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Life Univ. Women's Rugby Team Coming To Portland

09/21/2017, 4:15pm PDT
By admin

How cool is this!  The Life University Women's Rugby team is taking a detour through Portland on their way to play Central Washington University.  They will be in town one night to meet our high school girls, get in a fun training session and spend time answering questions and sharing information about their program and their school.

This is a unique opportunity to learn more about one of the top women's rugby programs in the United States.  Even if you don't aspire to play at that level, this is a great opportunity to support collegiate women's rugby in the United States.  Some come on out and meet the team!

WHEN - Wednesday, September 27.
WHERE - Normandale Park, 5700 NE Halsey St, Portland, OR
COST - no charge, but a $5 donation is encouraged to help defray field costs

If you'd like to participate, please take 30 seconds to fill out the registration form by clicking here.

Head Coach, Rosalind Chou shares more about the school and the program below:

Life University is a fully supported varsity program, so that means we can and do offer both scholarships based on rugby merit and athletic housing scholarships. We've recently been featured in a docu-series that takes an in-depth look at our rugby program. It really shows our culture and values, and you can hear first hand from our athletes what it's like to be part of our program. 

Our university is private and uniquely affordable, so, even without any scholarship help, we are much more reasonably affordable than many other school including state universities. We have some impressive programs, mainly in the health sciences. Our chiropractic program is among the best in the world, but we offer a number of other degrees as well. We have a notable psychology and biopsychology program. We are one of three universities in the country that specializes in positive psychology, with professors that are experts in the field. UC Berkeley and U Penn are the other two universities with this speciality in positive psychology. 

We also have a highly regarded exercise science program and that carries over into our numerous master's degrees in athletic training and coaching. Other health science degrees include nutrition and dietetics. We also offer degrees you would typically find at larger universities like business, general studies, computer information management. One unique degree we have just added that you would typically find at a liberal arts school is positive human development and social change, it includes a focus on peace studies and ethics. 

 We offer full academic support for all varsity athletes, which includes mandatory study hall, weekly academic meetings with our academic coordinator and tutoring. We put academics first and hope to teach our student-athletes organizational skills as they transition from high school to college. We have study-hall for student-athletes, a dedicated academic advisor for athletics, and tutoring available. The team has one of the highest GPAs on campus out of the 16 teams we house. Having these academic expectations increases the chance of success of the student-athlete their first year with all of their new responsibilities and commitments as a varsity athlete. 

As a varsity program, our teams are fully funded. The school, including medical services to the student-athletes, covers all things rugby related. They are covered by athlete insurance and any injuries sustained playing for the school is covered. We have full time coverage from 2 trainers to cover our team, 2 training rooms available for the athletes on campus, visits from a medical doctor, and chiropractic treatment. 

 Now I haven't really touched on the rugby program, in just 3 years as a varsity program, we have won 3 National Titles. We have won the Collegiate Rugby Championship (CRC) title in both 2016 and 2017. We were the 2016 USA Rugby College 7s champions and runners-up this year. We have made the 15s final four every single year. We were named Best College Program of 2016 by the Rugby Breakdown. In just three years of the program, we've had twenty of our players invited to Junior/Collegiate All-American camps, 7 players chosen as All-Americans, several who have trained with the women's national team, and one who has been selected for the Senior Side National Team for both 15s and 7s. We just completed the 3rd year of our program and we pride ourselves on an elite rugby environment paired with a number of undergraduate degrees that can be earned in a student-athlete’s tenure at Life. 

 We have the best coach to player ratio of any program in the United States, currently averaging 1 coach to every 6 players. Our program is made up of a select few who have the highest aspirations and shared goals to continue to grow and develop every day. With the long history of strength of our men's teams (club and collegiate) that just won the national championship and several others (2011, 2013, 2014, and 2016) we share the same resources and have the same standard of excellence. There are scholarship opportunities, dependent on skill level and they can increase over time. 

Below are some additional highlights of our program’s offerings:

1) An elite training environment

●  Coaching staff comprised of current and/or former Eagles and USA National Team coaches
●  Competes in USA Rugby’s top collegiate 15s division
●  Competes annually in the Collegiate Rugby Championship 7s
●  World renowned athlete care facilities and a dedicated team of health professionals
●  Rugby-specific weight room and full-time strength & conditioning coach
●  Two rugby-specific fields and access to indoor facilities

2) Full academic support including

●  Designated study halls and readily available tutoring 
●  Full-time Academic Support and Compliance Analyst
●  Faculty Athletics Representatives that work directly with the athletic department to help enrich the academic environment of student-athletes 

3) Complete university and athletic department support as a fully varsity sport
4) National exposure with annual matches aired on The Rugby Channel, NBCSN 
5) We are a NIKE brand institution

 

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