IU sophomore earns title of rugby All-American Honorable Mention

Football: a game in which two teams kick, pass or carry an oblong ball toward their opponent’s goal line.

Rugby: a game in which two teams kick, pass or carry an oblong ball toward their opponent’s territory – a form of football with a longer field, continuous play and no blocking.

Michael Shepherd: a fan of both sports, an All-American Honorable Mention selection for one.

“What I like about football is a play is five seconds, then you get 30 seconds to breathe,” Shepherd said. “With rugby it just keeps going and going, and, plus, you don’t have to wear pads. That’s kind of what I like more about it.”

Shepherd, a sophomore, has known the game of football his entire life, while rugby was introduced to him by a family friend as an eighth grader.

Five years later, Shepherd is now a main competitor on the IU Mudsharks rugby club team. Born into a family of Hoosiers, Shepherd was not forced to choose the Cream and Crimson. But his father Don Shepherd, an IU alumnus, said he is pleased with his son’s choice.

“It just worked out that Michael was attracted to IU for a lot of reasons,” he said. “One of them was that it had a pretty solid rugby program, which was going to be a part of his college experience wherever he went.”

Don Shepherd remembers the IU rugby club being an established program when he was at IU in the late 1960s and early ’70s.

“IU actually has a long tradition of quality rugby that’s kind of under the radar in a lot of ways. ... But it’s not a high-profile thing,” he said. “As a club sport, it’s a pretty solid program, and they’ve done real well over the history of the rugby club at IU.”

According to the Mudsharks Web site, the team went undefeated and won the Mid-America Cup in 1967. The team was voted “Number One Club in America” by sportswriters and had an unmatched national ranking. In 1970, the team won the Big Ten Championship in Champaign, Ill., and finished runner-up in the Mid-America Cup in Chicago.

Michael Shepherd’s two older siblings, Leigh and Drew, also became Hoosiers.
Michael Shepherd is a sports and marketing management major who wants to eventually work with USA Rugby.

But for now, the Brownsburg, Ind., native is working his way through the rugby
accolades chain.

He helped his team to fourth  place at the Midwest Final Four in April. But Michael Shepherd’s goal is for his team to reach the national championship.

“I really like all the guys on the team, and the coaches are great,” Shepherd said. “It was just a good atmosphere.”

Along with being on the Mudsharks, Shepherd is also a part of the USA U-20 rugby team, the 2009 Midwest Collegiate All-Star team, and now the Collegiate All-American team.

From Kenya to Wales to Denver, with each game Michael Shepherd and his parents experience a new part of the world. The Collegiate All-American team will take the
Shepherds to South Africa from July 31 to Aug. 8.

“It’s a dream,” Don Shepherd said. “As long as Mike likes it, then, as parents, it’s neat. We’ve been fortunate enough to be able to travel at least two of the times that he’s been playing.”

Michael Shepherd, who traveled throughout the school year, said balancing class work, practice and weight lifting is just something he had to make time for. The young college star said he hopes one day his club sport might be turned into a team that would be beneficial to both the school and athletes.

But for now, Shepherd will continue to try for All-American selections and eventually an All-National selection.

“I didn’t really expect to make the squad as a freshman, much less go on the tour to South Africa,” Michael Shepherd said. “So it’s really exciting and makes me want to continue to work hard and be good at it.”