by Tom Billups, C.S.C.S.

Winning a national championship isn’t the number one priority of the season. In fact, I would say that if I was to list the ten most important things that we strive to achieve each season, that winning a championship is number nine or ten on the list.

Here is the list of the most important things we strive for at Cal each season;

1. Develop teenagers into men. Hands down the number one priority each season is to further the evolution of teenagers becoming young men. It is by far the single most rewarding aspect to each season. To witness the transformation and share in some small part of this is a privilege.
2. Enjoy the process of becoming a team. Each season the process of building a team takes on different areas of emphasis. The differences range from the personality of the team to how and what is emphasized in training. Some years the team’s liability is due to a lack of discipline, other years our fitness levels might be an issue. The process of becoming a team that reaches it’s potential isn’t always pretty, nor does it travel in a straight line.
3. Work to play your best rugby at the end of the season. As simplistic as it sounds, it is difficult to achieve. In the 2007 national title match, we were horrible. Our performance was not anywhere near what we had been working toward the entire season. It was all together different this season, where will were able to put together a performance that we can be proud of in the finals.
4. Set performance-based goals. Each year we set performance based goals and work hard to try and achieve them throughout the season. This is different from results-based goals, which can make for a very hollow experience. Performing to our abilities and putting our guts into those performances is vastly more rewarding.
5. Be in the skill acquisition business. Over the duration of the season, right up to the final hour of the final day of the season, it is a priority to be in the skill acquisition business. To be constantly trying to acquire more skills as a rugby team whether they be the skills to pass or catch more effectively or the mental skills required to understand what the opposition are trying to technically accomplish and how we can try to take those things away from them.
6. Represent our university well. This means doing those very things that you don’t want to do, and forcing yourself to not do the things that you want to do. Much like putting the team first, it is much easier to say then to actually do.
7. Graduate 100% of our student athletes. This is accomplished by the athletes being fully committed to earning a degree from the most highly regarded public university in the world. It is one thing to compete and compete well on the field, and yet another challenge altogether to excel in the classroom against fellow students who are not competing in intercollegiate athletics. “Eat, sleep, and study” is the mantra of the non athlete student body population.
8. Forge life long memories. The best memories are ones that come from experiences where you weren’t ever sure of the final outcome. To fully invest yourself into becoming as good of a student athlete as possible means you are going to work bloody hard, day in and day out. It is through this level of effort that the memories become everlasting.
9. Win a national championship. It is on the list, but well down the list of priorities in the big picture. If we are successful in achieving the aforementioned we can live with the final outcome.
10. The season has to have beginning and an end. There is pressure that comes with setting out a list of priorities like this, and therefore, a needs to have a specific beginning and ending. A group of athletes are assembled, a set of team priorities established, and the season is underway. Successful teams own their performances, good and not so good, and therefore improve. At some point, the season ends.

In several months a new group of athletes will assemble, but the priorities will remain the same.

Tom Billups began his rugby career in 1984 and has spent time as a player in New Zealand, the U.S. and England for domestic teams as well as representing the U.S.A. at international tournaments with the Eagles. After hanging up his boots, Billups got into coaching leading the Eagles and now with University of California – Berkeley. Read the entire bio of Tom Billups as well as Billups first column My Rugby Path and then check out what Billups is saying about the game of rugby in The Billups Column on Rugby Rugby.