Engineering student takes the field as part of the Greek National Rugby Union team

Ioannis Pavlides has been in the middle of the scrum as president of the RIT Rugby Club. This year, the fourth year industrial and systems engineering student made his international debut in another league.

As a member of the Greek National Rugby Union team, he traveled to Albania in November to play its home team and then to Athens on March 21. He contributed to the home-team win over Kosovo 22-12.

Juggling academics, class projects, club leadership, and international competitions is not easy. Pavlides shares insights about how he managed it all.

How did you start and how long have you been playing rugby?

I tried baseball, soccer, football, wrestling. I even tried hockey at one point. My dad had played rugby in college and figured there had to be a youth rugby program somewhere. They didn’t have any teams in Eastchester, N.Y., where I grew up but Pelham had a team. It was a 15-minute drive away, so I played with them all through high school. When I came to college, I was pretty convinced I wasn’t going to play rugby. As soon as I had a rugby ball in my hands again, I felt so much happier.

Tell us about the team and your role.

The way college rugby works is that most programs are club teams. As president, I schedule practice times, support players on and off the field, connect with the coach, the league, and other schools to make sure that on game day things are set up and ready to go. Most of the people on the team have never touched a rugby ball before they started. And we pride ourselves on being a competitive program that is competitive by teaching new people how to play the game. This is not an easy game to learn, so all the guys that come out to try, it is always great to see when they stick around.

How did you connect with the Greek National Rugby Union team?

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Provided

Ioannis Pavlides, No. 18 in the white jersey, gets ready to pitch the ball toward the goal in a recent game against Albania.

The national team is actually the rebirth of an old idea, and the new coach is building the program again after 13 years. My involvement started over the summer. I went to Greece and stayed at my grandfather’s apartment in Athens. I looked everywhere for anything rugby related. I reached out to five different Instagram accounts and sent about 30 emails because I found evidence that there was rugby in Greece. Through strange paths of referrals, I was put in contact with Eleni Voultepsis, coach of the National Hellenic Rugby team. This is maybe the craziest story of my whole life.

Tell us the crazy story.

One of my friends was coming to visit. He had never been to Greece before and was landing Friday morning. I get a text from the coach on Thursday saying, ‘I would like to chat with you. I’d like to understand a little bit more about why you are DM-ing me all this time.’  We talked about the club, and she said, ‘I know this is kind of crazy, but the team is leaving tomorrow for a tournament in Crete for the weekend. I had some players drop out at the last minute. Do you want to play?’ I think my dad would have disowned me if I said I can’t. I said, ‘That would be awesome. I only have one problem. My friend is arriving tomorrow, he doesn’t speak Greek and I can’t leave him. Can he come with us?’  She asks, ‘Does he play rugby?’ I said, ‘No, but he can learn.’

I picked him up, took him to see some of the sights in Athens, told him, ‘Oh, by the way, we are going to Crete tonight to play in a rugby tournament.’ He loved it! The tournament was amazing.

How do you manage academics, club leadership, athletics, social and personal commitments?

Theres no one right answer, no one size fits all. I’ve known my whole life, I’m going to be a student, I’m going to be learning. I think of fitness the same way, always trying to learn and improve. This is a good place for doers to be. I really like that RIT is a place where it is what you choose to make of it.