Maui Rugby Org offers Rugby League, Union, Sevens and Touch Rugby in competitive and recreational programs for Boys, Girls, Women & Men including teams in both
AMNRL and USA Rugby. We host visiting teams for matches and welcome all Rugby visitors to Maui to join us at practice. Cultural exchanges are a big part of Rugby and
we try to engage in as many of them as we can. Check our Rugby News page for current information. Organizational Meeting 12/9 at Kihei Youth Center, 6:00 pm to 7:30 pm.
Rugby Fun Day at KYC Saturday 12/10 9:00 am to noon.
Co-ed U13 Touch @ Kiehi Youth Center U19 Girls at Lahaina Field U17 Boys at the Lahaina Field U19
Boys Rugby 7s, @ Waikiki
U23 Men @ Lahaina Field Women's Rugby 7s @
Kahului Men at Kahului Community Center Field Here is a Video of the Maui U17s in action
Rookies in Lahaina
Rugby Fun Days at Maui Y
We are an all volunteer organization, no paid staff, use 100% of donations to benefit the young people we serve.
The
ten young men in the above photo were the first high school students to
represent Maui in Rugby and did so very well. They won a double overtime semi-final in their very first outing, the 2007 Aloha Youth Rugby 7s
Tournament on Oahu and took home the runner up trophy after falling to a team they tied in the first round of the tournament when they were fresh. Mana O Maui, as we named them, also traveled to the Big Island that year where
many of these same youngsters were eligible to play on Maui's first undefeated team, the U17 boys, who
won their division at the Hawaii Youth Rugby Tournament at Hawaii
Preparatory Academy. These same boys, with a few more friends who joined
them in the middle of that first year completed the U19 full 15 a side
season by defeating Kona from the Big Island and Kalihi on Oahu, shutting out both of them with tenacious defense for the first ever competition between teams from 3 of the Islands of Hawaii in full time 15 a side
matches. They are a magnificent group of young men, who have since gone
on to distinguish themselves in a variety of ways in our community, some
as husbands and fathers working and volunteering here on Maui, others
as university student athletes, one as a missionary, another in service
to our country in the military, and two of them went on to represent the USA on National Teams, one of them as the first athlete from Hawaii
to represent the USA on National Teams of both Rugby League and Rugby
Union.
Since our inception Maui Rugby has been FREE for the players and their families. Our founders, Jack Breen, Hilmy Dole, and Finau Hafoka organized the first ever team of teen Rugby players from Maui shown in the above photo in late 2006. From the very beginning the "pay to play" model adopted by many youth sports programs was rejected by Maui Rugby Org because we know how hard families work on Maui just to make ends meet and want to see all Maui youngsters have an equal opportunity to achieve on the Rugby field and in life.
In
many of our programs we play barefoot to eliminate the expense for
parents of buying expensive athletic shoes that children soon do not fit
as they grow rapidly in our beautiful tropical climate. This
eliminated the uncomfortable circumstance of some children having nice
new athletic shoes and others having none, and expanded the number of
children participating in our programs by a surprising number.
Because
our programs are FREE we serve a segment of our community often unable
to participate in "pay to play" sports, and we have grown rapidly in
both numbers of youngsters served and the variety of programs we have
been able to offer with the help of generous folks like you, and other non profits on Maui who also
serve young people and have partnered with us to offer our programs.
We had often heard that if all things were equal when it came to
opportunities to compete, Hawaii has more than its share of amazing athletes. Soon
after the word got out that our programs are FREE the proof of this
claim came our way very quickly and we soon found it was appropriate for
us to expand the types of programs we offer to help some of the
extremely talented athletes we encounter reach their full potential as
Rugby athletes and as productive citizens.
MRO raises the money to buy equipment, pay union and league dues and tournament fees and the insurance needed to reserve fields, and our biggest challenge of all, the cost to travel between islands to play other teams in our State.
When we served the first 10 youngsters in 2007 this was not difficult, but now we have more than 450 participants registered with us and our success has led to a need to reach out to generous folks like you and ask for support. If you can help us help youngsters develop themselves through very positive acitivies please send a check, frequent flier miles, or sporting goods to:
Maui Rugby Org
449 Kuikahi Drive
Wailuku, HI 96793
The
success of our program is reflected by the numbers we now serve, and by the staggering number of players from our little island, 6, who have made an impact on the National Teams of the United States in the 5 years we have been in operation. But even more important to us is the profound impact we have been able to make on the lives of our
participants.
Josh Aquinde, the first player to ever turn up for one of our practices and the creator of our logo, before playing rugby told us he was considering setting as his career goal becoming a mechanic. That is a fine career, but not one that was a stretch for this young man who is very talented academically as well as athletically. Josh also told us that once he found out how much fun Rugby
was, and that we knew he had the talent to play Rugby for a university team, it helped him develop the confidence to take the risk of
borrowing the student loan he needed to go off to university and seek a degree in International Business. That is something Josh has since said he would not have done without the encouragement he received while playing Rugby with
Mana O Maui, our U19 boys team. Hearing that encouraged us to try to do even more for many more youngsters.
Not only did Josh play for his University Rugby Club,
he captained it to an undefeated season. More importantly, he earned his
degree, and was the first one in his family to achieve that
accomplishment. Josh also took advantage of the Semester Abroad program of his university and studied for a semester in New Zealand, where he played Rugby for that university as well.
The opportunity to improve ones skills by playing abroad in a place where Rugby is played at a consistently high level is one we have been aware of since our founding, which is why we encouraged Josh to seek that semester in New Zealand. It is also why we decided to create a program similar to the one Josh was able to participate in, because he was a university student, for our players who are not university inclined, who with a bit more time playing at a high level have been able to improve their skills to the International and Professional standards. We call that program our Rugby Academy Season Abroad.
In
the 3 years since we have started that program we have been able to
send 3 players abroad, two to England, both of whom returned to become
members of USA National Teams, and one to Australia, who is just about
to return home. Next year we hope to send several more players abroad as
the success enjoyed by the clubs we have sent our players to has opened
up many more opportunities for our players to spend a Season
Abroad.
Our Season Abroad Program has a
100% record of completion which has led to us now having the
opportunity to expand that program to help many more young athletes, if we can find the
funds to help transport them to the host clubs overseas.
In
our Season Abroad programs the host clubs provide housing and
accommodations for a promising young player whose home club is counted on to help him
with the air transport to and from the host club. If he does well the
host club will
send him to trials with the nearby professional team and when he returns home during the off season we will help him get a try out with our National Teams.
In addition to pre-screening players for inclusion in this program (we only send players who are solid citizens as well as very capable Rugby athletes), we also help players obtain their passports and visas, and help with fundraising efforts for the cost of travel to the
countries where the host clubs are located. Having a founder who is a lawyer who donates his time to us in these efforts has been a huge help as has the support of our US Congresswoman, Maize Hirono, who has come to the aid of our players on visa issues more than once.
Our
season abroad programs have been very successful in helping develop
exceptional talent for the USA National Teams. Each player who has participated in our Season Abroad Program has,
within one year of returning home, been selected to play for the USA in an International competition. Very soon, Andrew Malafu,
the first of our players to be sent overseas, will return to London for his third time, and will sign a contract to
play Rugby as a full time paid professional who will make a living wage as a member of the London Scottish.
Many youngsters who joined Maui Rugby during high school are now studying at universities all across the USA and are playing Rugby or football for their universities. We keep in touch with them via Facebook and remain as mentors encouraging them when they want someone to chat with when things are going well or are looking for someone to understand when things are not going so well.
To our surprise those players have created a network of Facebook friends we are a part of that now includes some of the best young athletes in the USA. Many aspire to play in the NFL. Some get that opportunity and many do not. But even those who do can learn very quickly that a minor injury can prematurely end the NFL career of an athlete who can still be among the best in the world in another sport, where the skills needed are just a bit different and the fraction of a second lost in the performance a rehabilitated body part is often not as important as the stamina that comes from an inner drive to succeed.
One of those former NFL athletes turned up at our practices on Maui about a year ago and his circumstances created another program we now operate, helping elite football players make the transition to elite athletes playing Rugby League, Union or Sevens.
There are more than 80 professional leagues of Rugby and Rugby League in the world, each with more than a dozen teams, and Rugby League, Rugby Union, Rugby 7s and Touch Rugby are all played on an International level as well. So the end of a American football career does not necessarily mean the end of a highly competitive athletic career in the world's favorite versions of full contact football, Rugby League, Rugby Union and Rugby 7s, which is now an Olympic Sport.
Our work with these "crossover athletes" has created many more opportunities for our Academy Season Abroad Program and has further challenged us when it comes to raising the funds necessary to help players capitalize on the opportunities we have been able to help them create for themselves. So we are now trying to raise the funds needed for airfares to make as many of these opportunities available to elite athletes here in Hawaii as we can.