McKinney Leaves Queens, Starting Program at Wingate
McKinney Leaves Queens, Starting Program at Wingate
Queens University Charlotte Head Coach Frank McKinney has stepped down from his position and is taking up a new job as Head Coach (and, it appears, Director of Rugby) at Wingate University.
The move stems from a QUC connection, as a former Queens administrator is now at Wingate and was looking to kick-start a varsity rugby program at the school. Eventually McKinney because the ideal candidate since he was a known entity and also had started the Queens program, taking it to a USA Rugby D2 title and two NCR D1 finals.
Tyree Reed has taken on the Head Coach position at Queens.
QUC Rugby posted this on social media:
McKinney has apparently been able to develop his roadmap for how this program can be built. He is already on the job and is diving into recruiting.
"Eight years ago I started recruiting at Carolina Ruggerfest for Queens and I will be at Ruggerfest this weekend," McKinney told GRR. "We are looking to build a monster. I know what it takes to build a program to the D1 level. It takes more than players, it takes film study, it takes tracking, it takes S&C and fitness, and it takes playing a lot of tough games."
Wingate University is a private liberal arts university in Wingate, NC with an enrollment of about 3,400.
Wingate is making the move because getting a rugby team can be an enrollment driver. A decent-sized rugby team can bring in significant income to a school. There's an interesting wrinkle with Wingate in that is has a pretty large football program, but that could be a positive for the rugby team if that program is also a source of players for the rugby team.
McKinney said he is putting a staff together and anticipates playing an independent schedule in 2025-26.
"We are not coming in just to participate," he said.
