Frank Graziano says the Eastern women’s rugby program wouldn’t be anywhere without the players.

From time to time, he shares a widely unknown fact – he wouldn’t be able to play rugby at their age.

“I’m not sure I’d have the courage to do what you did,” Graziano tells his players.

“You all have honored me by saying ‘yes,'” he said. “It’d be easy not to say yes. I treat that with the greatest respect. (Playing) rugby takes a lot of courage. I wasn’t ready, they are.”

Graziano has led the Panthers to back-to-back undefeated seasons and has the team on a 26-game winning streak as the program enters the 2010 season in the fall. For those reasons he is The Daily Eastern News Coach of the Year.

Graziano tries to admit how much he loves his players playing a sport, in which no one has any clue how to play. Eastern is the only NCAA Division I school to sponsor the sport, and most players had never heard of the sport before stepping onto Eastern’s campus or receiving a letter from Graziano.

“They do a great job of picking up the techniques,” Graziano said.

He said the philosophy and the tactics of the 15-person game aren’t as easy to comprehend.

“If I were speaking basketball, they would be able to get it just like that,” he said. “It’s not so easy sometimes.”

Graziano watches film of the first game and has 25 or 30 pages of notes and tries to teach critically for the rest of the season.

But Graziano’s players embraced the sport and carried the team in back-to-back perfect seasons.

“We still knew we could get it done,” senior No. 8 Stephanie Militello told The DEN in November. “There were some games we weren’t at our greatest. It’s a personal thing. A lot of us hate to lose. “

While critics will poke at the schedule that doesn’t include NCAA teams, barring a game against West Chester, Eastern plays clubs teams.

But Graziano said he can’t do much about that since they’re are only so many slots available.

“Eastern Illinois did not become the national leader in all of this, so we could play club teams every weekend,” Graziano said. “We’re all probably a little frustrated right now that we haven’t had the opportunity to move the sport forward in the NCAA. It’s a matter of building the system. We continue to do what we’re doing.”

USA Rugby recognizes the efforts of Graziano to try to solidly the women’s game.

“Coach Graziano has been a passionate supporter of women’s varsity rugby and an advocate to provide varsity athletic opportunities to young women in rugby,” said Sara Wright, the director of communications and public relations at USA Rugby.

Wright believes Graziano is attempting to take the right steps with women’s college rugby.

“Varsity women’s rugby is about providing more opportunities for women and girls in rugby, not less,” Wright said. “The goal is that both club and varsity rugby should exist so that athletes have a choice about their competitive level of participation and neither excludes the other from flourishing. Almost 20 percent of USA Rugby women’s club rugby teams have signed petitions expressing interest in becoming a varsity program at their college or university. Unfortunately, the recession couldn’t have come at a worse time for potential expansion of women’s varsity rugby as many athletic departments have undergone severe budget cuts and have limited addition of new programs.”

Recession aside, there has been little interest, but Graziano still continues to schedule games.

“I treat my job as a privilege to be able to create an NCAA sport from nothing,” Graziano said. “Each year is a new challenge. It’s been a great experience. No regrets.”

Challenges, successes on the field

Graziano didn’t have a luxury of scoring threats of Sam Manto and Molly Clutter back this year.

He knew his team had to move on despite Manto being the school’s trys leader and Clutter the school’s assist leader.

He had other people to take the scoring load and also looked to assistant coach Eileen O’Rourke to help develop those players.

That scoring came from senior wing Crystal Jones, senior center Ashley Jenkins and freshman center Lauren Doyle.

Graziano went to Jenkins before the season started and asked her to finish with 15 trys and 15 assists. Jenkins came close as she finished with 12 trys and 12 assists.

“She was very crucial to our success this year,” Graziano said.

Doyle was dazzling and a good recruit as a freshman, leading the teams with 25 trys. Eastern finished the season with 100 trys.

Graziano said O’Rourke’s work with the new players was key in the development of the wings this season.

“She really accomplished a lot and the girls responded a lot to her teaching methods,” Graziano said. “I can’t praise Eileen enough.”

Book assists Panthers

To get that undefeated record, Graziano’s work was done in the offseason, in spring 2009.

Graziano and O’Rouke took turns teaching the rugby team lessons from Jim Collins’ book “Good to Great.”

Graziano and O’Rouke treated their Tuesday night weekly sessions during last spring like a regular class hoping the work would translate to the fall and to the game of rugby for the squad.

Graziano said they would translate those lessons and philosophies into practice, and in the games as the book went everywhere.

“We kept talking about it constantly. Constantly. Maybe that’s how we won those two games,” Graziano said. “Maybe that’s what allowed us to win.”

Graziano is talking about the two games Eastern almost didn’t win.

The first game Eastern had a close call and still came out with a win was Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The Panthers needed a penalty kick as time expired from junior flyhalf Coartney McKinney to win 29-27.

Graziano said Eastern’s weak scrum was exposed and almost cost them, but he had time to fix it by the time the team played Northern Iowa.

Then, two weeks later against Northern Iowa, Eastern needed a try in the final minute from senior wing Crystal Jones to win 22-20.

In addition to the book this season, the team also carried around a Connecticut women’s basketball T-shirt Graziano picked last year at the Final Four in St. Louis. Graziano had the Eastern players sign it and used the T-shirt and the focus of going undefeated even when the team’s not playing its best.

The Huskies have now won two national championships with two perfect seasons in a row.

Eastern has three undefeated seasons in its program history: 2009, 2008 and 2002.

Back to the players

Graziano said the 2010 squad has had a strong spring, and he can’t wait to finish his recruiting class.

Some of former Eastern rugby players also ran track and swam.

Graziano credits Eastern head track coach Tom Akers for running a successful program, which has numerous Ohio Valley Conference titles.

That allows some of the rugby athletes to compete in track, a sport they played in high school.

Previous DEN Coaches of the Year

2009: Jim Schmitz (Baseball)

2008: Brady Sallee (Women’s Basketball)

DEN Coach of the Year Nominations

Brady Sallee, (Women’s Basketball)

Sallee led the team to its first regular season Ohio Valley Conference championship, its third straight appearance in the OVC Tournament championship game, a 23-10 record and its first national postseason appearance since 1988 with a showing in the Women’s National Invitational Tournament. Sallee was also named the co-winner of the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association’s NCAA Division I Coach of the Year.

Tom Akers (Men’s and Women’s Track)

Ohio Valley Conference champions once again. In a close meet, Akers got both track teams to capture the indoor title. For the women’s program, the title was its third in four years. The men’s team captured its 14th title in 12 years. Multiple school records, team invitational titles and national rankings dominate the headlines for Akers. The Panthers are also preparing to defend their outdoor conference championships this weekend.

Bob Spoo (Football)

Return to the playoffs. Spoo led his program back to the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs and another Ohio Valley Conference title. Spoo saw one of his players, Otis Hudson, get drafted. Another player signed a free-agent contract and another received an offer to join a camp. Spoo also had led his team in the offseason after assistant coach Jeff Hoover died on the way back from the playoff game. Spoo was the OVC Coach of the Year and was one of five FCS finalists for the 2009 Liberty Mutual Coach of the Year Award.

Kevin Murphy can be reached at 581-7944 or [email protected].