College Rugby

College Rugby

Rugby Union is played throughout universities in the United States of America. More than 1,000 colleges have rugby teams. College rugby is the largest section of USA Rugby's membership. For the 2010-11 season, there were over 32,000 college members and 854 college clubs (511 male, 343 female) registered with USA Rugby, roughly a 14% increase from 28,000 college members in August 2008.

Rugby has been played in universities since as early as the 1800's, but it was the 1960's when rugby really found a foothold in colleges, led by the Catholic colleges such as Notre Dame and particularly the Jesuit universities such as Boston College and St. Joseph's in Philadelphia.

Today, college rugby continues to grow in popularity, and rugby is one of the fastest growing sports across college campuses. For example, the National Small College Rugby Organization has grown from 85 teams in the 2007-08 season to 151 teams in 2011-12 and to over 200 men's teams for the 2012-13 season. And in 2011, Wheeling Jesuit University announced it was launching its rugby program as a full varsity sport with scholarships.

The 2009 announcement that rugby sevens would be added to the 2016 Olympic games has led to an increased emphasis in the collegiate ranks on the sevens game and increasing interest from TV and other media. The highest profile collegiate 7s competition is the Collegiate Rugby Championship (CRC). The inaugural CRC, held in Columbus, Ohio in June 2010 was televised live by NBC and NBC Universal. The result was high ratings, with the CRC ratings beating the NCAA lacrosse championship. The 2011 CRC was held at PPL Park in Philadelphia, again televised live by NBC.

The sport includes a national championship competition (since 1980). California has won the majority of titles, with Air Force being the only other school that has won the championship multiple times. In 2011 the College Premier Division (CPD) was created with the intention of refining topflight collegiate rugby. To do so 31 schools joined together to form a new division of American rugby.

In the United States, college rugby is governed by (in descending order of authority): USA Rugby, territorial unions (TUs) and local area unions (LAUs) (e.g., NERFU). The NCAA has no authority over college rugby. Often called a club sport, each college team is administered by either the athletic department or the student club department. In 2011, USA Rugby continued to urge college rugby programs to adopt new conference structures similar to the conferences used by their other athletic programs. The highest profile example was the formation of the Ivy League Rugby Conference in 2010. This move signals a shift away from the LAUs and TUs as the governing bodies for regional college rugby.

Outstanding college rugby players are recognized as All-Americans by USA Rugby. Qualified All-Americans can represent the United States in international tournaments by playing on the United States national under-20 rugby union team.