Finding Joy on the Unlikely: Coaching Rugby in Uncharted Waters

My entire career, I’ve found myself in the most unlikely of places. In 2008, we launched a high school rugby team in Shelton, Washington—the only single-school rugby team in the state at the time. That wasn’t just about fielding a team. It was about building something from the ground up, creating a culture, a structure, and a sense of belonging where none had existed.

JoJo, playing for one month, using the fend, "stiff arm," going into contact.

That same drive—the one that pushes me to build rather than inherit—follows me into every space I work in, whether it's education reform, workforce development, or coaching rugby.

This year, I stepped into yet another new frontier: coaching adult women’s rugby. Most of our team had never played before—only three or four had any experience. And each week, we played against teams with rosters full of seasoned athletes. Introducing the game to adults is hard. Introducing it with few veterans? Even harder. But I’ve never been one to avoid complexity. In fact, it’s where I thrive.

Alongside Ellie—our head coach and a cultural genius—we built an environment rooted in growth. Realistic goals. Constructive direction. No teardown. Just trust and trial. Trying something new is intimidating enough; our job was to make sure no one feared failure.

Each week, we weren’t just trying to win games—we were trying to win moments. Could we complete phases on our shape? Could we counter ruck effectively? Execute a positive tackle? Poach the ball? That’s the real work of rugby. And it's the same kind of work I’ve championed in every corner of my career: building youth apprenticeships, creating meaningful career pathways, success is built off of the culmination of skills we can put into place and the confidence we build in using those skills.

Everyone loves to win. But few want to do the work to build. Whether it’s on the pitch or in the classroom, there’s no easy button. You take your lumps. You fall short. But if you stay in it, the process—that process—can be incredible.

This past weekend at the Spokane Fools Fest tournament, we didn’t win a single game. But that wasn’t our goal. Our goal was to bring together the skills we’d been working on all season. And they did. They played.

We laughed. We grew. We built something.

And the biggest win? Hearing our players already talking about how next year is going to be even better.

That’s the reward for building.