U.S. rugby needs more players. The answer could lie in basketball‎

Gary Gold was sitting courtside at Crypto.com Arena in February 2022 when he had an epiphany. The South African was taking a break from his duties as head coach of the United States men’s rugby union team. The Rugby World Cup was 18 months away, and the pressure of turning one of the sport’s sleeping giants into a side capable of reaching the quarter-finals was starting to pinch. Gold, a lifelong basketball fan who grew up following Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls, was living out a childhood fant