Women's Elite Rugby: new league aims to boost US game and – finally

The Guardian

21-03-2025

Kittery Wagner Ruiz went to two World Cups with the US Eagles and on Saturday will help make history as head coach of the Boston Banshees against the New York Exiles in Women's Elite Rugby, a six-team semi-professional league kicking-off its first season. But even illustrious careers have to start somewhere, and Wagner Ruiz's story is typical of the American game in all its unruly glory.
'In high school, I played basketball, softball and soccer, and unfortunately, or fortunately, I was a little too aggressive for some of those,' Wagner Ruiz said, before heading out for training. 'I had yellow cards, fallings out, all that kind of stuff. But I had a friend that said, 'There's this sport that you can actually hit people and you're not gonna get in trouble for it.' And clearly, I was an angry teenager, and needed that. And so I found rugby.'
Her first club was a men's club: the Northern Colorado Flamingoes, a pink-clad band from Fort Collins, near the Wyoming line.
'I played with them for a little bit, just to run around and get an idea of what the heck was going on. And then I got to college and played … I never looked back. I played all over the country and all over the world.'
Wagner Ruiz played hooker, winning 28 USA caps out of Beantown RFC in Boston, the club that now forms the backbone of the Banshees, and for Glendale in Colorado – aka RugbyTown USA – the team that now undergirds the Denver Onyx. She taught math too.
'I retired in 2014 and immediately started coaching the Gray Wolves – they were the Glendale Raptors then. I didn't leave teaching until 2017 when I started moving around the country with my late wife, who was a Marine.'
Wagner Ruiz has spoken of Kandis Ruiz elsewhere, of her loss, and of support from the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, or TAPS, named for the bugle call played over military graves. 'There are people that I've met through my time with TAPS that I consider some of my closest friends,' she has said. 'We are bound by our losses, but can lean on each other to get through our hardest moments and celebrate our joyous moments as well.' Rugby players also treat each other as family. Ruiz played too, for clubs including Glendale and for the US Under-20s.
Wagner Ruiz has coached Life University and Atlanta Harlequins; with Atavus, in Seattle; and at Brown, the Ivy League college in Providence, Rhode Island. Her 'full-time day job' is there, as an assistant, 'then I get to coach the Banshees at night.'
That seems apt, given WER marketing. The Banshees are 'supernatural, otherworldly, bringing wails of fury … born of Celtic mythology and the New England history of rebellious women … harbingers of doom to our opponents.' But if training nights in Weymouth might turn a little harum-scarum, Wagner Ruiz hopes to stir up home game days too, first in Quincy, home to the New England Free Jacks of MLR, the men's pro league.
Wagner Ruiz describes the daily challenge of switching between sevens, Brown's spring game, and WER's 15-a-side. But no one in women's rugby ever had it easy, and the new league simply wants to help its players have it better than before. In New York, Denver, the Bay Area, the Twin Cities and Chicago, all teams built on clubs from the amateur Women's Premier League, other coaches are working. The regular season will run for 10 games before playoffs in June.
Wagner Ruiz is 'really excited. Not that right now there's a lot of money but … the stepping stone is now they get to just play. Players don't have to fundraise for their club, they don't have to pay the coaches, they don't have to find field space. The league has hired coaches and general managers. It should give the opportunity for athletes to hone their craft.'
Wagner Ruiz has coached at national level, U20s and talent ID, giving her insight into players who might boost the Eagles at World Cups after the one in England this summer. The state of the college game, she said, 'speaks highly of what's happening in high schools, because the level of talent and the level of athlete that is looking to play rugby in college has grown.
'There are athletes who've played since they were eight, nine years old. So they they already know the laws. They already know how to catch-pass. They already are comfortable in contact. Those are the three big things we want them to have, and obviously then being able to read space and all those other things.'
At mention of the writer Malcolm Gladwell, who devoted a chapter of his latest book to why women's rugby is growing in elite colleges, like many in US rugby Wagner Ruiz gives a rueful shake of the head. Maybe the simple fact an esteemed New Yorker writer noticed speaks for how the game, like women's sports in general, has begun to surge. Happier thoughts relate to the explosive success of Ilona Maher, the Quinnipiac University and USA sevens standout turned social media genius and reality TV star doing for women's rugby what the Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark has done for WNBA.
Maher has just finished a stint in England with Bristol. Back home, she is chasing a World Cup place. To have such a role model on every fan's phone is simple good news.
'Ilona's from Vermont, right? A New Englander through and through. I think something with this league is, we're a bit on the coattails of the US bronze medal [in Olympic sevens, in Paris last year], and then yes, Ilona's success and being a very public figure definitely has brought more publicity in general. Young athletes seeing her as a beautiful, big, strong woman – I think about my [six-year-old] daughter, right? I hope kids see Ilona and realize, 'I can do anything.' That's what's great about rugby: everybody can play. It doesn't matter who you are, what you look like, shape, size, etc. It's a place for you.'
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Wagner Ruiz's squad is built on Beantown but includes talent pulled from a process involving all six WER coaches. There are 'a few sevens Eagles, a few Olympians … five or six current [15s] Eagles, and then a handful that have been to national identification camps and have played along the pathways.'
The center Emily Henrich, who had time in England with Leicester, is one established Eagle. The prop Lauren Ferridge, like Henrich out of Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, is among those chasing a cap.
'The majority of players have day jobs,' Wagner Ruiz said. 'There are a select few that have decided to move here for the five months that we're training and stock up money or work remotely. But for the most part, people are keeping some semblance of a nine to five … In three to five years, if that is a thing of the past, and we're training midday, and athletes can come to the facility, whatever that looks like, and can be there to train and then lift and then do a recovery session, that's kind of my vision.'
After two games in Quincy, the Banshees will play three home games in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. It's down to logistics. Wagner Ruiz speaks warmly of the relationship with the Free Jacks. They have won two MLR titles in a row, success recognized with the hoisting of championship banners at Logan Airport in Boston, alongside honors for the Celtics (NBA), Bruins (NHL), Red Sox (MLB), and New England Patriots (NFL). Rugby is gaining a presence.
Asked what success for the Banshees and WER might look like, Wagner Ruiz said: 'I think success is putting on a good show. I want us to have a team that it plays good rugby, and the athletes to be good ambassadors for the sport.'
To the average US sports fan, rugby has a somewhat 'traditional' appeal, a sport for non-conformists but very social too. Wagner Ruiz speaks as enthusiastically about a game in which 'you beat the crap out of each other, and then you hang out afterwards, and have a good meal together' as she does about elite performance.
'We all really want this league to succeed. And for that to happen, we need good rugby. We need good games. We need to be fun and exciting and fast-paced, very close scorelines, things that make people want to come watch. How many rugby games have we watched that were, like, all right? We know so-and-so is going to win, or it's going to be a blowout. Then it's boring rugby.
'We want to be something that's exciting, that really makes our fanbase want to come back year after year after year. And that, to me, is success.'
WER will stream live and on-demand for free on DAZN