Strength and Conditioning: Leif Hoagland
	USA Rugby Coaching Accreditation: Level I E-Mail

A native of Pensylvania, Leif Hoagland played collegiate rugby for Penn State for several years. Primarily a loose head prop, he occasionally played tight head and lock when needed. During his days at Penn State, the club made it to the national tournament each year, with appearances at the Final Four in both '94 & '95. Following his undergraduate studies, Coach Hoagland moved to South Carolina in 1996 to pursue his Masters in Chiropractic. In 2002, Coach Hoagland, along with his wife, Sharon, opened the Richland Chiropractic Center, which they continue to operate to this day.

Still possessing a love for the sport after more than 13 years, Coach Hoagland joined the Spring Valley High School Rugby Club as an assistant coach for the 2009 season. Working primarily with the forwards, Coach Hoagland assisted head coach Mark Morris and the team in claiming their third Multi-School State Championship in as many years.

Beginning in the spring of 2010, Coach Hoagland will be joining the coaching staff at USC to serve in the newly formed position of Strength & Conditioning Coach. With an extensive background in competitive power lifting, both as a competitor and as a training partner for several national champions, Coach Hoagland will be overseeing the health and fitness regiments of one of the nation's largest and fastest growing clubs.
___

The next home match for the Gamecocks will be Saturday, January 23rd, at 1:00 PM on USC's STWFC Rugby Field. Carolina will be taking on the Wake Forest Demon Deacons in their inaugural Carolinas Rugby League match, and both A & B sides will be actively competing to finish atop the standings. The Carolinas Rugby League is USC's new spring matrix, and consists of the top 7 clubs in North and South Carolina, including USC, Wake Forest, Clemson, North Carolina, Appalachian State University, North Carolina State University, and East Carolina University. As the league is a mixture of Division I and Division II competition, it will send its top DI school into the South DI Final Four and its top two DII clubs to the South DII Quarter-Finals. The CRL will be naming its own all-star team, as selected by coaches and referees, and will reward the top club with its own trophy at the end of each season. The brainchild of former UNC head coach Andy Richards, the league is intended to limit regional clubs' travel time while promoting local growth through rivaled competition.

This Fall, USC 'A' finished with an overall record of 14-3 for its Fall season, with the team never having lost a non-tournament full-regulation affair (the club lost twice at Rucktoberfest and once in the SEC Tournament). One of those losses came at the hands of #6 Louisiana State University, and the other two were both avenged in a full-regulation match in Columbia, with the Gamecocks defeating AHO [Appalachian State] on November 7th (24-08), and N.C. State on October 17th (19-07). The club also finished the fall undefeated at home, and USC 'B'  finished 5-2-1 (9-2-1 if you consider it was the 'B' side that powered Carolina to the 2009 Palmetto Collegiate Cup Championship), also going undefeated at home. USC 'B' was also the 2009 Rucktoberfest Second Division Champions.

The Gamecocks Palmetto ('C') side will play in USA Rugby South's Division III competition, taking on Furman, College of Charleston, The Citadel, Coastal Carolina, Lander, and Armstrong Atlantic State in the Palmetto League - a brutal conference that has produced the last 7 South Championships while capturing 4 of the last 7 Division III National Championships. Such competition will do wonders for the continued growth and success of USC rugby, as participation in last year's league is a large factor behind USC's dominant run in Fall 2009. The University of South Carolina is the only school in all of USA Rugby South to operate 3 full sides in South matrix competition, with USC A and B participating in USA Rugby Division I.