Ilona Maher Leads U.S. Women’s Rugby to Historic Olympic Bronze, Eyes Growth in College Programs

Former Dartmouth standout Ariana Ramsey had one word for the U.S. women's rugby sevens bronze medal win against Australia on Tuesday at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

"Insane." 

For several reasons: 

• The team scored the winning try as time expired, going nearly the length of the field in front of an electric, sold-out crowd. 
• The U.S. had never won an Olympic medal in women's rugby sevens before. 
• They were facing a rugby powerhouse in Australia, whose players grew up playing the sport. 
• The U.S. roster features only four players to play rugby with a varsity NCAA program: Ilona Maher (Quinnipiac), Sammy Sullivan (Army West Point), Lauren Doyle (Eastern Illinois) and Ramsey. The rest of the roster is mostly a mix of players who competed in club in college or athletes who transitioned from completely different sports.

"We need to have people not just coming in after college. We need to have athletes wanting to choose it," said Maher, the U.S. team captain. "I think we need those people who played the varsity basketball, the high-level soccer to come and want to play rugby and choose it. Sevens is a sport for athletes. We need rugby to be their first choice." 

Played in over 120 countries, rugby is part of the NCAA's Emerging Sports for Women program. The National Intercollegiate Rugby Association and USA Rugby are the sport's governing bodies. In the 2022-23 academic year, 29 NCAA schools sponsored women's rugby at the varsity level. To be considered for an NCAA championship, more than 40 schools must sponsor it at the varsity level and meet the sport's minimum competition and participant requirements. 

Growing that number is vital to continuing to elevate the national team to a level custom to other sports in the U.S.

"I think college rugby is a crucial pathway to the USA rugby sevens team. The more that grows, the more serious colleges take that, the better we're going to be as a program and as a nation," Sullivan said. "I think more than anything, it's just funding for those programs. There's a lot of club rugby teams, a lot of college club rugby teams. If we can get more of those teams into the NCAA and more funding, we're such a large nation, we'd be unstoppable."

For players like Maher, Ramsey, Sullivan and Doyle, competing on a varsity program brought life-changing experiences and development opportunities.

"Honestly that level was a little bit tougher than this at times. It was very strict. It made me the person I am. I did rugby and nursing (at Quinnipiac), so it was a lot. But I had a great coach, Rebecca Carlson, who led me through it," Maher said. "She really helped shape me into this player, as well. She believed in me." 

Ramsey, a track standout in high school, wanted to play a sport in college but was ready to move on from her sprinting career. Rugby offered her a new opportunity to use her skills to stay in sports while pursuing her education. 

"I think it has taught me how to be a better player, a better teammate," said Ramsey, who graduated from Dartmouth with a degree in economics. "Having different coaches has just taught me how to build and be a better player overall. It was a steppingstone in my career to get me to where I am now." 

U.S. women's head coach Emilie Bydwell said the growth of college rugby could be massive for the sport in America and be another example of the how the NCAA system serves as the Olympic training ground for Team USA. 

"If the U.S. can have an (NCAA) championship sport in rugby, can you imagine? We'd have 40 teams recruiting athletes, supporting athletes, developing athletes. Then, for me or whoever's in my role, it just creates all this support, resources, (intellectual property) into the athlete development, coach development, which is awesome," she said. "And then it's genuine competition. The NCAA championship, you've seen how that's developed the basketball players. The rookies that are coming in the WNBA now, they're better because of the level of competition that that NCAA tournament brings, and that'll be the same for us. 

"I was talking to our captains about it like this, I think that we are only really realizing right now how this can be a landslide for us — the way we won, who we are, who the players are. We just hope we can put some systems in place to leverage it." 

The landslide of attention had been building throughout the Olympics, led in part by Maher's social media presence with roughly 2 million followers on both Instagram and TikTok. She helped bring Kylie Kelce, a former Division III field hockey player, and her husband, retired Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce, to some of the U.S. women's rugby sevens matches in Paris, bringing additional visibility to the sport. 

A few hours after the team's historic win, a flood of resources poured in. USA Rugby announced a $4 million gift from Michele Kang, the first woman of color to own a National Women's Soccer League team, the Washington Spirit. 

"People are going to want to see what rugby is about," Ramsey said. "They're going to want to know more about it, and they're going to attend our games. It's just growing the game, which is all we're trying to do." 

Looking ahead to the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, the team hopes its medal can continue to bring more eyeballs and resources to the sport in the U.S. Increasing the number of college programs is a foundational piece of that effort. 

"We need more girls in the U.S. trying rugby," Maher said, "and seeing what it can do for them."

"It will better our (national) program," Ramsey added, "and make us win gold every time."