Post Playing
Rowlands finished playing in 1967, and immediately became a committee member at Cardiff RFC. He was chairman for the 1974 season and continued to serve Cardiff until 1986.
Whilst serving on the Cardiff committee, he became a member of the Welsh Rugby Union. Rowlands was appointed as one of the WRU's two representatives on the International Rugby Board in 1983 and became the IRB's first General Secretary in 1988. Under Rowlands guidance, its headquarters moved from Bristol to Dublin, Ireland. This was key in turning the Rugby World Cup into one of the leading sporting events in the world, which Rowlands was at the heart of as one of its directors.
Rowlands decided to retire at the end of the 1995 Rugby World Cup. However, IRB chairman Vernon Pugh and the RWC chairman Leo Williams persuaded Rowlands to take on the Chief Executive's role at the 1999 Rugby World Cup in Wales. He resigned all positions with the IRB and the RWC after the tournament ended.
In 2004 Rowlands beat WRU Secretary David East in the contest to succeed Sir Tasker Watkins as Welsh Rugby Union president.
Read more about this topic: Keith Rowlands
Famous quotes containing the words post and/or playing:
“A demanding stranger arrived one morning in a small town and asked a boy on the sidewalk of the main street, “Boy, where’s the post office?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, then, where might the drugstore be?”
“I don’t know.”
“How about a good cheap hotel?”
“I don’t know.”
“Say, boy, you don’t know much, do you?”
“No, sir, I sure don’t. But I ain’t lost.””
—William Harmon (b. 1938)
“The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that’s dead.”
—Langston Hughes (1902–1967)