NEWS

NOLA’s Recruitment Shaped by Ryan Fitzgerald’s Marine Corps Service

Ryan Fitzgerald is the General Manager of NOLA Gold and his connection to the game is a long and enduring one. He first began playing rugby while attending Muskego High School in Wisconsin. In 2003 he drew the attention of national selectors for the USA Rugby u19s.

Fitzgerald came from a Marine Corps family with his father having served in Vietnam.  It was something he’d always thought about and he intended to enlist in the United States Marine Corps upon his graduation from Muskego High School in 2002. However, he postponed enlistment until August of 2003 so that he could join the US u19s tour that Summer.

Ryan spent four years in the Marine Corps and deployed to Iraq twice during that period. The first time was as a junior enlisted Marine and the second would be as a Sergeant.  He talks about that experience going directly from bootcamp into a deployment work up.

“It’s one of those things where I finished Boot Camp in November 2003 and got to 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines, stationed at Camp Lejeune, NC. We went into several training cycles, and then did a nine month work up for our deployment. We deployed in February of 2005, again, it’s one of those things where you can’t put yourself in that moment until you’re in there and shots are being fired at you and your firing back,” Fitzgerald said.

He talks a lot about the mental grind that he endured over that period, it wasn’t the physical toll of the deployment. Through a deployment work up, just like a pre-season in MLR, you’re prepared for the physical requirements of that long grind.

“We were in Camp Gannon which is in Hasaybah, Iraq, and we didn’t even have running water, our whole little town was built off of sandbags and we were using water bottles to rinse off.”

He’s taken that experience, which to him is a lifetime ago, into building NOLA Gold as he recruits players.

“If you can get through that mentally, the biggest thing as I mention to our guys here [is] that you gotta lean on your brothers and they gotta lean back. You gotta borrow energy from the guy next to you and you can’t do it by yourself.”

During Fitzgerald’s second deployment some things occurred around him, which continued to shape his perspective. One of those things that NOLA Gold have done in recruitment is invest in young American rugby players coming directly out of the college system.

“I’ve used that same experience to describe young guys that I sign [for the Gold] because you can’t get ready until you throw them into that environment.  We had an 18 year old kid right before I left for my second tour in Iraq, about 11 days before show up to our unit. Do you think they were ready? I doubt it.”

Fitzgerald has taken the lessons and values of the sport of rugby and his time in the Marine Corp to shape the New Orleans Roster over the first three seasons of Major League Rugby.

That investment in young American rugby players has paid off for the Gold, although they struggled some in the first season of Major League Rugby finishing at 3-5.  In the second season of MLR they were poll setters for most of the season before finishing just outside the playoff hunt at 9-7.

In addition to youth, the Gold and Fitzgerald’s recruitment philosophy has always been about bringing in high character guys that can establish a long-term culture for the New Orleans Franchise. He said to every player that signed for the Gold in their first two seasons that he didn’t have a “red carpet to unfurl for them,” he wanted players that would be willing and able to break through the wall of professionalism. This first group of players to don the Gold jersey came to New Orleans to establish the foundations of professional rugby in North America.

The Gold’s trajectory has been shaped by Fitzgerald’s service in the Marine Corps.  He knows today that his team may not be the flashiest, yet  “if the guys genuinely like and trust each other, I think that same thing applies to the military, when you stack on that wall you have to believe in the guy next to you,” said Fitzgerald. “These guys, all 40 guys on the roster genuinely believe they have each other’s back.”

With their third season getting underway in Major League Rugby, the Gold moved from Shaw High School to the Shrine on Airline.  The move to the Shrine had been a long time in the making, but Fitzgerald reflects upon their time at Shaw High School.

“The first two years were great, playing at Shaw High School, getting the fans to know Rugby and showing it was here to stay.” Fitzgerald said, “Shaw High School did what we needed it to do in those first two years.”

How are the Gold feeling about their new facility?

“It’s a perfect leap to the next level, when you walk into the Shrine on Airline, you feel it, the stadium and the field are beautiful. A big huge locker room, rooms for medical staff, and when you walk through the tunnel you can just feel that this is professional and first class.”

Moving to the Shrine on Airline was an important move for the Gold and they’re relishing the opportunity. For Fitzgerald, the move was about putting another piece of the professional foundation in place.

Just as Fitzgerald has always done, he’s taken values of the Marines and rugby hand in hand.

You can catch Gold as they travel to Infinity Park and face the Colorado Raptors on Saturday, February 22 at 6:00 PM ET. The match will be televised on FTF.