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Players at the NRFL first ever combine held earlier this year in Minnesota. Photo: Rugby Law<\/em><\/p>\n Hershel Dennis was part of what many still consider one of the greatest classes of high school prospects to come out of one school in the same year. Long Beach Poly\u2019s 2001 roster was littered with top-end talent destined for Division I college programs. Nearly every level of the team could boast an All-American or All-Everything position player.<\/p>\n Tight end Marcedes Lewis, check. Safety Darnell Bing, check. Six-foot-six offensive lineman Winston Justice, double check.<\/p>\n Then there was the quick and shifty Dennis, nicknamed \u201cPatch,\u201d who rushed for over 1,700 yards and 24 touchdowns his senior year, landing himself on countless All-American and awards lists. He always saved his best for the biggest moments, racking up 161 yards against eventual national champion De la Salle in a showdown at Veterans Stadium<\/a> and 189 yards and three scores against Edison High School in the CIF Division I final. The limelight, the success, the utter dominance\u2014it was just the Jackrabbit way, Dennis explained.<\/p>\n \u201cThe tradition, the way that you\u2019re brought up as a freshman playing at Poly, all of that stuff is kind of expected,\u201d Dennis said. \u201cWhen you\u2019re going through it you don\u2019t really know how cool or amazing it is until years down the line.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe Long Beach Poly Five,\u201d as they were known, broke up after graduation, with Bing, Justice and defensive end Manuel Wright joining Dennis at the University of Southern California (USC) while Lewis chose to attend the cross-town rival University of California Los Angeles. For Dennis, that was where the luster of his football career started to dull.<\/p>\n After sitting behind more seasoned running backs his freshman year with the Trojans, Dennis gained the starter role during his sophomore campaign. During the 2003 season, he started all 13 games for USC, rushing for 661 yards and four touchdowns. The season also included a career best 85 yards in the season opener when the Trojans went into Jordan Hare Stadium and blanked the Auburn Tigers 23-0 en route to being voted national champions by the Associated Press.<\/p>\n After dropping to a reserve role in 2004, the injury bug hit. Dennis tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee<\/a> before preparation for the Trojan\u2019s bowl game and would miss the entire 2005 season.<\/p>\n \u201cI always pulled the positive out of everything,\u201d Dennis said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t really a setback to me. I always kind of thought stuff happened for a reason and at that time it was because I needed to sit out for a year and get better and get stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n Dennis would tear the same ligament again before the 2006 season, and in total, spend six years on the Trojans\u2019 roster due to medical exceptions made by the NCAA. He ended his career scoring a touchdown in the 2008 Rose Bowl<\/a> and, by virtue of his injury-extended stay, the winningest (70-8) college football player of all time.<\/p>\n But when the curtain closed on his collegiate career, there were\u2019t people beating down his door for him to play for their team. The phones remained silent as National Football League executives passed on the resilient Poly alum, leaving him mired in football purgatory. An athlete all his life, he now was without a team.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you\u2019re going through that time in your life, you\u2019re leaving college, things aren\u2019t working out for you, teams aren\u2019t calling, you\u2019re not getting picked up\u2026 As a football player and you\u2019ve played football for 85% of your lifetime, being active and athletic is really all that you know,\u201d Dennis said.<\/p>\n So he stayed active and in hopes of reviving his football career, moved to South Dakota in 2012 to join an arena football league. After a season with the Sioux Falls Storm, he bowed out of the pursuit of football to focus on providing for his family.<\/p>\n \u201cSomebody that\u2019s been playing as long as I played and at the level that I played on, you never really kind of lose that until it\u2019s really time,\u201d Dennis said. \u201cWhen you start having kids and your family is starting to depend on you, you gotta look for other resources to take care of your family.\u201d<\/p>\n Then, last year he got a Facebook message from a certain Shawn Zobel, who had an opportunity for Dennis to play professionally again\u2014but it wouldn\u2019t require pads or a helmet.<\/p>\n \u201cI was pretty easy to convince,\u201d Dennis said. \u201cHe let me know what was going on, the layout, some of the plans for the future and asked me if I wanted to be a part of it. As a true competitor, you never really turn down being competitive. Once he initiated it and his staff started looking at bringing me in, that\u2019s all I needed to hear.\u201d<\/p>\n Zobel estimates that there are about 10 to 15 graduating seniors annually on over 200 college football teams across the country but the NFL and its roster restrictions\u201453 active roster, 10 practice squad\u2014only allow for about 200 rookies to make professional teams. That, added with attrition and veterans being cut to make room for younger legs, has created a crop of top flight athletes looking for jobs.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery year there continues to be a large surplus of talent, whether it\u2019s veterans that are getting pushed out or rookies that just didn\u2019t make it,\u201d Zobel said. \u201cSo those are the types of players we\u2019re reaching out to and trying to tap into. It\u2019s like drilling for oil, you try to find as many spots as you can, recruit and sell and try to convince players that have never picked up a rugby ball in their lives that it could be a good career opportunity for them.\u201d<\/p>\n Dennis, though, is no stranger to rugby. He\u2019s part Polynesian and Samoan and grew up playing rugby with family. On a trip to Samoa when he was 12, he spent his mornings playing rugby with the kids in the village. HIs background and love for the sport combined with his football connections have helped the recruitment process immensely.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you find players who have high athleticism like Hershel and combine it with the rugby background, it\u2019s kind of like the perfect package for what we\u2019re looking for,\u201d Zobel said. \u201cHe obviously has been a great ambassador for what we\u2019re trying to do.\u201d<\/p>\n But Zobel was quick to note that the search for players hasn\u2019t been limited to football. Even though his background is in scouting collegiate players for NFL teams (which is how he met Dennis), the league is looking for elite athletes, regardless of their backgrounds.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re just trying to cast as wide of a net as possible and find as many players as possible to be a part of what we\u2019re doing,\u201d Zobel said. \u201cTo me, whether it\u2019s a rugby player, football player, basketball, hockey… It doesn\u2019t matter to me. We\u2019re just looking for the best athletes we can find.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"poly5\"](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/poly5.jpg\")
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Zobel was selling professional rugby to Dennis. The National Rugby Football League (NRFL)<\/a> was hosting its first ever combine <\/a>in Minneapolis as it prepared for its launch and it wanted Dennis and other ex-collegiate and professional athletes to consider rugby as a career alternative. Dennis and over 130 athletes, including 40 ex-NFL players, attended the combine in Minnesota. <\/p>\n![\"photos](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/photos_4.jpg\")
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