HS Player of the Month: CharLee Weaver

The Rugby Pennsylvania Fall 7s series puts a lot of high schoolers onto the pitch early in the school year, and one player has stood out after two rounds of play: Next Phase Rugby Player of the Month CharLee (SHAR-lee) Weaver. The Cocalico High School senior is co-captaining the Berks County Rugby girls’ U19 team and looking to take these flourishing leadership skills into college.

Weaver played a bunch of sports growing up, and by high school stuck with field hockey, lacrosse and swimming. She had heard of rugby through some Cocalico classmates and was considering swapping lacrosse for rugby during her sophomore spring. In fall 2024, after the field hockey season ended, she showed up to a Berks training session to make a better informed decision.

“I love the contact in all my other sports, but I was always told, ‘This isn’t football,’ or, ‘This isn’t a contact sport,'” Weaver said of first impressions. “And then here [with rugby], I found a place where I was praised for having the confidence to go in and pressure.

“But the main thing that actually got me to know that like this is what I want to do was like the girls,” she continued. “Everyone was so nice and so supportive, and it was such a different environment from any other sport I played before. I felt like I was accepted here and this is a good community.”

Next Phase Rugby President Greg Stelluti founded the Berks County Rugby club in 2016, and Paul Shingleton got involved that same year when his then-4th grade son joined the youth organization. Shingleton learned the game from the sidelines and by the following year had joined the youth coaching staff. He eventually moved up to the boys’ high school team and then took over the girls’ team when it formed three years ago.

He remembered Weaver clicking with the team during that fall 7s practice and was pleased to see her return in spring 2025.

“Toughness,” Shingleton said of Weaver’s defining qualities. “In the three short years that we’ve been here, she’s the toughest player we’ve had. She is hard nosed. It doesn’t matter what you ask her to do or what’s required, she jumps right in.

“She leads by example – hits the rucks, hits the counter, always looking to get in the mix and the tackle,” he continued. “She’s a really hard runner, hard to bring down. And she’s learning how to navigate rugby because it’s a little different style of running. But it was [initially] toughness more than anything.”

Weaver relished the opportunity to indulge her physical side but also noted that spring 2025 was difficult.

“It was the team’s first 15s season, and it was rough,” she said. “I don’t think we won a game. But then in our second-to-last game, it was close. My field hockey coach was there watching me, so I kind of had to prove that I’m kind of good at this. I was making tackle after tackle after tackle, and in that moment, I realized how fun this can be and how we can actually hold our own. I realized I can make an impact on the field, and that was a shift for me.”

For the record, Weaver’s field hockey coach was in attendance to support her new athletics interest and was very impressed with her work rate around the pitch. She plays both field hockey and rugby in the fall.

Weaver learned the game primarily from center and during junior year had the opportunity to apprentice under stellar captains. Maggie Hoffman-Long in particular set a good example, playing up in the elite levels with Atlantis and EGRL, before signing with NCAA DI varsity Brown University. This past summer, Hoffman-Long was also a non-traveling reserve for the USA U20s tour to South Africa.

“I was filling in as captain whenever anyone wasn’t there, so I had some experience prior,” Weaver said ahead of junior year before named co-captain for the 2026-27 season. “To be there with the seniors last year and help lead with them, it was a great opportunity.

“My whole goal is just trying to get other people to love the sport the way I do,” she said in her current role. “It’s awesome to try and help these new girls build their confidence and keep everyone together, because it’s a very emotional sport. You have to play with emotion if you want to be able to make such a big impact. And I really enjoy helping everyone reach their maximum potential.”

But Weaver is more than an advocate for her teammates. She is hungry to refine her own game and is constantly seeking ways to better herself.

“Now her IQ is starting to catch up with that toughness,” said Shingleton, who has moved Weaver into the flyhalf role. “She’s starting to find ways to dominate on the pitch using her smarts as well as her toughness.

“She’s so easy to coach because she listens, she tries to put it in practice, and there’s rarely a practice that goes by that she doesn’t ask what she can do better,” he added. “Just one of those players who recognizes their weaknesses, their strengths, and I think she’ll have an immediate impact wherever she goes.”

Weaver is captaining this year’s team alongside Kylie Grazioli.

“I try to give my captains a lot of responsibility and freedom to make decisions when it comes to the team, because we as coaches can’t be out there on the field,” Shingleton said. “I want my captains to be looked at almost like another coach on the field. CharLee, she does that really well. She’s super demanding of herself and has even developed over the past couple months. She’s kind of realizing what she wants to demand from the team, but she’s learning how to navigate different personalities and different styles, how people take criticism, how people take direction, and she’s growing into a really good leader.”

And the players have responded, according to Shingleton. When Weaver and Grazioli speak, they listen.

“The season so far has been good,” Weaver said of the Rugby PA Fall 7s Series. “We’ve had two tournaments so far and went 2-2 in the first one and 3-1 in the second. We’ve played some really hard teams and I think we’ve shown that we can hold our own and make an impact this year and that we’re going to be a team that you have to watch out for.”

Shingleton had encouraged Weaver to explore next-level play with Atlantis, but he reported her uneasiness with the disparity in skill. But then he received a message this week that scouts had been watching the high school games this month, and Weaver had stood out. She has now received invites to EGRL ID camps, because staff believe that she needs more exposure.

“Now that she’s gaining that confidence in her own skill set and given the way she plays the game, I see no reason she would turn that down,” Shingleton said of higher-level playing options. “She’s very, almost hypercritical of herself. And we’re trying to soften that out a little bit and get her to appreciate the things that she’s doing really well.”

With that said, Weaver is on Next Phase Rugby and has been talking to college coaches. She’s interested in a more local playing experience and as well as pursuing a PE and Health Education major. She has been in contact with West Chester and Tony DeRemer, as well as the budding Eastern University and DI Long Island University. However, if programs from outside the region started reaching out, she isn’t opposed to learning about those options.

“I think wherever she decides to go, she’s going to walk in there and immediately have an impact,” Shingleton said. “She has one of those intangibles where it doesn’t matter the obstacle in front of her, she wants to overcome it. There’s very little she can’t do if she puts her mind to it.”

While Weaver is highly focused on her own rugby future and the success of Berks and her teammates, she is very much part of the larger rugby community and invested in its growth.

“It’s a big goal of mine to convince other people to play,” Weaver closed. “I’m constantly trying to recruit because there are so many girls haven’t heard of it or know that it’s such an amazing opportunity. I want to show people it’s here and not what everyone thinks it is – just that it’s a really rough sport, but it’s something that everyone can do and that there’s room for everyone and every body type in it. Everyone has a role on the rugby field.”

To learn more about CharLee Weaver and fellow high schoolers nationwide looking to play rugby in college, download the Next Phase Rugby app on the Apple App Store or Google Play and search “Next Phase Rugby.” For more information, visit nextphaserugby.com or e-mail greg@nextphaserugby.com.