Wooching chooses rugby over NFL Draft

After being the sack leader on the Pac-12’s top-ranked defense, Kealakehe High graduate Psalm Wooching gets his wish today: the opportunity to work out for America’s Team.

And, it isn’t the Dallas Cowboys.

It is the Team USA Rugby.

Putting aside his helmet and pads — not to mention a decent shot at a place in the NFL Draft — to pursue the avowed “first love” of rugby, the ex-University of Washington linebacker begins a week-long quest to earn a spot on the team that will represent the U.S. in international competition.

While several of his UW teammates are making the rounds of NFL team workouts in advance of next month’s draft, Wooching, an honorable mention All-Pac-12 selection with a degree in medical anthropology in hand, is one of six invitees to the Elite Athlete Training Center in Chula Vista, Calif. That’s where USA Rugby will pick from the 21 candidates the 12-member U.S. Sevens team for the next month’s competitions in Hong Kong and Singapore.

While the trend has been for rugby players to cross over to football, the 6-foot, 3-inch, 220-pound Wooching is a rarity, somebody attempting the reverse at a crucial point in his career. So much so that the announcement last month of an intention to dedicate himself to rugby over an NFL future sparked considerable surprise on social media.

The decision, which took shape in mid-football season, did not come easy, Wooching acknowledges. “I’ve dedicated so much of my college life — and young years — to football that it was a tough choice. But, at the end of the day, it was the right choice.”

Wooching wrote on his Twitter account, “I’ve been in deep thought and prayer about whether I wanted to continue to play football and I’ve come to a conclusion that it is time to turn the page in my life. My first love and sport that I’ve excelled in was rugby and it is time for me to follow my heart,” he wrote.

Since helping the Huskies to a 12-2 season and a berth in the College Football Playoff, Wooching has immersed himself in rugby-specific workouts — “there’s a difference between football shape and rugby shape,” he says — and been in training with World Rugby Hall of Famer Waisale Serevi and his Seattle-based rugby consulting firm Atavus.

The subsequent performance on the pitch for the Serevi Selects team in the Las Vegas Invitational earlier this month earned the invitation to camp. “We’ve invited Psalm so we can assess him, more than anything, as he has a rugby background and a very good athletic track record,” head coach Mike Friday said in a statement on the Team USA website. “We need to see where he is at and provide him with clarity on what he needs to do.”

Though Division I football has been a consuming year-around endeavor, Wooching remained determined to carve out some windows for rugby in the spring and summer, playing for UW’s club team and the Seattle Saracens.

It was a way of maintaining ties to a sport both close to his Samoan ancestry and the first one he took to heart as a 10-year-old. “Right away I grew to love rugby,” said Wooching, who played for the Kona Bulls. It wasn’t until his sophomore year at Kealakehe that he took up football.

In earning a scholarship to Washington “I kinda put it (rugby) it in a box in the corner for a little bit while I played football. But I kept on glancing at it and wanting it, getting more eager to get back into it,” Wooching said.

While certain positions in football are run- or pass-specific, “I like the aspect that, in rugby, everybody can do everything: they can run the ball, pass the ball and tackle. Everyone rucks (using their feet to move the ball in a crowd). It is a brotherhood that is hard to explain unless you play the sport,” Wooching said.

NFL scouts, in opinions reinforced by his three sacks against Stanford, told him they liked his tenacity, toughness, instinct for the ball and diesel drive. By most accounts, Wooching said, they pegged him as a second- or third-day pick in the draft.

In the end, Wooching maintains it was more about following a calling than the cash. “I mean, I was never the guy who is all about the money. I’d rather play a sport with more longevity. I’d rather go with my passion than (just thinking about) income.”

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.