Ashfield New Director of Rugby at Stanford
Ashfield New Director of Rugby at Stanford
Rich Ashfield has been named Director of Rugby at Stanford University.
Ashfield, who has been serving as interim Head Coach of the USA Women's 15s National Team, will be overseeing operations for both the men's and women's teams at Stanford.
For the past seven years Ashfield worked under previous Director of Rugby Josh Sutcliffe as an assistant coach. Before that he coached Providence College women and the Beantown women's club, as well as working as an assistant at Brown.
He has been on the USA WNT staff since 2013.
“I am very excited to take over as the Director of Rugby at Stanford University," said Ashfield. "The rugby program has an extensive history of excellence in both the men’s and women’s programs. When I moved here seven years ago, I never expected the impact that Stanford would have on me. I hope I can continue to move the program forward and give the student-athletes a rewarding experience both on and off the pitch.”
The job is a two-sided job for Ashfield. The Men's team plays in D1AA in the California Conference and works hard to be competitive at that level. They have the capability to challenge for that conference title, but, Ashfield told GRR, they are rebuilding and still are dealing with after-effects from COVID. The pandemic hit that program harder than many.
For the women, their history includes several championships in the old D1 playoffs (before the splitting into D1 Elite and D1, and the development of NIRA). From 2005-2014 Stanford made eight national D1 finals, winning three times. They are coming back to that level, and a very competitive loss to BYU last spring indicated that.
"We will return a lot of players and hope to continue to be competitive," said Ashfield.
"Stanford is a very appealing place to attend school: great weather, an amazing campus, and a rugby facility in Steuber field that I believe is second to none. We need to do a better job of marketing that."
