After firing one last salvo about the high school game, USA Rugby's VP of Rugby Operations, Kurt Weaver, is apparently leaving the organization.

In a Facebook post today, Weaver said:

"Today is my last day with USA Rugby, it's been a true privilege to serve the game with the national organization. Now on to the next project!"

Weaver also sent an email to all SBOs and Geographic Union leaders stating essentially the same thing.

Weaver's tenure at USA Rugby was mixed, with his push to encourage single-school high school rugby, and try to find consistent codifications for the youth game abutting some unwelcome efforts to govern by fiat.

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This week's announcement on the Regional Cup Tournaments (RCTs), which announced the venues without a bid process and appeared to be an effort to lock USA Rugby's governance of all-star play while in the middle of a massive restructuring, seemed to be one last effort to put his stamp on the youth game.

USA Rugby Announced 2020 RCTs. Why Now?

As it is, the all-star tournaments existed before USA Rugby cared, and will likely go about their business once USA Rugby finalizes its changes. What did seem clear was that in the new vision of a much-pared-down USA Rugby national office, there was little room for a VP of Rugby Operations. As hard as it can be for someone to leave a job, this job was likely being eliminated.

What this means is that we are taking another major step toward independence for youth and high school organizations. Just as the Boys HS Rugby National Championships took back its independence, and just as there are still other major high school events (Midwest All-Star Challenge, NAI 7s, Tropical 7s) that USA Rugby has no stake in, so other all-star events could go on their own.

Under Weaver, USA Rugby tried to limit the number of RCTs to make sure they weren't too numerous and thus diluted. But Weaver liked creating rules too much, and his rules on who could play varsity, how much RCTs could charge, and which venues hosted them rankled many.