GRR: USA Rugby
April 2016 kicked off with the meat of the college and HS seasons.
The women's Varsity 7s series started - Quinnipiac Edges AIC in 1st Women's Varsity 7s - as the concept of a varsity-only women's college season started to take stronger hold.
USA Rugby CEO Dan Payne held a live video Facebook chat Friday, answering questions from rugby people around the country and overseas.
March rolled in like a lion with the USA 7s in Las Vegas, followed by a new World Series tournament in Vancouver.
Both were huge successes, with Vancouver selling out all available seats - allowing them to open the upper deck at BC Place for 2017 - and Vegas continues to grow, and will even more so with the Women’s World Series USA stop moving to Sin City as well.
January, 2016 started with the news that the USA Men’s National Team had a new coach - John Mitchell.
The search had taken some time following the 2015 Rugby World Cup. For a while, previous Head Coach Mike Tolkin was in a sort of limbo waiting for decisions to be made. Meanwhile, a search was on and Mitchell, who ran the All Blacks in the early 2000s, came on board.
The ongoing discussions between USA Rugby and PRO Rugby USA is about PRO wanting to extend the league's sanctioning agreement past the current three-year deal.