USA Rugby Forms Committee to Develop Future Look of Women’s Premier League

from USA Rugby:

BOULDER, Colo. – USA Rugby has recently started working with the Women’s Premier League (WPL) to form a committee that will make recommendations for policies and procedures regarding the movement of teams in and out of the WPL starting in 2011

To ensure stability and to continue to refine its governing principles, the league will retain the eight original teams for the 2010 WPL season. The charge to the committee is to make recommendations on the WPL structure for 2011 and beyond.  The future look of the WPL will be determined by late July, enabling all changes for 2011 to be communicated to all women’s club teams by the start of the fall 2010 season.

The committee’s focused task is to develop the criteria and processes for new teams to join and existing teams to drop out of the WPL, as well as to develop a recommendation about whether or not to expand the number of teams in the WPL.  The committee recognizes that these decisions will impact many clubs currently outside the league and will involve consideration about how best to grow and raise the level of women’s club rugby in the United States in future years.  This committee’s work regarding the WPL is the first step in a longer-term discussion and plan for USA Rugby to address these broader goals for all levels of women’s club rugby.

The recommendations regarding the future of the WPL will be stronger and more solid as a result of input from women’s clubs and by a transparent process. To that end, in addition to input from the existing WPL teams, the committee will be soliciting information from Division I teams that may have been or may be impacted by the WPL and by any potential future changes to the league’s structure and composition.

Committee members will soon be contacting and soliciting input from women’s DI club teams in their geographic areas.  Additionally, the committee plans to hold an open conference call for clubs to provide input and ideas once the committee has identified key issues and made some preliminary assessments.

The committee members and the geographic areas they represent are listed below, along with contact information.

–          Phoebe Boone (phoebeboone@gmail.com); liaison to the Pacific and SoCal Regions

–          Roger Bruggemeyer (zonscoach@gmail.com): liaison to the Midwest and West Regions

–          Nancy Fitz (fitz@house-o-dogs.com): liaison to the Mid Atlantic and South Regions

–          Jessa Giordano (jessagio@gmail.com): liaison to the Northeast Region

–          Dre Khoury (drekhoury@gmail.com): chair of the committee and of the WPL Governing Council

–          Alex Williams (awilliams@usarugby.org): USA women’s high performance manager and USA Rugby representative to the WPL

For more information on this committee, please contact Dre Khoury at drekhoury@gmail.com. For more information on the Women’s Premier League, please visit www.usarugby.org/goto/womens_premier.