High School and College Rugby have some steps to take as USA Rugby fixes itself.

Youth & HS took a major step earlier this month, while some college conferences are still playing a waiting game.

The Youth & HS Board

The first group of new Youth & Hight School board of directors has been seated, and that group has voted in a Youth & HS representative to what will be the new USA Rugby Board.

The vote was finalized last week. State Governing Bodies grouped into regions voted on candidates to represent their regions. Some of the candidates won in a unanimous vote, but there were also regions where enough candidates got votes that there needed to be a runoff—indications that there's widespread interest in being part of the process.

The new Board of Directors then met virtually to nominate a representative to the USA Rugby Board, representing Youth and High School interests.

The Youth & High School Board:
Region I (Northwest) - Jason Divine
Region II (Southwest) - David Pool
Region III (Central) - Owen Power
Region IV (Midwest) - Bill Stevens
Region V (South) - Maggie Rouse
Region VI (Southeast) - Kat Aversano
Region VII (Northeast) - Dave Lyme

The Board then nominated Bill Stevens as the organization's representative to the USA Rugby Board. Stevens has been involved in the game for over 35 years. 

College Waiting Game

Meanwhile, there's been a bit of a slowdown in the number of college conferences announcing their affiliations. A big part of that is the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic remains a concern, and with colleges reluctant to open campuses, many teams are thinking there won't be rugby this fall. As a result, conferences, especially in men's D1AA, have been biding their time and progressing to a plan in a measured way.

Seeing as there remains some discussion on how NCR fits into the whole landscape (in brief: NCR is still saying they fit in just fine; USA Rugby says they need to take steps), it seemed that some conferences who might have joined have instead opted to wait to see how everything shakes out.

Those conferences do want to know which organization they are affiliated with before the fall, but there's still time. Likely, a new D1AA-focused group (which we talked about earlier) organized by former USA Rugby collegiate rugby chief Rich Cortez will represent the majority of D1AA conferences that haven't announced plans, but there could be a surprise or two, as well.