About TRIBE Rugby - East County RFC

TRIBE Rugby

TRIBE Rugby strives to provide the highest quality coaching, to foster camaraderie, and to develop each player to the best of his or her potential in a supportive and safe environment.  

Each coach is required to have a background check, be registered and trained by USA Rugby, and our current coaching staff includes current players from the USA National Team 7s - the USA Eagles, who train at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista.

East County TRIBE is a registered club with Southern California Youth Rugby and with USA Rugby, a partner of the Positive Coaching Alliance. 

What is Rugby?

Rugby is one of the fastest growing sports in the United States. Many people are familiar with rugby as a fringe sport, but you may be surprised to learn that it is actually the second most popular sport in the world behind soccer.

In fact, in Europe, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, the teams and players are elevated to a star status that exceeds that of NFL players in the United States! Many teams fill 80,000 seat stadiums for international match play.

The allure of rugby is easy to understand yet hard to explain. Who can’t appreciate the toughness required to play traditional high school 15-a-Side rugby? It's a fast-paced, hard- hitting game that is either 60 minutes long (JV) or 70 minutes long (Varsity) with no timeouts and only a 5- minute half time! With 7-a-Side rugby, the action never stops, and players have a chance to aspire to compete in the Olympic games.

No matter which rugby discipline you play, all players play both defense and offense at any given time during a game, and there are opportunities to play for the Southern California Griffins, the High School All-Americans, the Collegiate All-Americans and the United State's National Eagles teams.

Perhaps the most appealing thing about rugby is that there is a position for everyone who wants to play – large or thin, short or tall, athletic or not... any player can carry the ball, and any player can score. Above all, rugby is a social sport that values competition but demands good sportsmanship. 

Women's Rugby: A NCAA Emerging Sport

The NCAA has given women's rugby emerging sport status. This recognition allows colleges and universities to support women's rugby through athletic scholarships and other funding, including access to facilities and other support.

Currently, at least ten colleges have full varsity women's rugby, including Stanford University, University of California at Berkeley, and Harvard University. As these teams expand, the case for college and university support under Title IX continues to grow.
“In our country, true teams rarely exist... social barriers and personal ambitions have reduced athletes to dissolute cliques or individuals thrown together for mutual profit ... 

Yet these rugby players. with their muddied, cracked bodies, are struggling to hold onto a sense of humanity that we in America have lost and are unlikely to regain. 

The game may only be to move a ball forward on a dirt field, but the task can be accomplished with an unshackled joy and its memories will be a permanent delight. The women and men who play on that rugby field are more alive than too many of us will ever be. The foolish emptiness we think we perceive in their existence is only our own.” 

– Victor Cahn

San Diego Sports & 
Athletics Foundation

TRIBE Rugby is a fiscally sponsored program of the San Diego Sports and Athletics Foundation, Inc., a 501(c)(3) public charity.

As such, all donations made to TRIBE Rugby are tax deductible to the fullest extent of the law.