Still tough in the trenches

Former Newport Harbor High football standout earns spot on USA Rugby under-19 national team.Delano McKenzie said what he loves most about rugby is its demand for sacrifice.

“It’s basically a game where everyone contributes by making a sacrifice for the ball,” said the Newport Harbor High senior whose willingness to sacrifice the last six months has helped him compile impressive achievements in a pair of sports.

McKenzie earned All-Newport-Mesa Dream Team and All-Sea View League recognition as a noseguard on the Sailors’ CIF Southern Section Division VI champion football team in the fall.

Three weeks after the Sailors’ 28-21 title-game victory Dec. 10 over Valencia -- in which McKenzie, utilized as a running back in goal-line formations, caught a touchdown pass -- the 5-foot-8, 186-pounder was among about 120 athletes invited to a tryout camp for the USA Rugby under-19 national team in Arizona.

After the six-day camp, he was one of 41 players selected to represent the United States in a match against Canada on Feb. 18. From that match, coaches will select players to represent the U.S. in the World Junior Championships, beginning March 20 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

But none of this would have been possible, had McKenzie not straightened up after a lackluster junior year at Newport Harbor.

“I had a problem waking up in time for school and my grades dropped to a low C average,” McKenzie recalled. “The truancies were adding up and some [football] coaches were concerned about me. But, right as my junior year ended, we started summer training for football. From then on, I wasn’t absent once. I just decided to step it up and commit to making an impact on the team. All my friends -- guys I’d played with since I was a freshman -- were working with me every day and that really motivated me to play. I did everything for them, myself and my mom.”

What McKenzie did was shift from linebacker -- the position at which he was the Newport freshman team’s Defensive Player of the Year in 2002 -- to defensive line. A few weeks into the season, he became the starting noseguard and, despite his lack of imposing stature, emerged as the leading tackler among Sailor defensive linemen.

Newport Harbor football coach Jeff Brinkley, one of those worried that McKenzie might choose a path that led away from athletics and toward trouble, was impressed by McKenzie’s emergence as a valued member of the program.

“He really bought in,” Brinkley said.

McKenzie bought into rugby four years ago, he said.

“I was born in South Africa and my family originates there,” he said. “Rugby is a big deal there.”

McKenzie came to America in 1995 and added dual citizenship when his mother, Alett, remarried and he was adopted by his stepfather, Chris.

“My step-dad started playing for the Back Bay Rugby Club and he inspired me to play,” McKenzie said.

Since the Back Bay club had no junior team at the time, McKenzie began his rugby career at a club in Fullerton. He has played for the Back Bay Club’s under-19 team since its inception two years ago, eventually becoming captain. The same quickness, strength and determination that helped him excel on the football field, caught the eye of some USA rugby scouts. An invitation to the tryout camp, Dec. 26 through Jan. 1 in Tempe, Ariz, followed.

McKenzie said the camp, led by national under-19 coach Salty Thompson, was a grueling experience.

“It was extremely hard,” McKenzie said. “Salty is a great coach and he’s very demanding. He’s really into fitness and he expected a lot from us.”

McKenzie, who plays the “eight man” position -- a back -- on his club team, was shifted to hooker early in the camp.

“Eight man is usually at the far back of the scrum,” McKenzie said of the formation in which both teams form an interlocking wedge and lean into one another before play is begun by inserting the ball between the two teams. “But the hooker is right behind the first row and he tries to hook the ball with his foot between our guys’ legs to the eight man, who secures the ball. It’s very, very physical.”

Cuts were made every other day at the camp and, McKenzie said, several players discouraged by the difficult training, simply went home.

“I wasn’t one of the bigger guys,” McKenzie said. “There were some guys from Texas and Alabama who were about 6-6, 300 pounds. “What helped me was having been pushed in football to work past the point you think is your limit. It became as much a mental challenge as a physical challenge.”

McKenzie said he looks forward to representing the United States and he is proud to have accepted the challenge that athletics held for him his senior year.

“I’ve been taught things that I never could have imagined, had I not played sports,” he said. “When I get older and have kids, they are going to be sports freaks.”