The club, which was mainly for recreation and fun last year, became a more organized and structured team that now competes with Big Ten teams. Its 50-year anniversary will be celebrated with hopes for future wins, as the club divided in two teams: the sevens and the 15s - or “union.”

The club receives some funding from the university, said sevens coach and graduate student David Raider.

The sevens team is faster-paced with shorter matches and each team has seven players on the field. Union rugby is a game between two teams of 15 athletes each.

“It’s a challenge having leadership on both sides of the team, but it’s good to develop talent quickly,” said Rugby Club President and sevens player Todd Else, a supply chain management junior.

New leadership and a stricter coaching staff brought the idea to divide the club into two teams to further develop each player’s skills, Raider said.

“It’s undergone a dramatic change,” Raider said. “Academics always come first, but now, they have team conditioning, swimming and eating programs. Now, they are committed so they can have fun and win.”

Trying out and going through three rounds of cuts was different for the veterans in the club, but since the teams have young rosters, adapting was not difficult.

“Now we have to play up to that level, but we saw the team come together and take pride in what we were doing. We’re working to achieve the same goal,” said John Iadipaolo, captain of the sevens team and construction management senior.

Iadipaolo reflected that while the sevens became an elite squad with more rules and guidance by an authoritative figure, there are hurdles in the transformation.

“The biggest challenge is that with the most fast-paced kind of rugby, once the team starts getting tired, people start getting hurt,” he said.

Practices become more tiring and tryouts split players that were teammates before, Else said, but having a young atmosphere came with team chemistry and camaraderie.

“Coming back from last year as a full squad is a great advantage because we’re not filling in half of the team and we have a leg up,” Else said.

The rugby club’s Big Ten season will begin on April 5 against Penn State, followed by a match against Wisconsin on April 12.

“I look forward to a lot of traveling and to see where the preparations have put is in the Midwest and nationally,” Else said.

Throughout the next few years, Iadipaolo and Rider said they are expecting big things and that the team is in the realm of bringing home the win.

Raider, who played at the United States Military Academy, the University of Arizona, Barcelona and then in Stellenbosch, South Africa, only will be here for two more years, but wants to set the foundation for the future.

“I want the culture to change up here, so people can start paying more attention to (rugby),” he said.