THE PROFESSIONAL MINDSET
interview by Naomi Prakash
NICK DE LUCA
photography by Oscar J Ryan
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“I had three goals in life: to be a fighter pilot, an 100m Olympic champion, and to play rugby for my country. Very ambitious! I soon realised I wasn’t fast enough for the Olympic dream, I realised the army life wasn’t for me so I really zoned in on the rugby path.“
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Nick De Luca knows the game of rugby inside-out. He played at centre for Edinburgh, Border Reivers, Biarritz, Wasps and Scotland over a career that spanned 12 years and included 43 international caps. Post retirement, Nick has taken up the role of Director of Rugby at Uppingham School and is also a fully qualified MHFA (Mental Health Fitness Advisor) instructor. We discuss his time playing the game, and his insights into the emotional aspects of rugby and coaching.
When did you first realise that you had a passion for rugby?
I’m not known for my memory, but I do remember playing rugby from the tender age of four. I had three goals in life: to be a fighter pilot, an 100m Olympic champion, and to play rugby for my country. Very ambitious! I soon realised I wasn’t fast enough for the Olympic dream I realised the army life wasn’t for me, so I really zoned in on the rugby path. It wasn’t long until I was being called ‘Rugby Nick’ and it’s really just been an incredible journey from there, with some massive highs but also devastating lows.
What path did you take into the professional ranks?
I was very fortunate, I think. Millions of kids want to be a professional player nowadays. Of course, hard work and deliberate practice is crucial, but luck and timing is a massive part of it. I was at Lockerbie Academy and we didn’t even have a rugby programme, we had a rugby team but we were terrible! In fact I often had to go round and convince my football friends to come play so the game would even happen. I got spotted by a few coaches and I was brought into the Under 16s before I went to play with Edinburgh. Eventually, I got a full contract for Scotland, I think I played every range you could before that point!
You graduated from Edinburgh University before becoming a professional rugby player. Was further education always important to you?
In a way – I studied sports science at university but to be honest, I didn’t take it overly seriously. At the time, it was very much to appease my lovely mother who said, “well if you’re going to play rugby, you should really study at university too”. And she was right – I’m so glad she said that and encouraged me to keep my options open.
In my last couple of years at university, I was in the Scotland sevens squad and I was starting to break through, so studies fell on the back burner. I’ve always been grateful that I got my undergraduate degree, I gained a lot of great knowledge and connections. I also think I needed those few years for personal development before going fully into rugby
You spent the majority of your playing career in Edinburgh. What were some of the highlights from your time there?
I spent about nine or ten years in Edinburgh, so as you can imagine there was a huge range of highs and lows. People assume that the highs will be the games, but often it’s the people and the shared experiences. Saying that, getting to the semi finals of the Heineken Cup was probably one of my highlights when thinking about the game itself – although maybe I should be saying the quarter final was the highlight, since we actually won that! It’s just amazing to find yourself in those upper echelons of European rugby and winning some big games on the way. The year Andy Robinson was in charge was a good season for me personally. I got into the Celtic League and that was the first year that I felt like I belonged. It felt really nice to get recognition from the wider community.
We were lucky that the weather was nice for that first lockdown, so spirits remained pretty high and people got some well-earned rest in too. I think even outside of sport, a lot of the public went on a bit of a health-kick, and we definitely saw that happen within the club.
In 2014 you made the decision to move to Biarritz to play for two seasons. Did you always want to play abroad?
To be honest, for the first few years of my career I didn’t look very far ahead. I’d thought about moving before but the timing didn’t line up well with my family’s
In my last couple of years at university, I was in the Scotland sevens squad and I was starting to break through, so studies fell on the back burner. I’ve always been grateful that I got my undergraduate degree, I gained a lot of great knowledge and connections. I also think I needed those few years for personal development before going fully into rugby
You spent the majority of your playing career in Edinburgh. What were some of the highlights from your time there?
I spent about nine or ten years in Edinburgh, so as you can imagine there was a huge range of highs and lows. People assume that the highs will be the games, but often it’s the people and the shared experiences. Saying that, getting to the semi finals of the Heineken Cup was probably one of my highlights when thinking about the game itself – although maybe I should be saying the quarter final was the highlight, since we actually won that! It’s just amazing to find yourself in those upper echelons of European rugby and winning some big games on the way. The year Andy Robinson was in charge was a good season for me personally. I got into the Celtic League and that was the first year that I felt like I belonged. It felt really nice to get recognition from the wider community.
We were lucky that the weather was nice for that first lockdown, so spirits remained pretty high and people got some well-earned rest in too. I think even outside of sport, a lot of the public went on a bit of a health-kick, and we definitely saw that happen within the club.
In 2014 you made the decision to move to Biarritz to play for two seasons. Did you always want to play abroad?
To be honest, for the first few years of my career I didn’t look very far ahead. I’d thought about moving before but the timing didn’t line up well with my family’s
When did you first realise that you had a passion for rugby?
It was closer to the forefront actually! I had already retired and played my last game of rugby in France, or so I thought. In France, they effectively give you two years pay (up to a certain amount) to let you train or to sort yourself out. It’s a really wonderful thing for allowing a smoother transition and giving you time to develop other skills. I had planned on just taking that, and I had just finished my MBA, which I was going to use as a launchpad to start a different life in the city. But then there was a phone call that meantI could choose to roll the dice one more time. I thought, alright, let’s have another crack at it. In hindsight, for that first year I’d have been better off financially if I’d stayed where I was, but often things happen for a reason. I really wanted to try for the Premiership, which I hadn’t done before, especially after my playing career in France didn’t go exactly as I would have hoped.
You took on the job of Head of Rugby at Uppingham School in 2017. What made you want to go down the teaching/coaching avenue?
When playing rugby full-time, I thought I’d go down a relatively well-trodden path into the city in some kind of financial role. However, when I started reflecting on my time coming up through the ranks, I realised that I didn’t always feel like I was well looked after. As a senior player, I thought I might be able to help remedy that a bit to get the best out of the young guys playing. I always enjoyed that side of things, and when I started thinking about earning a living outside of rugby to support my young family, teaching seemed to align with my passions and skills very naturally. It sounds very grand, but I do believe
You graduated from Edinburgh University before becoming a professional rugby player. Was further education always important to you?
In a way – I studied sports science at university but to be honest, I didn’t take it overly seriously. At the time, it was very much to appease my lovely mother who said, “well if you’re going to play rugby, you should really study at university too”. And she was right – I’m so glad she said that and encouraged me to keep my options open.
that teachers impact their students’ lives, and so it’s one of the most important jobs in the world. Every year I see hundreds of kids that I can potentially help shape through teaching and coaching. Besides the obvious skill development, I’m really focused on good morals and kind-heartedness. I’d love to see one of our pupils become a stand-up Prime Minister one day, with good values and a lot of empathy.
How has school been different this year?
There’s been a lot of time spent online, which is rough for everyone’s mental health really. Uppingham has been brilliant with implementing the right protocols, like private testers on a regular basis. Obviously, we have to abide by the governing body guidelines. They basically limit the type of interactions we can have, and it means concentrating a lot on equipment hygiene. Once you get used to it, it really just becomes routine and like normal set up. We didn’t have any cases last term, which was incredible, because we basically exist as a giant bubble. I’ve personally been spending a lot of time in my front room with my young kids around. Our garden, trampoline and swings have been a real lifesaver!
How has your job changed this year?
Obviously my work isn’t a natural fit for online teaching, so I’m being as creative and purposeful as possible. I’ve been doing a lot of physical and mental challenges with the kids, to really test their limits in different ways. Physically, they’ve been trying everything from yoga to cricket skills, and we’ve been bringing in a few guest speakers to keep them motivated and inspired.
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We actually had Rex Club’s own Hamish Watson as a speaker a few weeks ago!
After retirement, you became a youth
Mental Health Fitness Advisor. What inspired you to do this? And does having these skills help day-to-day with the pastoral care involved with the teaching?
When I came back to play with the Wasps, I took on a sort of big brother or fatherly role with some of the younger players. I got a real buzz from helping them and seeing their improvement, and I thought that coaching could be something for me. I’ve always been really interested in psychology, and that inspired me to go after the Mental Health Fitness Advisor training. When I started teaching, I was very serious about the impact I could potentially have on the young lives I was getting involved with. I would hate to miss something and not be able to help, because some things aren’t reversible. Mental health awareness can be quite reactive, looking for signs and symptoms. That’s not a bad thing, but I also want to be more proactive in my role. The majority of diagnosable mental health illnesses are already established by the end of the teenage years, so in a school environment we’re really well placed to make a difference. Every interaction you have with someone impacts them negatively or positively – it’s very rarely neutral.
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The training has helped me to feel much more confident when asking some big questions and talking about serious topics. Now every time I interact with a kid I’m consciously trying to pay into their emotional bank account, instead of taking away from it.
What have you taken from your own experience to use in your teaching?
I always took feedback quite personally when I was younger, I sometimes even got quite competitive with my coaches over it. Instead of seeing it like a gift, it was almost like a personal attack to me. I’ve unpacked that in terms of how it related to my identity, and as a coach I wanted to make sure that I was able to give feedback well. You have to build that trust in those relationships. Once you have that trust and after you’ve paid loads into their emotional bank account, then if every so often you say something that hurts their pride then it doesn’t destroy the relationship. Instead the players can see it for what it is: impartial feedback. It’s nothing to do with them as a person, it’s simply to make you a better player and a happier, healthier person. I love the Maya Angelou quote, that “people forget what you’ve done and what you’ve achieved, but they never forget the way you make them feel”. Having little things like that at the forefront of my mind keep me going in the right direction.
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In 2018 you were in the papers discussing your thoughts and experiences concerning mental well-being and its role within rugby.
Can you tell us more about this, and how we can help young players?
There’s definitely some massive issues that players face when transitioning from our professional world. When you play in a rugby team, you have this incredible community around you and you’re all fighting for the same thing. You build these really intense relationships, then suddenly they’re gone. On top of that, you can go from working 4 hours a day as a player to 100 hours a week, and from concentrating only on your own development to working in a completely different environment. Financially, you can struggle if you didn’t set yourself up properly. Rugby is getting better in terms of professional payment, but my generation and earlier definitely still need to work to pay our mortgages.
The big thing, for me at least, was the change in identity. I was always ‘Rugby Nick’, and you can get in trouble when you tie your identity too strongly to one thing. If I played badly one day, I’d lose confidence in every aspect of myself, because I placed all of my value in my ability to play rugby. When I had my kids, I was suddenly more than rugby. I was something bigger and more important, and I found that when I was doing other things or concentrating
on other realms of my life, my rugby was much better. Players need to have other skills that they can build during their rugby career, because it can be taken away at any moment. Sport is not your identity; it’s a canvas to express your identity. To be able to do that properly, you need to know who you are and what you’re about. It’s going to be really interesting over the next few years, because a lot of people have had sporting careers dashed because of coronavirus, Olympic athletes being the prime example.
In terms of our young and emerging players, and preparing them, I think it has to come from the top. If it’s simply encouraging them to pursue a dual career path then they won’t do that themselves, because it’s time wasted away from the gym. Going forward, we should aim to ensure that young players divide their time between rugby and skills training. If their sports career looks promising, that’s brilliant, but if not they have solid career options available. We really need to get that balance right. Plus, it’s important to remember that a lot of the skills taught in rugby can be applied to university and work too. There’s so much emotional, social and psychological training that enables us to create not just brilliant players but also well-adjusted adults in general.
What’s next for you? Do you want to stay in coaching and teaching?
I get such a buzz from being in a position to impact kids’ lives. That could sound very arrogant, but you can see the results in the kids that come out of our rugby programme now compared to when I first arrived. I’ve been able to flip the aspects that I hated from my own career, and give the kids the experience I wish I’d had. Feedback from the parents has been amazing – it really lifts you when you hear you’re making a difference. I think I would struggle to leave that completely behind. I’m an ambitious man, so it would be great to explore other areas of the world and other types of jobs, including things in the city. Maybe further down the line!
How do you rate the Scotland team at present? Do you reckon we’ll see some silverware on display at Murrayfield anytime soon?
The current team is good – they now expect to win their home games which is really cool. We would always say those things but actually I reckon 99% of my team would have had a losing Scottish record. I expect them to be competitive this Six Nations but I don’t see them winning silverware. My heart says yes but my head says no. I think on our best day, Scotland could beat anyone, but to win Six Nations you need to have ‘your day’ at least six times in a row. Plus, you need other teams not to be on their best, ideally! I’ll never lose hope, though.