the state champion title, so I suppose it is anyone’s game”.

Now that their season is over, they are taking time off for now until gearing back up in the summer in preparation for the fall. Coan tells us the plan for the team, “next year we plan to compete in MCGC again and looking forward to it!” Coan continues, “we are looking into attending the WGI (Winter Guard International) finals in Dayton OH as well”.

For those that do not know, with Winter Guard there are two levels for the competitions. The more regional, Michigan Color Guard Circuit, and the Winter Guard Internationals. Oakland’s Winter Guard team placed 3rd in the only WGI competition they went to this past season, an accomplishment for a league that competes on the international scale.

Even though the Winter Guard Club is competing in regional and working to compete internationally again, they’re still an active club on campus. As Coan exclaims” WE LOVE OU” and goes on to say “we love attending events around campus, and look forward to the fall and performing and some footballs games again as well as any other events we can do”!

For those wanting to see the Winter Guard Club in action, check out the captains of the team on May 7^th as they participate in Vitality Dance’s Annual Showcase. You can also like their Facebook page here. 

What You Didn’t Know About Dagorhir

Dagorhir is a full-contact live action role play (LARP) sport that uses foam weapons to conduct battles on campus, or in events that are hosted throughout the state and country.

Gage Zurawski aka Bolvar “The Butcher” Quickblade, president of the Dagorhir club explains “Dagorhir takes its name from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Elven language and it translates into “Battle Lords”. “

Dagorhir, however, is just the sport that this club plays and these Dagorhir players identify with another group. Since the sport is inspired by medieval battles and J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, there are units (clubs/group) that spread across the country. Regionally, these units come together and make a realm.

The club at Oakland University comes together to form the “Imperial Guard” unit with black and purple as their colors. The realm in which the Imperial Guard is stationed is called “Eryndor” which encompasses Michigan and Ohio, but some players in this realm come from surrounding states as well.

Emblem for the Imperial Guard

Besides having regular practices on Sundays from 1pm to 4 or 5pm, Dagorhir attends events that are either day-events, lasting a full day, or campouts that can range from a weekend or a full week in length. Zurawski tells me “The largest battle of the year, Ragnarok, is a week long, and takes place in Pennsylvania.  Here people camp together for a week, surrounded by fellow fighters, merchants, and friends.”

Dagorhir isn’t just a smash one another with foam weapons for hours on end kind of activity. Even though Dagorhir is a full contact sport, it works off of the honor system. If an opponent is struck, but doesn’t acknowledge the hit, you cannot call them out on it, but you are expected to hit them in that spot harder next time.

If struck in the arm, you are expected to drop what you were holding and put that arm behind your back. If struck in the leg, you go down on your knees and continue fighting. Head strikes are prohibited unless it is by a projectile. Being struck in the torso equals an instant death. Ankle and below along with wrist and hand strikes do not count toward loss of limbs in the fight.

To get a better understanding of the weapons and how they fit into this sport, Zurawski provides an explanation:

Weapons are divided into color categories

Blue – basic one handed swung weapons (swords, clubs, flails).

Green – stabbing weapons (daggers, spears, some sword/polearm tips).  Do not count to limb loss, meaning you can be stabbed in both arms and legs, and still be alive.  If you are stabbed in the torso though, you are dead.  Single-handed greens do not penetrate armor and do nothing to an armored opponent.  If both hands are on a green, it goes through armor

Red – two-handed power weapons (swords, polearms).  When swung with two-hands and with sufficient force, destroy armor and whatever it protects (excluding helmets).  Also two “Red” strikes to a shield, break a shield.

Shields – can be various sizes.  Protect against all strikes except “Red”. Only one shield may be carried by a fighter at any time.

Yellow – Projectiles (arrow, javelins). Penetrate armor. Kills if it hits the head. Counts as a stab everywhere else so no limb loss

White– Rocks. Can only do damage if they hit the head for instant death.

Armor provides one additional point of protection and protects only what it covers.  If a person is wearing a brace, it allows them to be hit there once, and then the next hit there goes through to the arm.

Winter practices are held in the Rec center and after mid-march, practices will be held outside of the Oakland Center right next to Bear Lake.

A practice at Bear Lake

“Anyone is welcome to join; we don’t care what race or gender you are, if you fight or don’t, come out to every practice or event, or have the same type of fantasy base as anyone else”, says Zurawski, “We accept people for who they are and we never exclude anyone”.

Walkups are highly encouraged, you may also contact them through their Facebook page: www.facebook.com/oudagorhir or by emailing The Butcher himself at: gezuraws@oakland.edu