Thank You Coach Shaggs
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Thank you coach Shaggs
"After leading the St. Joe’s rugby team to two National Championship appearances and eight conference championships, Daniel Yarusso will be stepping down as head coach.
Yarusso, known by his players as “Shaggs,” has coached the team since 2013 and brought a relatively unknown program to the national stage. But after fighting to get better pay for the past two years, he made the decision that he needed to leave the team to get a full-time job to support his family." Full Article
I first actually met Shaggy circa 2011 before he took over the helm of Hawk Rugby. I was in high school at St. Peter's Prep and we played the C-side of Stony Brook, which Shaggs ran for a decade commuting from PA to Long Island most practice nights to build Stony Brook into a very successful program.
After the Tommy Flaherty era of SJU ended in Spring 2013, the program was primed for breaking through to the next level..
In comes Shaggy, with full-dreads and long beard to take over and build a nationally recognized program, a consistent top-25 D1/D1AA 15s squad, conference championships, 7s championships and of course.. back-to-back national championship appearances. I don't think that any amount of words I write here can do justice to what Shaggs accomplished with this program as well as his commitment & impact her made to and on his players.
The dreads and the beard have both been sidelined to photos of one of the most memorable times in my life.. and I am putting this up here because I am frustrated with the situation of Shaggs leaving for the lack of support from the university, but more importantly, I wanted to see if we could do a little something to say 'thank you Shaggs'.
I'm passing around the virtual hat on the bus, if you can give a dollar that would be awesome. If you can't, please at least give it a share.
If anyone would like to share stories or photos I am happy to share them here.
Thank you Shaggs.
Sincerely,
Mark Zatta '15
"After leading the St. Joe’s rugby team to two National Championship appearances and eight conference championships, Daniel Yarusso will be stepping down as head coach.
Yarusso, known by his players as “Shaggs,” has coached the team since 2013 and brought a relatively unknown program to the national stage. But after fighting to get better pay for the past two years, he made the decision that he needed to leave the team to get a full-time job to support his family." Full Article
I first actually met Shaggy circa 2011 before he took over the helm of Hawk Rugby. I was in high school at St. Peter's Prep and we played the C-side of Stony Brook, which Shaggs ran for a decade commuting from PA to Long Island most practice nights to build Stony Brook into a very successful program.
After the Tommy Flaherty era of SJU ended in Spring 2013, the program was primed for breaking through to the next level..
In comes Shaggy, with full-dreads and long beard to take over and build a nationally recognized program, a consistent top-25 D1/D1AA 15s squad, conference championships, 7s championships and of course.. back-to-back national championship appearances. I don't think that any amount of words I write here can do justice to what Shaggs accomplished with this program as well as his commitment & impact her made to and on his players.
The dreads and the beard have both been sidelined to photos of one of the most memorable times in my life.. and I am putting this up here because I am frustrated with the situation of Shaggs leaving for the lack of support from the university, but more importantly, I wanted to see if we could do a little something to say 'thank you Shaggs'.
I'm passing around the virtual hat on the bus, if you can give a dollar that would be awesome. If you can't, please at least give it a share.
If anyone would like to share stories or photos I am happy to share them here.
Thank you Shaggs.
Sincerely,
Mark Zatta '15
Organizer and beneficiary
Mark Zatta
Organizer
Jersey City, NJ
Daniel Yarusso
Beneficiary
