La Salle University to Add Sports, Including Women's Rugby
La Salle University to Add Sports, Including Women's Rugby
La Salle University's Department of Intercollegiate Athletics and Recreation is adding four varsity sports, including women's rugby, President Daniel J. Allen, Ph.D., and Vice President of Athletics & Recreation and Director of Athletics Ashwin Puri announced today.
The school will add women's rugby, women's acrobatics and tumbling, and women's triathlon, and will reinstate baseball, all for the for the 2025-26 school year. La Salle will also bolster its cheerleading and dance squads as well as add a band program to enhance the student experience on campus and the fan experience at athletic competitions.
The plan has been endorsed by University leadership and the Board of Trustees, including the Board's Student Experience, Athletics & Recreation Committee.
"Over the course of the last several months, La Salle University and the Athletics Department have had the opportunity to re-examine the current climate of intercollegiate athletics and our own position and offerings," Allen said. "Through a careful analysis, the Department determined the conditions that led to eliminating varsity sports in 2020 have changed and that the timing is right to add select varsity sports, enhance our dance and cheerleader squads, and develop a band program."
The sports additions bring the number of varsity programs to 23 (nine men's and 14 women's).
This new women's rugby program will be an NCAA Varsity team.
La Salle anticipates 225 new students between the growth of current rosters, starting the four sports, the enhancements to cheer and dance, and the addition of band. To begin, the University anticipates an initial year-over-year increase of 40 student-athletes in fall 2024 for existing rosters separate from the expansion as it builds the infrastructure to support a larger cohort of student-athletes on campus. The University will then add another 160 new students in fall 2025 and then 25 more new students when at full capacity by fall 2026.
La Salle University is a private Catholic university located in Philadelphia, Pa. and was founded over 160 years ago. It boast just under 4,000 undergraduates and competes in NCAA's D1.
