228 MTSU DOCTORAL STUDENT TAKES TIME OUT TO ADVANCE HIS SPORT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Jan. 2, 2008
EDITORIAL CONTACT: Gina Logue, 615-898-5081

MTSU DOCTORAL STUDENT TAKES TIME OUT TO ADVANCE HIS SPORT
England’s Jeremy Bettle Hones American Rugby Players’ Skills While Learning

(MURFREESBORO) – In rugby, the ball can be advanced only by running or kicking it forward. Only lateral passes are allowed. In a sense, that rule characterizes the career path of MTSU student Jeremy Bettle. Instead of consuming a vast area in one gargantuan aerial display, as American football players do, the British native grinds it out at his own pace.
The 26-year-old doctoral candidate from Leicester put his educational life on hold to work with USA Rugby, examining videotape of scrimmages and matches and analyzing players to help them improve their skills. In September, the Americans made it to the World Cup in France, playing England, Tonga, Samoa and South Africa, the eventual tournament winner, before being eliminated.
“It was a great personal experience,” Bettle says. “We are so far ahead of where we were. It was impressive.”
Bettle says his interest in rugby began at about age nine, when he began playing in junior leagues. He likens these children’s groups to tag football in that kids don’t play the full-contact rugby their elders do. However, he insists that early involvement is the key to staying healthy.
“The earlier you start, the less likely you are to get hurt,” Bettle says.
For those who have never seen a rugby scrum, it vaguely resembles one of those NFL piles immediately following a fumble except the players are standing up instead of lying down. An American audience might be intrigued to learn that the players wear no protective equipment, even on the most sensitive parts of the body. Even so, the game has a mental component and employs considerable thought in both the training of players and the execution of strategy.
In 2002, Bettle completed his bachelor’s degree in sport and exercise science at Leeds Metropolitan University. In 2003, he came to MTSU on the recommendation of his biological father, who has lived in the U.S. for 15 years. Bettle studied the school’s rugby club team for his master’s degree in exercise science, which he completed May 2005.
Dr. Jennifer Caputo, professor of health and human performance at MTSU, says Bettle took time out from his studies while he had an assistantship at the university, a highly unusual move.
“That just demonstrates his love for rugby because he got the opportunity and couldn’t pass it up,” Caputo says. “We wanted to have him teach exercise physiology for us, but he just didn’t have the opportunity before he left, unfortunately.”
In fact, it was in pursuit of his doctoral degree that he made contact with USA Rugby. As Bettle was exploring the physiology of his sport on an academic level, he asked the team for a chance to do some research. As it turned out, they were willing to pay him for his combination of mental and physical skills. They offered him a job, and he took it.
“At any time when you’re just starting out, you’re moving around a bit,” Bettle says.
Interrupting his education to help the Americans gain a foothold in a sport which is all but alien to most American sports fans was less of an internal conflict for Bettle than watching USA Rugby play his fellow Brits in the World Cup.
“It was a little strange, but it was more important to watch our guys do well than to watch England play,” Bettle says. When he calls USA Rugby “our guys,” Bettle means it, and the “guys” are as diverse as America itself. The 30 players, each of whom performs on both offense and defense, range from a Chicago stockbroker to an Aspen rancher.
Of course, Bettle didn’t just fall in love with a country and its people. He fell in love with one particular American, the former Deana Michelle Simms of Lebanon, Tenn., whom he married in July 2005. Jeremy continues to work for USA Rugby and a physical therapy firm out of state. He expects to complete his doctoral degree by December 2008.

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