Jon Shaffer- CMU Men's Rugby Head Coach

Jon Shaffer represents the true Central Michigan Spirit as he coaches for a club sports team he used to play on during his college days. Shaffer is the head coach for the Exiles men’s rugby team and has had his position for four years. He started his journey here at Central playing after a friend introduced him to the sport and continued to play several years for the tri-city barbarians after he graduated from Central. Due to repeated shoulder injuries Shaffer moved to coaching down in Detroit for Legacy Rugby after being recruited by some of his friends who worked there. He always wanted to coach at CMU and in 2021 he got his opportunity after Legacy closed down. Shaffer describes the group of players he coaches now as “a lot of fun”. Managing the boys on the field and actively trying to make sure they are also succeeding in their schoolwork is a lot but Shaffer enjoys what he does and that makes it easier. This May, Shaffer will be graduating his first freshman class. Shaffer describes the feeling of coaching the guys through their collegiate journey as “A very exciting year to have, and having watched those boys grow as players and as people.”  

REFLECTION

This was probably my favorite video to shoot. I had planned to do this as my first video but ended up wanting to take more time working on it. I wanted to go to more practices to see who he was as a person and as a coach. It was very enjoyable to get to see both sides of that. When I went to interview him the whole team was wearing Hawaiian shirts and jorts and it was extremely funny and unfortunately he did want to change out of it but that is okay. I struggled a little bit with stability during my videos just because I was not able to use a tripod for all of them (I lost a piece to my tripod but it has since been found) but I think for my situation it ended up working out very well. I got to know the guys as well while I was there and there was a lot of me telling them not to make eye contact with the camera so that I could get them in their element. I did still get some moments where they would look at the camera and stare into it but I definitely chose not to go with those.