The club was revived in 1998 after a six year hiatus due to a lack of coaches and a dwindle in player interest. The team dropped their association with Redwood to became known as the Tam Union Highlanders to incorporate all of Marin.
Redwood association and became known as the Tam Union Club Highlanders to incorporate all of Marin. Although the Highlanders qualified for the NorCal playoffs in 1998, they were hard-pressed to produce the same results they had grown accustomed to at their club’s start.
Only a year later, the Highlanders journeyed to Ireland to experience traditional rugby firsthand, starting a tradition of playing tournaments in and touring foreign countries.
Current Highlanders coach Matt Shawn said that the trips to foreign countries helps build team camaraderie as well as demonstrate how popular rugby is on a world-wide scale.
“Rugby is still a novelty sport in America and the trips help to expose them to culture and show how big rugby really is in other countries,” Shawn said.
In 2002, the team switched leagues into the Redwood Empire Conference, which they still play in today. This adjustment brought games closer to home, while keeping the door open to schedule tougher teams from Sacramento and the East Bay.
The Highlanders traveled to Australia, Canada and the East coast to play top level competition and bond as a unit but were unable to win the conference, NorCals or a national championship.
However, according to Sam Sirrell, junior and member of the Marin Highlanders, the team’s recent performance should be looked at in a different light that of teams in the early ‘80s.
“The level of play and competition has been on the rise in the area, and it’s not as easy to win a NorCal or national championship as it used to be in the ‘80s,” he said.
The Highlanders have recently hired coaches who played on the 1981 and 1982 national championship team and in subsequent years, including Kevin Brown, Matt Shawn, Kurt Scagliola and Jerimiah Bornstein. Brown, Shawn, and Scagliola graduated in the class of 1988, while Bornstein played rugby for the Highlanders in 2001.
Shawn has coached the Highlanders for the past four seasons and played for the Redwood Rugby Club during his years in high school, while Brown was the team’s head coach for their tour to Ireland last year. Bornstein, a former Highlander’s player, currently plays for a local men’s club and is the only coach who still plays. Scagliola has been around the longest, having coached since 1998.
Social issues teacher and ‘87 graduate Erik Berridge played foward for the team and now advises the Redwood Rugby club, a club made up of Highlanders players who aim to recruit new players to the team.
The addition of experienced coaches has positively impacted the current Highlanders team, according to Sirrell.
“It’s been really great having guys around who know a lot about the sport and have been in the same position that we’re in now,” Sirrell said. “They have good input and can speak from experience which is making us a better team and maybe we’ll get to the level they were at.”
According to Shawn, it will be hard to get back to being a champion, but he feels the program is improving due to the player’s dedication to the program and commitment to respecting the sport.
The Highlanders recently started a junior’s program that will feed into the varsity team. The team was founded by Pat Farley, a member of the Redwood ‘81 and ‘82 championship rugby teams. The new program was started to give kids ten and under exposure to the game early on and hopefully help return Marin rugby to the powerhouse it was in the early ‘80s.
