Pewaukee's Ben Landry making waves in rugby and flirting with the NFL
To those looking for an easy comparison, rugby is football without pads, elaborate helmets and constant stoppages. But that doesn't mean Pewaukee High School graduate Ben Landry can't do both.
The former football standout at PHS has become an elite-level rugby player since his graduation, part of a nationally-renown club team in Seattle and the U.S. National Team. But in the first week of May, Landry was trying something else, participating in the Seattle Seahawks rookie camp after impressing members of the organization at a tryout a couple weeks earlier.
It's a thrilling new direction for someone who elected to not pursue football at all after high school.
'Rookie camp was great; they really liked me a lot but they already have five signed tight ends,' said Landry, a 6-6, 260-pound athlete who has been timed at 4.63 seconds in the 40-yard dash – which would have been the fastest time among tight ends at this year's NFL Combine. 'They said they don't have a roster spot for me right now, but that I did well enough that I'd be on the top of the list if there's an injury and they have an available spot this season.'
Landry hasn't played football in seven years, but the journey may not end here. His agent has been contacting other NFL teams that may be looking for a talented tight end.
'The contact is the same; you're running, you're hitting,' he said. 'The route running is a little different, so that's what I had to adjust for, and not playing football since high school, I was really under the gun to get my route running crisp. Because that's what they look at: explosion, cuts, crisp route running. I worked on that the last few weeks before camp.'
Landry's circuitous route to NFL potential took a turn during mid-winter training sessions back home at NX Level in Waukesha, where the staff there took note of his rare athleticism and helped connect him with an agent.
'They brought me up to the Seahawks, shared my times and what I did in the Americas Rugby Championship,' Landry said. 'Each week, they did a 'Team of the Week' (at the Americas competition), and I made that team two weeks during the tour, so I played pretty well. The Seahawks decided to fly me out to get a look at me, and I ran some speed tests and some routes.'
Landry wouldn't be the first pro rugby player to get a crack at the NFL. Australian-born Hayden Smith spent the 2012 and 2013 season with the New York Jets.
Path from Pewaukee
Landry graduated from Pewaukee in 2009, two years after JJ Watt and two years before Derek Watt, now both members of NFL rosters. His college endeavors took him to Platteville, Madison and finally Whitewater, and rugby remained a huge part of his life.
He was part of a collegiate All-Americans team, then lived in Seattle competing for the Seattle Saracens club team before moving to Denver to join USA Rugby for the Americas Rugby Championship, a six-nation competition earlier this year that ended with USA in second place. His travels have taken him to New Zealand, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil.
He also signed to play for the Pro Rugby league team in Denver, part of a first-year league that also has teams in Sacramento, Ohio, San Diego and San Francisco. He has taken a leave of absence during the NFL pursuits.
'When I went to Seattle, that was my first step into a professional atmosphere, and I lived with Lou Stanfill, a longtime USA rugby player who was kind of the poster boy for the Eagles (national team) for a long time,' Landry said. 'He brought an air of professionalism to my life around athletics that I really kind of thrived off of. I was putting in the extra time, doing the little things right, like stretching and hydrating. That's some of the stuff that gets lost on a lot of rugby players because it's not a professional atmosphere.'
No Olympics glory
Landry plays 15s rugby, which is a more strategic game compared to the sevens style that will be seen in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. While the latter game features a quicker pace, Landry said there are huge benefits to both versions of the sport when rugby returns to the Olympic program for the first time since 1924.
'Most people in the rugby community predict an explosion of rugby in the States after the Olympics,' Landry said. '(Sevens is) high flying, a lot of action, and if you get it on the main screen (in the house), people who can never see it played can watch it. I think you're going to get a lot of draw for new players to try the sport. Right now, there's a new pro rugby league in America, and it's the first time they've had professional rugby here, and that's going to be huge for the sport as well. As long as it's available to people on TV where they don't have download a special channel or stream it online (it'll get noticed). If people scroll through the guide and see it's on, the Olympics is going to be huge for that.'
Landry said he'd be faced with dropping around 30 pounds to become a top sevens player. He never saw the Olympics as a realistic destination given his preference for 15s.
'For a guy at my position, you really don't play both,' he said. 'Sevens is a much more spectator-friendly game, so it's a no-brainer that it would be in the Olympics. Fifteens has its World Cup every four years, as well. Of course it would be amazing to play in the Olympics, but it's not disappointing because I never really got my hopes up.'
Pictured: Above, Landry participates in Seahawks rookie camp (photo by Associated Press). Below, Landry has enjoyed a number of high-level experiences as a 15s rugby player (Journal-Sentinel file photo).