Athletic Director, Dennis Francois, and President Jim Wohlpart sent out an email on April 15, stating, “CWU Athletics has decided to discontinue varsity sponsorship of our men’s and women’s rugby programs at the end of the current academic year.” The school will honor the current rugby scholarships for one additional year and plans to help athletes through the transfer portal process.

Since the creation of both the mens and womens rugby programs at CWU, the women have finished second in the nation twice while the men have consistently been a top-five performing program in the nation.

The program has been the most successful at CWU in terms of producing professional talent, with 12 players being drafted to Major League Rugby and one to the Japanese Top League under head coach Todd Thornley. Both the men and women have had Wildcats represent the USA in rugby. 

When the Rugby programs were granted varsity status in 2015, it was done on the condition that they wouldn’t harm the other athletic programs.

Rugby Athletes Initial Thoughts

“Devastating is the best word that a lot of us have used to describe this,” Quaid Hunt, the junior prop said. “I mean, we played our game, we got home, turned in our gear and then the day after we had an informal meeting … Dennis [Francois] was there, he broke the news to the team in pretty short order, not a lot of detail. That was it, it’s all over.”

Fifth year loose forward Philomena Namosimalua spoke on how the team carries themselves and the sisterhood that is being broken up. “We’re a Division I program,

it means a lot when we say that, we rep that with pride. We have been repping Central with pride these past years. It feels very disheartening. I really feel for these girls,” Namosimalua said. “These girls don’t deserve this, and the men’s side doesn’t deserve it either … They are breaking up a family for real. I call these girls my sisters, we’ve been through so much as a team and we lean on one another during hard times. It just sucks to know when we had Central’s back, they didn’t have ours.”

The athletes were caught off guard by the news, going into the meeting unsure of what would come out of it. “We were sat down for a meeting in the second story of the Pav, and we were kind of making jokes beforehand,” Bryn Jones, the freshman scrum-half said. “We didn’t know what the meeting was about. Just no clue, the last thing in everyone’s mind was that rugby would be cut. The second we walked in there, they told us. Everyone just sat there in silence.”

Sophomore prop Macey Dunn shared her reaction to the news as well as the impact it has on the athletes. “It was shocking,” Dunn said. “Since then it has been hard for us to stop crying at this point. Like, that sounds derived, but it’s the reality of it. We’ve been devastated as a team and a community. It is impacting a lot more people in the community, way more than the athletic department realizes.”

“At first, I thought they were joking,” Senior hooker Campbell Robb said. “It came from Dennis and we thought it was just going to be him congratulating us on the season and for the rugby programs making it to the national playoffs … When he got straight to the point and said that we’re cutting both programs, the emotion drained from the room. It was terrible news, people kind of threw their hats on the ground, other people’s faces just dropped.”

CWU alumni Noah Wright, who now plays for the Seattle Rugby Club, looked at both angles of the news. “Looking at it from both perspectives, one as an alumni, but also as an objective observer, is understanding college is a business. College sports are a business and there has to be that idea of cost versus gain,” Wright said. “As an alumni it is really tough to see the program I gave five years to and made so many memories with, made so many long lasting connections through, and now the opportunities that I’ve been given, the joy that I experienced, is now being stripped away from future rugby players.”

Transfer Portal

With many of the CWU Rugby players now having to hit the transfer portal, those athletes must now search for their next university to call home. Although a problem arises of other universities transfer windows being closed already.

“A lot of schools that have opportunities for us have passed the transfer deadline. Being from California, schools like Cal Poly and UCLA, in-state tuition would be a lot easier for us, but this late, I think Cal Poly’s transfer portal ended long ago on Dec. 1. We are way past that,” Jones said. “Now we just have to reach out to coaches and see if we can get an exemption or anything to do with that and just hope for the best.”

Dunn plans to transfer to a new university and detailed the struggles of finding a new place to take her talents to. “My plan? My plan is to transfer to another school. Unfortunately, finding out that we have to transfer in the spring has been really difficult because recruitment usually gets done at the beginning of the year, and at that point most of the rosters are set for next year already,” Dunn said. “So to find scholarships and places to play is going to be difficult for every single person trying to transfer. So, I’m hoping I can find a place to go play.”

“I think the way it was handled, and the way they knew this axing of the program was going to happen at the beginning of winter quarter and to not share that with us until now is disgusting,” Robb said. “Now, this has put a huge bump in a lot of peoples’ roads and screwed up their career. So I hope they know that is hanging over their heads.”

Aja Good, a junior center, talked about transferring as an international student as well as how transferring impacts the academic side of her collegiate career. “A bunch of the international students from both programs have set up a meeting next week with our international office at the school to figure out how this will impact our visa, or see how it affects our progress in academics,” Good said. “From the research I’ve done, it looks like a maximum of 60 to 90 credits would be able to transfer. After this quarter, I would have completed 145 credits … I would lose so much progress academically that I would have to do another year or two of school to make up for what I lost transferring. 

Effect on the Community

Ellensburg Youth Rugby is a big part of the Ruby community here in Ellensburg with CWU’s mens and womens teams spending plenty of time helping out the youth. Many of those children in the program have dreamed of representing the crimson and black. 

“Rugby is an up and coming and growing sport, and it has been for so many years. Our team was really the grassroots for all those young girls who, especially in our community with Ellensburg Youth Rugby, they want to compete at a high level and not have to move far away from home,” Good said.  “I chose Central because of the small town culture and how homey it felt and how supportive it felt being in a small town at a great school. Now, it’s almost like my inner childhood dreams have just been crushed and totally disregarded.”

Senior center Rena Tinoisamoa added onto the sisterhood that was built and the impacts that they left on the community. “We all rely on each other, whether that’s physically or mentally, we are always there to have a shoulder for someone to cry on or to just uplift one another. Mens and womens rugby has always made it a point to go support every other team on this campus and cheer our loudest, because we would like that support as well, but really because we are proud to wear Central across our chests,” Tinoisamoa said. “We even go to the local teams, it’s not just for hours, it is to help grow the game in America and to give people someone to look up to. We wanted to leave the jersey better than when we found it, whether that was through our school or through helping the community no matter what.”

“Helping out with the Ellensburg Youth rugby Club, that’s been a part of how we;ve grown as a program. We are trying to develop the next generation of players,” Robb said. “The main guy behind this, Rob Ford, he made this a Division I program way back when, and now he’s trying to develop youth rugby. It’s gonna be sad and I hate to say it, but it’s going to be much harder to keep up and running without CWU Rugby.”

Will CWU’s Rugby Club make a comeback?

With the varsity sponsorship gone, the players who stick around have the option to from a club team, which was the way the program began in the first place. The club would need to present the idea to the student body and if it were to be approved then the team would have to raise their own funds. 

Lily Thomas, the junior scrum-half  was not fond of the idea of a rugby club. “I mean, I love to see the community grow, but this is a place where we have fostered an environment for elite athletes which belong to a varsity program,” Thomas said. “ These men and women of the program deserve to play for high caliber Division I teams or even National teams. A club is not the fit for the community we have built here.”

“The whole idea of the rugby club, I think it’s like attempting to put a band-aid over a broken arm or severed limb … The idea of a rugby club,” Hunt said.

Tinoisamoa shared her mixed thoughts on the idea of a club forming. “I think it’s a slap in the face. Especially because so many people worked hard to play Division I Rugby. They put in their blood, sweat and tears, then it was just all swept from under us,” Tinoisamoa said. “But I wouldn’t mind if there was a club. Just because all rugby players want to share the sport with everyone and continue to grow the game.”

Saying goodbye to CWU Rugby

“I want to highlight that the experience at Central Washington University has been one of the greatest experiences of my life without question,” Dunn said. “The athletic training staff has helped me make a full recovery, the coaches gave me opportunities. To not be backed by the institution itself and people that are the faces of the institution, it is heartbreaking because I feel like we represented this university so well.

Robb shared a message to Central Washington University. “To Central Washington, I think you have lost two of the best programs you’ll see in the next couple decades,” Robb said. “We were definitely on the come up, we were very close to winning the national championship this year. It is going to be something you’re going to look back on and majorly regret.”

Tinoisamoa reflected back on her past four years representing the Wildcats. “I am very upset, but I am grateful to be a Wildcat and am forever grateful to be on a varsity rugby team, especially the womens. I’m glad I was able to grow as a player despite what we were given. 

“I am grateful that Central did give the opportunity for a rugby team in the first place. We’ve had a varsity team for almost 10 years and people shouldn’t forget that. There have been lots of good players and even more great memories from Central Rugby,” Hunt said. “Just because of this decision, doesn’t mean we can’t cherish those.”