When USA Rugby announced that it was reorganizing, TRB started plotting the women’s colleges (link) with the intent of tracking teams’ competitive destinations. During that process, and while also combing USA Rugby’s registration database (which has now been disabled), another layer of understanding started to form around teams that exist in the periphery and how they’re viewing the shifting landscape.
The state of Virginia drew attention. The DI Blue Ridge and DII Capital conferences account for the established entities in the state, but there is a contingent of teams that are registered and playing outside of an official league. The teams are young or returning from a hiatus, and have been working together to build some sustainability in the state.
Roanoke College has had a men’s team for years, and until fall 2015, it was very social in nature. The team brought on Garrett Thompson as head coach, and he relied on his experience from University of Central Florida, Cape Canaveral and Life University to initiate change. In his first year with Roanoke College, the men’s team snapped its long-time losing record with a 5-2 season.
After a couple of years, Olivia Karkenny and a handful of women approached Thompson about starting a women’s team, and he incorporated them into the men’s training sessions.
“She’s the one who really spearheaded it. She’s the grandmother of the team,” Thompson said. “The next season, though, 10 girls showed up and it was: Hot damn!”
That spike occurred in fall 2017 and after months of training, the women wanted some real competition. Thompson signed them up for the Christmas 7s tournament.
“They got slaughtered in two games and then against Longwood, which is an established program, but in 15s – I had small, fast girls – we beat them,” Thompson said. “They were so excited, so in the spring, we set up some other matches.”
Recent graduate Kat Hall kept momentum for the team going, and then Keele Smith became an influential force in sustaining that growth. It was mostly 7s but the team was able to play 15s by combining with VMI or Virginia Tech at events like the Savannah St. Patrick’s Day Tournament.
“Keele Smith is the president and has two seasons behind her,” Thompson said of the likely captain going forward. “You look at her and think she’s too mild mannered. Looks like a book worm. Then on the field she’ll make 10 tackles in a row against girls twice her size. She’s got desire and guts and is fun to watch.
“I enjoy coaching the women more than the men,” said Thompson, who has coached club and college men. “I enjoy it more because they don’t have any bad habits from football, and they listen better. They’re smarter and more coachable than the men. I really get a kick out of it.”
Now Roanoke’s Director of Rugby, Thompson has purposefully integrated the men’s and women’s teams, and used his alma mater – VMI, Class of 1990 – to guide his actions.
“The girls are close with the men’s team at Roanoke. This is the way I’ve brainwashed them,” Thompson said. “I saw what happened at VMI. They had a strong women’s program in 2014 or 2015, but there was such animosity between the teams that the women folded up, and it was ugly. The alumni are watching this like, ‘You’re idiots. Do you know how good this could be for you and the school?’ So we have two [teams] but one [club]. It’s very rare that we’re not together.”
Uniting the teams also has financial benefits. Costs are reduced if they can travel to the same away location, and Thompson can secure more funding when the teams are lumped together.
“The school likes the direction that the program has been going,” Thompson contrasted today with the team’s more social days. “We have our own stadium with 40-foot, permanent goal posts. We run a 7s tournament and conference championship every year, and will do the same for the women this year. The school backs us.”
Thompson is building a lot of good will with the school and hopes that support develops into a big investment.
“My hope is to take the women’s program varsity. We were one vote shy of taking it there [last fall],” Thompson said. “Somebody brought in a concussion study to the captain’s meeting, and I wasn’t there to allay those fears. They want to take more time evaluating everything.
“Although we’re not varsity status, the school has given me the ability to do the equivalent of [NCAA Division III] grants and scholarships,” said Thompson, who indicated that financial aid can cut tuition in half. “I can recruit, and I don’t care about experience. We have three really good coaches, and I can take any athlete and turn them into a rugby player. If there’s a freshman on the women’s team that played rugby in high school – that’s awesome – and if not, just an athlete who wants to try something different, they’re all treated the same.”
Things were shaping up nicely on campus, but the women needed a competition home. Virginia Tech is very close in Blacksburg – and Thompson helps coach the Hokies women – but it and its DI Blue Ridge counterparts compete at a different level and all have more than 20,000 total enrollment (Roanoke has 2,300 students). So Thompson called colleagues Mick Turk at Radford University, Doc O’Neill at Emory & Henry College, and Carl Schmitt at the University of Richmond to ask about the status of their women’s teams.
MORE: Alley Mitchell Tracks SARC Creation
Referee Gray O’Dwyer did a lot of work to realize a team at Richmond, and team leaders Justina Choo and Annie Hunter did a lot of the heavy lifting as well. Today, the team is coached by James River players. Emory & Henry landed Bryanna Kerbuski as head coach, and with the addition of VMI, a nice quartet for a 7s circuit evolved. During the 2018-19 season, each team hosted a 7s tournament for round robin play. Radford joined for the 2019-20 season.
VMI showed well during the 7s circuit
“It’s crazy how fast it’s growing in southwest Virginia,” said Radford head coach Mary Kelly Williams, who created a Facebook group for all of the Virginia schools. “There are a lot of girls and individuals banding together to help each other.”
Williams starting playing rugby in the early 90s and is a founding member of the Radford women’s team. She started teaching at the university a few years ago and in March 2019 learned of a small group of women tossing the ball around.
“Sydney Mason is the president of our little group and at the forefront of pulling these girls together,” Williams said. “Very smart young lady. Part of it was people saying, ‘You can’t do this.’ ‘Yeah? Watch me.’”
Williams accepted the head coach position in August 2019, and Radford, which has approximately 8,000 undergrads, registered 24 players in year one. After a couple weeks of practice, the team traveled to the Roanoke 7s tournament.
“That was it. They loved it,” Williams said. “They fell in love with rugby and it was amazing how it exploded since then. We’re getting a lot of attention from the community and alumni, who have been amazing. When they found out I was stepping in and coaching, there was an explosion of support within our teeny family here. They all want to come out and watch and are offering to help. I couldn’t be happier with our alumni support here.”
The 7s circuit built a meaningful structure for competition and player development, and it also fostered a community vibe. Outside of the circuit, teams will combine for 15s games or lend players to fill out rosters, and the result is more field time.
“Are they good? They have the potential to be, absolutely,” Williams surveyed her squad. “We have a lot of speed and need better ball-handling skills. The biggest obstacle is learning the rules – for me, too! I’m learning as I go because a lot has changed since I played. Then add on all the rules for COVID.”
And then add on the changes with the American rugby landscape. With the reorganization of USA Rugby, teams everywhere started pondering their futures this year.
“We didn’t even realize we were homeless,” Williams said when conversations of organizational alignments arose. “My hope is that these southwest Virginia teams can stick together, wherever we go, because our girls help each other a lot.”
Roanoke and Emory & Henry have committed to the new South Atlantic Rugby Conference (SARC), which is a member of National Collegiate Rugby (NCR). At the time of print, SARC had 12 members from Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Alabama, and they’re divided into North, East and West regions. The North region could be the home for southwest Virginia teams, and SARC commissioner Alley Mitchell (head coach at Elon University) is optimistic that the membership will grow as final confirmations are made. Williams also indicated that the NCR-aligned Cardinals conference – home to many of the teams’ male counterparts – is an option. [Stay tuned as teams commit]
“It’s pretty to cool to be at the beginning of something,” Williams closed. “I just hope that it doesn’t teeter out and I’m trying to build out the team and put in a business mindset, so when I leave one day, it will be in a good place.”