How Ball-4-All Grant Kick-Started the HCYA Team
How Ball-4-All Grant Kick-Started the HCYA Team
The United States Rugby Foundation's Ball-4-All program will be announcing its 2025 recipients and at GRR we thought it would be fun to see what impact those awards have had on their program.
One of the teams that the ball grant really helped was HCYA. The Houston-area school team is Homeschool Christian Youth Association. Formed partly thanks to team director Gambrill Wagner's son, HCYA is a program that supports sports teams for homeschooling high-schoolers. They run PE, soccer, basketball, swimming, volleyball, softball, and baseball.
Learn More About the Ball-4-All Program Here>>
Wagner asked if they wanted to support a rugby team and, a bit shockingly, they did.
"They were wonderful," she said. "They provide a website, and insurance, and help with admin things that aren't so fun. And we went under their umbrella."
Houston Sabercat Hunter Blanchard was found to coach the team, and he channeled his knowledge of ancient history to bring a Roman Legion theme to his trainings. The kids, almost all of whom had never played rugby, ate it up.
Fast forward a year and a half, HCYA went from borrowing players and eking out games with just enough numbers to winning the Rugby Texas development league. This year, HCYA is in the Rugby Texas D1 Varsity league. It's a big step, and they might struggle, but they are in the league. And all of that, said Wagner, can be traced to the United States Rugby Foundation Ball-4-All program.
"We were just getting started and we had zero budget," Wagner said. "So we applied for the grant for the balls and we got it. That was our entire inventory of rugby balls. We got 25 and we're still using them. Without them we wouldn't have been able to play. We could have done some fundraising but we were just getting started. Instead we got all these beautiful rugby balls in a box and we blew them up and were ready to go. It was hugely important for us."
If you would like to support the Ball-4-All program, or donate to the US Rugby Foundation's general fund for grassroots rugby, please go to here>>