Faith Family Academy rugby players. Photo courtesy of Faith Family Academy.
Correction Feb. 13: This story has been updated to show that while Faith Family Academy’s program is the only school-run program currently in Southern Dallas, it is not the first. Bishop Dunne, Canterbury Episcopal School and Cristo Rey Dallas College Prep have had rugby programs within the last twenty years.
This Spring, Faith Family Academy is kicking off their second season with a rugby team. The academy’s program is the only existing school-run rugby program in southern Dallas, and the largest school-run program in the state of Texas, according to Jeff Robertson, Director of Rugby and Boys Rugby Head Coach.
Faith Family Academy, which is located in Five Mile Creek off W. Keist Blvd, started looking to add to their athletics department in 2021. Robertson said rugby was chosen to supplement a football team, which Faith Family Academy does not have, and because the sports values aligned with the schools.
“The plan was to start small, we thought we’d maybe have a middle school team to introduce the sport because it’s something that people in the area and the United States don’t really know about,” Robertson said. “We did an intro to rugby camp at the end of the (Fall 2021) semester to see who might be interested. We thought we’d be starting small… but we ended up with 100 kids, sixth through twelfth grade, boys and girls.”
Within the last year, Faith Family expanded the program to offer teams for kids as young as kindergarten, and Robertson said 400 kids are currently participating on Faith Family Academy teams.
“Rugby is a great masses sport, we can take a ton of kids and they’re all involved,” Robertson said. “You can be any size and any shape to play rugby.”
Faith Family Academy men’s rugby players (solid jerseys) faced off against the Jesuit Rangers (striped jerseys) on Jan. 18. Photo courtesy of Faith Family Academy.
Despite only being in the second year of the program, the high school rugby teams are already competing in tournaments across the country.
Last year the teams travelled to Memphis, and in two weeks the men’s and women’s 7s teams are going to Los Angeles for the Urban Rugby Championship, which Robertson says “we’re really planning on winning.” The tournament hosts inner city rugby teams from across the country.
In rugby, games can be played in 7s or 15s. If you have seen rugby in the Olympics, you’re likely more familiar with the 7s style of the game, which Robertson describes as being faster paced and more tournament style. 15s is similar to football, and a “grinding, physical kind of sport,” he said.
At Faith Family Academy, the high school women’s team play 7s and the men’s teams play 7s and 15s.
The varsity men’s team is one of ten single-school programs in Texas that play in an independent league, but the younger teams and women’s teams face off against both school-run and club programs, such as the Dallas Rugby Club.
Director of Rugby and boys head coach Jeff Robertson. Photo courtesy of Faith Family Academy.
Dallas Rugby Club is a well-established club team in southeast Dallas, Robertson said, and generally pulls players from the Fair Park area.
Robertson said that the majority of the men’s high school players are sophomores, which he feels gives the team plenty of time to develop their chemistry and skills to eventually pull off a winning season.
But a winning season is by no means the end goal.
“On my high school boys team, 27 out of 50 are Mexican National Team eligible,” Robertson said. “We have goals of being able to put kids on national teams in the next few years.”
That would be the team you would be most likely to see in the Olympics or the Rugby World Cup, if they qualified.
The United States is set to host the men’s Rugby World Cup in 2031 and the women’s cup in 2033. That is plenty of time to turn Faith Family Academy players into real stars of the sport, Robertson said.
“Realistically, there are kids in this program that are in 8th or 7th grade who, after six years, going through high school and a little more playing, very realistically could be looking at (the World Cup),” Robertson said.
