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Girls Rugby, Inc., has been the entry point into the sport for thousands of kids, but once those members age out of the programming, it’s up to the rest of the community to keep those young players in the game. That’s one reason why the San Diego Valkyries formed. The all-girls’ team is in its infancy, but the founders are eager to extend individuals’ rugby life line, while also growing participation in their corner of the country.
David Winkley played American football in Texas before discovering rugby. He was running laps at St. Edwards University and jogged past a men’s rugby practice.
“I saw guys with their ears taped down and I just had to ask them what was going on,” Winkley said.
“Oh, it’s so our ears don’t get torn off,” he quoted the interviewee. “I knew I had to play this game.”
Winkley wasn’t a student at the university, but he booted up anyhow. He started at flanker and then took his speed and size to the centers.
“This is my sport,” he remembered his first-game reaction. “As much as I loved football, this was something different. It was the culture. It was the vibe. It was the after-parties and the camaraderie and just the state of the game. It was really cool.”
Winkley moved to San Diego in 1999, graduated from SEAL training in 2001, and was assigned to SEAL Team One. He couldn’t risk injury and miss deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan, so his rugby career had to be put on hold. Now based in Eastlake, Calif. — a region of Chula Vista, a suburb of San Diego — his return to rugby began with his daughter.
“She was in kindergarten, and we were walking to school one day,” he said. “I saw a girl throwing a rugby ball with her dad. ‘What do you got there?’ She said, ‘I play rugby.’”
Winkley got online, found Girls Rugby, Inc., and immediately signed up as a coach – that was seven years ago. His daughter registered for the all-girls flag program in the first grade and is still playing today at 12 years old.
“Girls Rugby has an age limit, so at 8th grade they age out,” Winkley said. “There’s no ramp over [to the next age grade] for my players. I had multiple girls say, ‘Well, this is my last year, and I don’t know where to go.’”
Winkley explained that most of the girls’ rugby in San Diego is centralized in the northern part of the city, with the exception of Coronado [related: SCYR Spring 2025 Teams]. He indicated that most parents wouldn’t be able to make that drive for week-day practices – an issue, because his returning players were ready to get into tackle rugby. Winkley’s co-coach, Bill Barnard, also a Navy vet, had two daughters in Girls Rugby, and they saw the writing on the wall.
“We just noticed that the opportunities for girls are not very – there just aren’t as many as there are for boys,” Winkley said. “We’ve been coaching the girls’ flag rugby together, so this was a natural transition. And I really like coaching – I referee, too – the girls’ teams. They’re just so much more fun.”
And so the idea for the San Diego Valkyries was born. As the coaches got to work on a stand-alone, girls-only program, Coronado allowed the future Valkyries to register with the rugby club for the summer 7s season. In fact, Coronado mentored Winkley and Barnard quite a bit, lending guidance on how to navigate Southern California Youth Rugby (SCYR), setting up a 501c3, etc.
Summer 7s is of course tackle rugby, and for those players coming from Girls Rugby, they only had experience with flag.
“A couple of them took to it like a duck in water,” Winkley said of introducing contact. “They’re powerful and were absolutely ready for it. They just have a history of contact sports. But the vast majority, like my daughter, were reticent. At practice, they don’t want to hurt each other because they’re all friends. But it’s about tackling safely, and everyone has to learn how to tackle safely.”
The staff sorted the admin side of the Valkyries team and were heads-down setting up practices, recruiting and doing all those fun team-bonding things. For the impending SCYR season, the Valkyries intend to register a U14 or U15 squad.
“Once we got established, we realized that there were almost no other teams to play,” Winkley said. “Thankfully, we were able to play as the Valkyries during an exhibition match against Coronado during the Crown City 7s.”
A series of three 7s games was on the slate. The outing not only marked the Valkyries’ first-ever match but also the players’ first-ever tackle game.
“That match was really cool, because as we were walking up with this all-girls team, all these other coaches were coming up to us saying they knew us,” Winkley said. “They were asking if they could send their girls over to play with us, and so we grabbed some players from OMBAC and the Coastal Dragons, I think, and a few others. It was our girls’ first glimpse of real rugby culture, and it was a lot of fun to watch.”
But Winkley didn’t want every single player available. His group needed guidance, and so he asked coaches to send players with leadership capabilities. The coaches complied.
“They all had tackle experience and really smoothed out our game,” Winkley said of the game-day additions. “They were really trying to win the ruck, and you could see it clicking with the [Valkyries] girls. It just hadn’t been happening at practice.”
The tackle BandAid had been ripped off.
“It was cool to see these girls from the other clubs step up and lead our girls,” the coach continued. “You’d see them on the sideline, talking to the girls about things they could do better. It’s a very nurturing space, and I like that. It’s cool to watch.
“Our girls really loved it,” he added. “It was all smiles, ear to ear. I introduced them to ‘shoot the boot,’ which they’d never heard of. It was a great time.”
So there’s good momentum in Eastlake – where the Valkyries are currently based – but there’s still the issue of opposition for this U14/15 age grade. There are all-girls teams playing in SoCal – most notably juggernaut Belmont Shore – but Winkley is hoping for more local, and comparable, competition.
“What we’re really hoping to do is set the example,” Winkley said of building off of Girls Rugby. “We hope more teams put forward U14 or U15 teams, so we can play in future tournaments. And there’s talk in San Diego of trying to do a fall league that is also all-girls.
“And right now, we’re the ‘San Diego Valkyries,’ but we’re based in Eastlake,” he continued. “If I can get some other locations to get more players, then maybe we’ll have a Valkyries Eastlake and then Valkyries Balboa and spread it around San Diego to give more people the opportunity to play.”
Numbers are the perpetual issue and should the Valkyries’ ranks grow, then Winkley would love to build into 10s and 15s one day. But for now, it’s about providing existing rugby players – some who have been playing flag rugby for several years – a place where they can continue playing the game. The current off-season is allowing the adults to focus energies on building up the club and its numbers – perhaps through another tackle clinic. The first one was organized by Coronado’s Santos Trujillo, a stellar coach, and drew 25 players, 21 of which returned to the team.
The Valkyries will register with SCYR in the fall, and Winkley is actively trying to figure out what a schedule might look like. Girls Rugby starts up again in October, and Winkley will continue to coach with that organization, and then realistically, the Valkyries’ main season might be summer 7s.
“I’ve asked a lot of people what’s going on,” Winkley said of girls’ rugby numbers in SoCal. “They said there’s a lot of burnout. There are seasons in the fall, spring and summer, and some of them are on traveling teams as well. They’re just burning out and so that’s something I’m trying to be very cognizant of when thinking about our future competition. I want rugby to be a joy and a love, not a task they have to do.”
For more information, contact Winkley at rugbycoachwink@gmail.com.