The Club Council is the new governing body for senior club rugby in the U.S., and it’s building out the seven committees that will frame the game going forward. Nominations are being accepted imminently for committee chairs and committee members, and Jill Williamson wants to make sure that new and more voices populate these seats of influence.
Williamson took an unorthodox route to the Pacific Northwest RFU (PNRFU) presidency, one that encourages participation in the unknown or intimidating. The Washington native had been a longtime fan of rugby, having spent a high school year in Australia and learning of the sport while overseas.
“I’m 50, so generationally it didn’t seem like a thing that was available to me,” Williamson said of rugby in her youth. “I wasn’t a girly girl–I was in the Army. But women’s rugby wasn’t a thing that came across my radar – which is too bad because I totally would’ve played. When I first met my husband, Lance Pruett, he had just started coaching a women’s college team. Every time I went to a match, it was, ‘That looks like so much fun. I wish I played when I was younger.’ That went on for years.”
The couple’s son went to college in 2012, and Williamson landed a new job that meant less travel and more time at home, which was on the east coast at the time.
“We looked at it like: If there was ever a time to stop saying, ‘I wish I played when I was younger,’ then this was it,’” Williamson said.
So at age 43, Williamson joined the D.C. Furies and played on the DII team for three years.
Front row with the Furies / Photo: Jill Williamson
Her playing career was understandably short so she pivoted into coaching. Now in Washington State, Williamson helped her husband until she got certified “and developed my own coaching chops,” eventually filling roles at a bunch of different levels. Moving into administration wasn’t on Williamson’s agenda, but then opportunity presented itself.
“I give all credit to my husband,” Williamson demurred. “We were going to the [PNRFU] AGM last year and knew the president [position] was going to be open. He said, ‘You should consider it; you’d be good at it.’ I remember thinking, ‘Yeah, OK, who wants that?’ But then when we were at the AGM … ‘I could do this way better.’ And when they asked for nominations, I put my hand up.”
Williamson has just finished her first full year as president of the PNRFU geographic union (GU), and it was memorable.
“When I raised my hand a year ago, I thought, ‘What, it’ll be a couple of hours every month? Doesn’t this thing run on autopilot? How hard can it be,’” Williamson laughed in retrospect. “Between the USA Rugby reorg and the COVID stuff, it turned out to be a much bigger job than I anticipated. But it was good. I got great support from the rest of the [PNRFU] board of directors and the union was really responsive.”
In November 2019, USA Rugby announced that it was forming a task force to lead the national governing body’s reorganization, and Williamson launched into action.
“I reached out to the other union presidents that I had met and we gathered a list of union presidents across the country to talk about what we thought our role should be and the actions we should take,” said Williamson.
The group selected Texas president Kirk Tate and Capital president Matthew Robinette to be the official voices of club rugby, specifically for the unions.
“At that time, USA Rugby still owed us money so that was an issue that needed to be addressed,” Williamson said. “Most if not all unions are their own legal entities and each of us as union presidents have fiduciary obligations”. … The unions wanted to have a voice in the process.
“When USA Rugby filed for bankruptcy that shifted the timeline and process of a lot of things, so it was good that we had started these conversations among union presidents because we had already gotten across a lot of our issues and concerns,” she continued. “Now that the reorg is in bankruptcy, we’re in a good position to know at least a high level what we want for the membership. It’s been really good and surprisingly successful collaborating among the union presidents.”
Previously there was no direct line between the GUs and USA Rugby; that was the role of Congress in the previous USA Rugby governance structure. But this collaboration among GU presidents readied the group for the new USA Rugby bylaws, which were ratified on May 7. It provides each of the four stakeholder groups (youth & high school, college, club, international athlete) with a national council.
A national council governs its specific stakeholder group and appoints a chair and members to its standing committees, the Club Council has seven: governance; audit and risk; competitions; eligibility; discipline; diversity, equity and inclusion; and training and development. The National Council also appoints members to the USA Rugby Board of Directors.
On June 2, the Club Council elected officers from its pool of GU presidents. Tate was elected chair, Ken Pape (Empire) vice chair, and Rick Humm (NorCal) secretary. Williamson was named treasurer, which also serves as the chair of the Club Council Audit & Risk Committee. Pape also serves a dual role as chair of the Club Council Governance Committee.
That leaves another five committees that need chairs as well as members. Anyone who is a member of USA Rugby and in good standing can chair or be a member of a committee.
“There are a lot of people in USA Rugby who have not had the opportunity to craft what the game looks like, so let’s get those voices involved,” said Williamson, who is one of two women GU presidents in the country (Florida’s Kerri O’Malley is the other). “We’re starting from scratch. Everything can be brand new. It’s an opportunity to shape what rugby looks like in the U.S.
“The notion that we need to get new voices involved – in particular, more diverse voices – has been uniformly accepted within the Club Council, so that’s been really heartening,” Williamson added. “It’s great to hear conversations around that and there’s been no defensiveness that the establishment voices aren’t enough.”
Any interested parties should contact their GU president, as all nominations for chairs must come through the Club Council representative, in most cases the GU president. (The Club Council is still working out the nomination process for committee members). If you don’t know your GU president, check the USA Rugby website.
“The main thing is that anybody who’s interested should raise their hand,” Williamson closed. “If there are more qualified or experienced candidates, that will sort itself out, but don’t exclude yourself because you think you’re not ready. People have that tendency – like me! It never would have occurred to me to run for president of the union without someone saying: You’d be great at that. … This is your opportunity to get off the bench.”