February 6, 2009
New York, NY
Play Sports for Life the trading name for Play Rugby, Inc (www.playrugbyusa.com) and New York Rugby Club’s Women’s Team are extremely proud to announce a youth development rugby program partnership that will witness a growth in numbers of female rugby players and coaching role models throughout all age grades, in New York.
The program named the ‘Right of Passage’ is a player and coach development continuum that will utilize alumni players of the Play Rugby USA® (“PRUSA”) school program, transferred into a unique service learning coach training system. At a senior women’s level, alumni will be encouraged to give back to the community through the coaching mentoring program. New York Rugby Club’s women (“NYW”) and under 19’s Harlem based girls team (“U19’s”) will form the group of senior coaches and trainee coaches, respectively.
The PRUSA program has reached over 70 schools and 7000 students in New York City over the last 3 years. It will provide the coach mentoring / training foundation from which these new coaches can begin transferring their knowledge and experiences to other urban rugby playing girls. The NYW team is one of America’s premier Women’s teams http://www.newyorkrugby.com/content/view/117/208, having been placed in the top 3 teams nationally for the last 6 years. Furthermore, the team has fielded 20 Women’s National Team players in its recent history.
Play Sports builds upon a strong foundation already in place with NYW with a number of these great athletes and female role models already coaching within the PRUSA program. One of four such coaches is Tyshawn Henry – a NYW and National Team stalwart and international 7-a-side (“7’s”) player, Tyshawn has been a PRUSA coach for over two years, transferring her expertise and speaking of her life experiences, to hundreds of underserved urban youth athletes. Most recently, Tyshawn competed in the winning Hong Kong USA 7’s team last year.
This new partnership will see these new developmental coaches being mentored with already existing and trained PRUSA coaches. Through this coaching relationship, the program will spark a whole new generation of female rugby coaches of all ages. Girls as young as 15 will be involved in coaching youth rugby players in the flag rugby school programs. There currently is an evident lack of youth rugby coaches, particularly females. Such a deficit, limits the number of younger females actually open to participating in the sport. The development of community coaches allows an increased number of females to have the opportunity to play as a wider playing audience can be reached. Young girls will learn to play the game and progress up through their school rugby PRUSA programs. Upon graduation, these young rugby stars may move in to playing in the very successful New York Women’s U19 program.
The New York Women’s U19 Coach, Molly Dengler, spoke of her aspirations for the program: “As part of our player development program, we have been looking for a way for the U19 girls to give back to their neighborhood and to the rugby community. The coach development component of the program provides an ideal outlet for the first community service opportunity of our players’ lives. Through this two-way mentorship, the U19 girls will not only improve their understanding of the game, but also see themselves as empowered leaders and role models.” .
However, the unique driving force emanating from the backbone of the partnership is the creation of, promotion and more importantly the actual involvement of local community female role models. By placing successful student and senior female athletes back into the player development cycle at every age group, this program will stimulate urban female students’ desire to continue to participate in sport. The conception of role models can be a great inspiration in knocking down old expectations and suggesting new ambitions, who knows, their involvement may just be the inspiration to unearth the next USA female rugby star!
Excited about the prospect of this new initiative, Mark Griffin, Founder of Play Sports commented: “This partnership is a fantastic addition to our program. Given so many of the pieces of the puzzle were already in place, and relationships established, it was really just a meeting of the minds. In addition to providing a valuable developmental experience for the existing players on the NYW U19 team, it will also enable us to engage many more young female athletes at a community level, starting in Harlem. From there, we look to replicate the program city-wide and ultimately with other teams and our affiliates elsewhere”.
The progress and development of the PRUSA program has sparked interest from Nike and as a result Play Sports decided to enter an online competition sponsored by Nike and Ashoka called GameChangers to promote the new initiative. To learn more, get involved, or comment please visit the following link:
http://sportforchange.changemakers.net/en-us/node/18044
----------------------------------------------
Play Sports for Life is a registered non profit organization who’s vision is to create transformational change for youth through sports. Play Rugby USA® is the unique youth development program with an underlying philosophy of “developing youth through rugby”.
New York, NY
Play Sports for Life the trading name for Play Rugby, Inc (www.playrugbyusa.com) and New York Rugby Club’s Women’s Team are extremely proud to announce a youth development rugby program partnership that will witness a growth in numbers of female rugby players and coaching role models throughout all age grades, in New York.
The program named the ‘Right of Passage’ is a player and coach development continuum that will utilize alumni players of the Play Rugby USA® (“PRUSA”) school program, transferred into a unique service learning coach training system. At a senior women’s level, alumni will be encouraged to give back to the community through the coaching mentoring program. New York Rugby Club’s women (“NYW”) and under 19’s Harlem based girls team (“U19’s”) will form the group of senior coaches and trainee coaches, respectively.
The PRUSA program has reached over 70 schools and 7000 students in New York City over the last 3 years. It will provide the coach mentoring / training foundation from which these new coaches can begin transferring their knowledge and experiences to other urban rugby playing girls. The NYW team is one of America’s premier Women’s teams http://www.newyorkrugby.com/content/view/117/208, having been placed in the top 3 teams nationally for the last 6 years. Furthermore, the team has fielded 20 Women’s National Team players in its recent history.
Play Sports builds upon a strong foundation already in place with NYW with a number of these great athletes and female role models already coaching within the PRUSA program. One of four such coaches is Tyshawn Henry – a NYW and National Team stalwart and international 7-a-side (“7’s”) player, Tyshawn has been a PRUSA coach for over two years, transferring her expertise and speaking of her life experiences, to hundreds of underserved urban youth athletes. Most recently, Tyshawn competed in the winning Hong Kong USA 7’s team last year.
This new partnership will see these new developmental coaches being mentored with already existing and trained PRUSA coaches. Through this coaching relationship, the program will spark a whole new generation of female rugby coaches of all ages. Girls as young as 15 will be involved in coaching youth rugby players in the flag rugby school programs. There currently is an evident lack of youth rugby coaches, particularly females. Such a deficit, limits the number of younger females actually open to participating in the sport. The development of community coaches allows an increased number of females to have the opportunity to play as a wider playing audience can be reached. Young girls will learn to play the game and progress up through their school rugby PRUSA programs. Upon graduation, these young rugby stars may move in to playing in the very successful New York Women’s U19 program.
The New York Women’s U19 Coach, Molly Dengler, spoke of her aspirations for the program: “As part of our player development program, we have been looking for a way for the U19 girls to give back to their neighborhood and to the rugby community. The coach development component of the program provides an ideal outlet for the first community service opportunity of our players’ lives. Through this two-way mentorship, the U19 girls will not only improve their understanding of the game, but also see themselves as empowered leaders and role models.” .
However, the unique driving force emanating from the backbone of the partnership is the creation of, promotion and more importantly the actual involvement of local community female role models. By placing successful student and senior female athletes back into the player development cycle at every age group, this program will stimulate urban female students’ desire to continue to participate in sport. The conception of role models can be a great inspiration in knocking down old expectations and suggesting new ambitions, who knows, their involvement may just be the inspiration to unearth the next USA female rugby star!
Excited about the prospect of this new initiative, Mark Griffin, Founder of Play Sports commented: “This partnership is a fantastic addition to our program. Given so many of the pieces of the puzzle were already in place, and relationships established, it was really just a meeting of the minds. In addition to providing a valuable developmental experience for the existing players on the NYW U19 team, it will also enable us to engage many more young female athletes at a community level, starting in Harlem. From there, we look to replicate the program city-wide and ultimately with other teams and our affiliates elsewhere”.
The progress and development of the PRUSA program has sparked interest from Nike and as a result Play Sports decided to enter an online competition sponsored by Nike and Ashoka called GameChangers to promote the new initiative. To learn more, get involved, or comment please visit the following link:
http://sportforchange.changemakers.net/en-us/node/18044
----------------------------------------------
Play Sports for Life is a registered non profit organization who’s vision is to create transformational change for youth through sports. Play Rugby USA® is the unique youth development program with an underlying philosophy of “developing youth through rugby”.
DEVELOPING YOUTH THROUGH RUGBY
127 West 25th Street | New York, NY 10001
Tel: 212 851 8858 | programs@playrugbyusa.com
www.playrugbyusa.com
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