Mikie Linch & Mike Lazarz in New Zealand
Read about their Experiences
About the M & M Trip
We sent two of our High School Rugby players to St. Pauls Collegiate school in New Zealand April-August 2007.FYI: Collegiate does not mean College, it is a high school - here's a wikipedia link to St. Pauls.
Mike (Mikie) Linch and Mike Lazarz
Mikie Linch and Mike Lazarz were 17 year old rugby players on the North County Barbarians Under 19/High School team, and juniors at Poway High School.
Click here to see Mikie Linch and Mike Lazarz in action during the 2006 season at age 16 (70MB mpeg).
Here's a small version (12MB mp4).
Mikie Linch was the Barbarians team captain in 2007, and has played
U19 rugby since he was in middle school (age 12), alongside his older
brothers Jon and Chuck. Mikie was the starting center on the Poway HS
football team that played in the Division I final at Qualcomm stadium
in December 2006. Unfortunately he broke his foot during that game, and was only able to play Rugby again in early March 2007. As
you'd expect by playing center on the football team, Mikie is a pretty
large lad, and so plays tighthead prop for the Barbarians.
Here is a brief autobiography from Mikie Linch.
Mike Lazarz was in his 3rd year playing Rugby and also runs on the cross country team at Poway High.
Mike plays scrumhalf for the Barbarians, and his younger brother Peter
also plays Rugby for the North County Flying Penguins.
Here is a brief autobiography from Mike Lazarz.
Why them and why there?
Both lads are good students and excellent people and are thoroughly deserving of the exchange opportunity to improve their scholastic and Rugby skills. They both have the potential to represent the USA internationally at U19 level, can do so for THREE more years, and have already represented Southern California U19 in 2006 (aged 16).The coach of the Barbarians (Ray Steel) has lived in San Diego for more than 20 years, but is originally from Hamilton in New Zealand, and most of his family still live there. Ray had always held the idea that a kid playing rugby in the USA would be much improved by playing at a high level in New Zealand (where Rugby is the #1 sport - and the New Zealand All Blacks are currently rated the best in the world).
Ray attended a school similar to St. Pauls (Wanganui Collegiate), and when Ray's cousin Roy (recently retired from teaching) made contact with St. Pauls Collegiate staff and Rugby coaches, and saw that they were as excited by the idea as we were - then we knew it was a good fit. Incredibly - a Poway HS alumi (Toby Brannon, class of 1991) is a teacher at the school!
Roy Steel kindly agreed to be the boys guardian while they are there, and also set up a meeting between Ray and Edgar Joel (1st XV Rugby coach) while Ray was in New Zealand in December 2006. Joel is likely to play both boys on the 2nd XV (plays in Division I with the 1st XV), until they prove themselves. So they have their work cut out for them!