ACRA Officially Relaunches With 4 Conferences, 62 Teams

The American Collegiate Rugby Association has officially relaunched, operating collegiate rugby for four women's D2 conferences in the Northeast.

The conferences—Tri-State, Rugby Northeast, New England Wide, and Mid-Atlantic—will run their conference schedules with 15s in the fall, and end with a playoff among those four conferences. Teams and conferences that were part of NSCRO as small-colleges have now left NSCRO (now NCR) and joined ACRA. The four conferences include 62 women's D2-level collegiate teams.

This is the official announcement from the ACRA Board:

The US Collegiate Rugby landscape has been re-sculpted following the reorganization of USA Rugby and Women's teams have landed in 3 different organizations - The Collegiate Rugby Association of America (CRAA), the National Small College Rugby Organization (NSCRO) now rebranded as National Collegiate Rugby (NCR) and the American Collegiate Rugby Association (ACRA).

ACRA was founded in 2013 with the sole purpose of prioritizing women's collegiate rugby athletes. It provided its members with a desired Fall 15s National Championship and Spring 7s National Championship at the Division II level. As USA Rugby incorporated the Fall 15s Championship in 2016 and Spring 7s Division II National Championship in 2019, the need for ACRA waned. With the restructuring of USA Rugby, the need for ACRA has re-emerged. 

ACRA has been reconstituted as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with a dynamic and enthusiastic volunteer board comprising women and men keen to focus on the teams that are members with representation from all conferences as well as an open invitation for anyone to provide input will ensure that the real time needs of teams are addressed.

Initial discussions focused on how to truly serve and help women's collegiate teams. 

Priorities will include:

• helping teams to increase their roster sizes; 
• improvement of team playing standards; 
• developing individual player skills; 
• coach development; 
• help with administrative duties; 
• developing leadership skills; 
• building relationships with school administrators. 

It is these priorities that will enable programs to grow and flourish. In addition, ACRA will provide national playoff pathways and competition structures for 15s and 7s.

We are hopeful and planning for Fall 2020 competition though we understand the need to comply with state and local policies. Despite the uncertainty of return to play this fall, we will begin work on the above initiatives for our teams. 

—ACRA Board