The University of Miami Rugby Football Club is the

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

club of the

University of Miami The University of Miami (UM, UMiami, Miami, U of M, and The U) is a private research university in Coral Gables, Florida. , the university enrolled 19,096 students in 12 colleges and schools across nearly 350 academic majors and programs, incl ...

Coral Gables, Florida Coral Gables, officially City of Coral Gables, is a city in Miami-Dade County, Florida. The city is located southwest of Downtown Miami. As of the 2020 U.S. census, it had a population of 49,248. Coral Gables is known globally as home to the ...

. The coach is Ryan Forston. The University of Miami Rugby team competes in the

USA Rugby South USA Rugby South is an organization that combines a number of unions in the south-east of the USA for competition and representative honours. Their representative team is known as the Panthers. Originally formed as Southern Eastern Rugby Union in ...

against other rugby clubs in

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

and has played teams outside of Florida, including in the

Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to ...

and in other

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

nations.

History

The club was formally founded in 1989 as the

Miami Rugby Club Miami Rugby Football Club is a rugby union club in Miami, Florida. According to rankings in ''Rugby Magazine'', Miami is amongst the top five clubs in the Southeastern United States. They have regularly won the Florida State Championship. Miami Rug ...

for students of the University of Miami, though the team existed prior to 1989 as an

intramural sport Intramural sports are recreational sports organized within a particular institution, usually an educational institution, or a set geographic region. The term, which is chiefly North American, derives from the Latin words ''intra muros'' meaning " ...

at the University of Miami competing against local clubs from 1978 to 1994.

Players

The Hurricanes are made up of students of the University, though players from other countries occasionally have played for the Club while enrolled as students at the University of Miami. The team relies primarily on talent from within the United States, many of whom did not compete in rugby prior to college. Despite this, the program regularly produces Collegiate Select Side players for the Florida Rugby Union and several players have been invited to the

selection camp. The players within the club come from all over the United States, and some have competed previously in other rugby unions. Several players have played for professional clubs on a part-time or full-time basis, including for the San Francisco Golden Gate Rugby Football Club and the

Chicago Griffins The Chicago Griffins RFC rugby union team was founded in 1973. The team competes in the National Division I Midwest League, USA Rugby's top tier, after the demise of the Rugby Super League (United States), USA Super League and play their home game ...

. The team competed in the Battleship Tournament, a national tournament, finishing second to

Louisiana State University Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 nea ...

Club honors

* Florida Rugby Union, Florida Cup Semi-finalists in 2010 * Battleship Tournament, Runner-up in 2010 * Florida Rugby Union, Florida Cup Semi-finalists in 2008 * Florida Rugby Union Florida Cup Runner-up in 1995

Philanthropy

The University of Miami Rugby team is actively involved philanthropically in the

Miami metropolitan area The Miami metropolitan area (also known as Greater Miami, the Tri-County Area, South Florida, or the Gold Coast) is the ninth largest metropolitan statistical area in the United States and the 34th largest metropolitan area in the world with a ...

community, including: *Volunteering at Hard Rock Stadium during

Miami Hurricanes football The Miami Hurricanes football team represents the University of Miami in college football. The Hurricanes compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision and the Coastal Division of the Atlanti ...

home games; *Working every year at a local

Renaissance Festival A Renaissance fair, Renaissance faire or Renaissance festival is an outdoor gathering open to the public and typically commercial in nature, which purportedly recreates a historical setting for the amusement of its guests. Some are permanent the ...

; and *Co-participating with the University of Miami Women's Rugby Team] in Relay for Life.

References

External links

* {{University of Miami College sports teams in Florida Rugby union teams in Miami 1989 establishments in Florida Rugby clubs established in 1989