Giving Back | written by: PAMELA DEY VOSSLER
Darien vs. Ridgefied in a scrum earlier this year; visible in the photo are Charlie Golden at flanker (near) and Logan Ingulli at scrum half (at rear) / photos courtesy Sarah Starling Photography
HE CALLS HIS PLAYERS VERMIN, CLOWNS, MISCREANTS, RODENTS AND WORSE …and they love him for it. So do their parents.
“He” is John McCarthy—founder, coach, evangelist, mentor and meathead-in-charge of Darien High School (DHS) boys rugby, at least that’s what he would call himself—such is the unflagging good humor behind his nearly every utterance and how seriously he takes teaching his players not to take it all too seriously.
John wants his players to have what rugby has given him. “If these boys laugh half as much as I have over the years from rugby, they’ll be doing well,” he said. “I’ve got friends from when I was 13 who I’m still in touch with and when we get together, there’s no ‘How’s the family.’ It’s ‘Hey Baldy! You’ve shrunk.” Which is true,” he shared, laughing.
Wit is the soul of rugby and John is rugby personified, with a sense of humor honed in his native England during the 32 years he played the sport. It fuels his jokes, his self-deprecation, the nicknames he gives his players—Petunia, Inglorious, Cabbage and Onion (whose younger brother became Shallot) to name just a few, and his endless drive to make the sport fun for them.
“He shows how much he cares by ruthlessly making fun of the boys,” said John’s son Sam, DHS Class of ‘11, who started rugby at five years old and was coached exclusively by his dad until college when he joined his older brother Connor on the D1 Miami of Ohio rugby team. Sam, along with Connor, DHS Class of ‘10 (who started rugby when he was 6), and their mom, John’s wife at the time, co-founded DHS Rugby in 2007.
John’s emails during the team’s spring season are one part “atta boy’, one part info and one part (maybe two) laugh-out-loud cheek. The kids love them, the parents save them, share them and ask to keep receiving them after their player graduates.
“His emails are the highlight of my week,” said Jeanne Siddell, parent of Hayden Strebel, DHS Class of ’25 who played all four years for John, and Callum Strebel, who just finished his second season on the team.
John is the tradition of rugby—the ferocity of it, as well as the civility. The players may pound each other on the field but win or lose, they unfailingly share a meal afterwards amidst tremendous bonhomie and congratulations for a game well played.
DHS Rugby Class of ’26 players with Coach McCarthy (center). from left: Kincaid Ryan, Harry Starling, Charlie Golden and Rhys Monaghan
“I wish all sports could match the level of competition and fellowship that rugby has,” said Cole Conway, DHS Class of ’23, a four-year member of the rugby team and a rising senior at Sacred Heart University where he continues to play the sport.
“It’s a hooligan’s sport played by gentlemen,” said Harry Starling, DHS Class of ’26 and co-captain of the team last spring, citing the famous quote describing rugby. During the game, if you’re not the captain, you’d better not speak to the referee, unless you want to get kicked out of the game. If you are the captain, you’d best address the referee as Sir.
For John’s players, there is no talking while a coach is speaking, or swearing, unless you particularly like pushups.
“…not because I’ve never heard it,” explained John, “but because it’s part of their discipline. I think they appreciate it,” he said. “They can’t just flounce around getting away with whatever they want.”
“There’s a time to be funny and joke around, but John commands a lot of respect from the players,” said Katy Ingulli, parent of Brenton, DHS Class of ‘23 and Collin DHS Class of ’25—both of whom played for John throughout high school, and Logan, a rising senior, who is entering his fourth year on the team.
John McCarthy, kneeling second from left, in England with his Oxford Old Boys team in 1978
“We are trying to make these boys into better men,” said John, “and if we can do that, then we’ve done a good thing,” he continued.
John teaches the boys the importance of having each other’s backs, and the rewards of it.
“The coaches were very adamant about playing hard for your fellow teammates,” recalled TJ Ganser, DHS Class of ’10 who started rugby his sophomore year with Connor and Sam in 2007. He too went on to play at Miami of Ohio.
“As a parent, I’ve never seen them love a sport so much,” said Katy of her sons. “It’s not just the actual sport of it. It’s the camaraderie of the team—they have to work together,” she said. “There’s just something so unique about it.”
“You are emotionally, but also physically reliant on other members of your team doing their jobs,” said Evan Burns, DHS Class of ‘11 who played rugby throughout high school. Now a financial services professional working in England and still close to his high school teammates, Evan added, “It builds understanding, trust and confidence across the team that the guy standing next to you is going to perform to the best of his ability and I need to do that as well,” he said of the lessons he took into his life from rugby which he continued to play at Queens University in Canada after DHS.
“John makes sure you don’t show up with an ego. It doesn’t matter if you are a freshman or a senior—everyone is fair game for being coached, made fun of or praised (most of the time it’s a combo of the three),” said Sam. “That leads to really deep and long-lasting relationships with guys you otherwise may never have gotten close with,” he added.
“I had never found my place in teams prior to rugby, in either football or lacrosse,” explained Charlie Golden, DHS Class of ’26 and a co-captain this past season, about why he became a three-year member of DHS rugby. “I really wanted to truly be part of a team.”
“Coach McCarthy created a family and my teammates became my brothers,” said Cole.
John is also the insistence on safety which is inherent to the sport. He won’t let anyone on the field until he’s certain they know how to play properly.
DHS vs. Greenwich in a line out last spring
He maintains that rugby as “football-without-pads” is a gross misperception. It is, after all, rugby from which football derives its safer “drag tackling” technique (via World Rugby Hall of Famer Waisale Serevi who Coach Pete Carroll hired to teach it to his Seattle Seahawks.)
So what brings players to the sport? The camaraderie for sure, the unique physicality of it too.
“There seemed to be a certain grit about rugby that was unlike any sport known to me,” said Cole of what attracted him to rugby, echoing how many explain their draw to the sport. “It takes a lot to get tackled over and over and get back up every time. Rugby has given me a type of mental toughness that I’ve been able to carry with me as I move forward in life,” he continued.
Some players come from teams where playing time is hard to come by, or they have other interests they need to balance.
“We’ve got Posties, players who are firefighters, musicians and others. And we’ve had the occasional thespian over the years” said John, who holds practices two afternoons a week, three if there is no game. “They get enough in those days. They don’t need anymore. They’ve got other things to do,” he explained.
DHS Rugby also welcomes all. No experience required. Show up for practice and you will play, and there’s a place for athletes of every size.
“If you’re big and strong, or small and fast, there’s a spot for you. It’s just about being a part of the culture and really wanting to be there for your teammates,” said Connor,
a communications and content strategist, who credits rugby with giving him the ability to “talk to anyone and everyone I’ve ever met because there are no prior notions about who comes in to play rugby,” he said.
…and the pressure is most definitely off with rugby. “A successful year for John has nothing to do with winning games. He judges the merit of the year by how much fun everyone had, and how the team came together from start to finish,” said Sam.
“John has built something incredible,” observed Jeanne.
“If you ask any of my kids, they would say he is the best coach ever,” agreed Katy.
“He had a strong influence on me as a young man,” said TJ, now living with his wife and son in Ventura, CA where he is an associate director and stage manager for competition reality television shows such as Top Chef and American Ninja Warrior.
“I owe a lot of who I am to Darien Rugby,” agreed Charlie who enters West Point this fall, where he will continue to play.
“Obviously he enjoys it,” said Connor of his dad’s years coaching DHS rugby, an avocation in and around his career in finance, “but it’s never had anything to do with him. He just wanted people to have fun and be safe. He’s just there to facilitate.”
In rugby, to “ruck” means to protect a loose ball on the ground by coming together over it against an opposing group of players and driving them backward while maneuvering the ball through a mass of feet out to your team who grabs it and makes a run to score. It is what John does for his players, and what they do for each other. By sheer will, his and theirs, they learn just how much they are capable of with trusted mates at their back, as they push through to open fields.
