Penn State Rugby National Honors
Over the years, USA Rugby has bestowed various honors to the top collegiate rugby players in the nation, including what was previously known as “All-Tournament Team Members” and “All-Americans.” This has more recently transitioned to selections of age-grade National Teams.
The first Penn State men were named to the “USA Collegiate All-American” program in 1992. The selections included First and Second Team designations, plus actual assemblies and matches in some years. The women were first named to the “All-Tournament Team,” which was made up of the top players from the Final Four competitions from 1992 to 1994. In 1995, that honor was replaced with an All-American program, which named First Team and Honorable Mention selections.
National collegiate competitions became increasingly fragmented for both the men's and women's teams in the 2010s. The All-American program was gradually phased out toward the end of the decade, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. It is likely that USA Rugby will replace the All-American program with selections of teams based on age (U-19, U-21) and will include assemblies and competitive matches.
A new “National Honors” display utilizing the existing backgrounds was fabricated and installed in 2022. To save on both space and cost, the existing photographic plates of First Team All-Americans were replaced with name plates, and National Honor awardees of all designations were added.
Fun fact: When the Hall was built, headshots of past graduates were not available, and neither were warm-ups or other suitable gear to standardize the display. The decision was made to Photoshop heads of honorees prior to 2008 onto 1 of 5 body poses in the then-current Penn State Rugby warm-up jackets. The results were (for the most part) pretty good, as seen in the photos of Kate and Justin below.
Did you play rugby at Penn State?
Help us tell more of Penn State Rugby’s history and keep our displays up-to-date! The information we’re featuring at the Kabala Family Rugby Hall is only as strong as we’re able to retell history.
If you see any errors in the display descriptions, names, or dates, please let us know. We will research, verify, and make changes. Likewise, if you have information, articles, or photos that could add important context to any element of Penn State Rugby’s history, we want to hear it! We will be aggregating new information and updating the “tour” quarterly.