USA Rugby is expected to announce its All Americans as early as this afternoon, and possibly tomorrow.

The All Americans list will be, as usual, a recognition of the top (men’s) college players in the country. Then after that All American Head Coach Alex Magleby, along with Age Grade Director Matt Sherman, are expected to announce a playing squad that will host New Zealand Universities in July.

The process will be very similar for the All Americans 7s team. A list of players will be named, with a squad confirmed later for the National All-Star Championships. The 7s All Americans are set to be announced soon, too.

The All-Americans will assemble at the Olympic Training Center in July and the current schedule has them facing NZ Universities July 9 in San Diego, July 13 in Santa Barbara, and July 16 in San Francisco (subject to change).

The All American 7s team is expected to assemble in late July, and prepare for the 7s NASC August 26-27 in Chula Vista.

BOULDER, Colo. – USA Rugby is proud to announce that Martha Daines has been named the head coach of the Women’s Collegiate All-Americans (WCAAs).

Daines will lead the WCAA Touring Side this summer through a training camp and a two-match series with a Canadian Universities team in Lake Placid, N.Y.

Daines is a veteran coach with experience at many levels, having coached at Macalester College, University of Minnesota, the Minnesota Valkyries, the Midwest All-Stars, the Under-23 national team and the USA-A national team.

“The Collegiate All-American Touring Side provides this talented group of athletes a real opportunity to test their skills and to raise their overall level of play,” stated Daines. “I’m very excited to help the athletes take the next steps along the path to full international play.”

BOULDER, Colo. -- The Women’s Collegiate All-Americans will host a Canadian Universities side in a two match series in Lake Placid, N.Y., at the end of July.  The final match will be on a grand stage, featured during the finals of the Can-Am Rugby Tournament, the largest tournament in the Western Hemisphere with over 100 teams in attendance.

Selection to the All-Americans is an important step on the Women’s High Performance Pathway.  Playing an international opponent in front of a crowd of thousands is a critical development opportunity for our nation’s top collegiate athletes.  The team will train at the Olympic Training Center (OTC) in Lake Placid prior to the matches against Canada.

“Holding camp at the OTC enables us to expose our collegiate athletes to a high performance environment,” said Women’s High Performance Director, Alex Williams.

“It’s a vital growth opportunity for those aspiring to represent the USA on the sevens or fifteens Women’s National Teams.”

Success as a Collegiate All-American is a strong predictor of success at the senior national team level.  Sixteen former All-Americans competed in the 2010 Women’s Rugby World Cup and seven former All-Americans represented the USA at the Las Vegas and Hong Kong Sevens this year.

“It will be an intense week of training and competing as elite athletes and will give the National Team staff the opportunity to see who thrives in that environment,” said Williams.

ALL-AMERICAN SELECTION PROCESS

Collegiate athletes are currently being viewed by selectors around the country during the spring season and scouts will also attend collegiate playoffs and national championships.  In addition, performance at the Collegiate National All-Star Championships in Pittsburgh in June will be an important factor in making All-American selections.

Following the June Collegiate NASC, selections will be announced for Division I and Division II All-Americans, as well as the Touring Side that will compete against the Canadian Universities squad.

More information about the Women’s All-American selection process can be found on usarugby.org, or by clicking here.

Collegiate coaches can nominate their athletes for All-America consideration by filling out the online Nomination Form found here.

ALL-AMERICAN SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITY

Individuals and organizations interested in sponsoring or supporting the USA Women’s Collegiate All-Americans in their quest to defeat their Canadian counterparts at the Can-Am Tournament in Lake Placid, NY, should contact Alex Williams, Women’s HP Director at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

BOULDER, Colo. -- What USA Rugby is touting as "the first ever Men’s Collegiate All-American Sevens team" will assemble this August and plans to compete in the National All-Star Sevens Championships.

This is, of course, not the first ever collegiate All Americans 7s team. An All American squad played in the 7s NASC in 2007 and played as early as 1998. However, often these teams were called, officially, a Collegiate All-Star team. They wore the All Americans or USA jerseys, and were All Americans to everyone who watched them.

The official designation  of the CAA7s mirrors the creation of the High School All-American Sevens this February and makes formal a sevens pathway from high school to college to Team USA.  Sevens will feature in the 2016 and 2020 Olympic Games so these athletes will be well versed in the seven-a-side game when that time comes.

USA Rugby All-American Program Director, Matt Sherman acknowledges the importance of giving elite student-athletes an opportunity to compete in high level sevens competitions.

“It’s imperative that we create a competitive environment to develop international sevens players.  The Olympic movement as well as the rapid growth of collegiate sevens rugby have created a need for an All-American Sevens program,” said Sherman.

The All-American Sevens team will be led by current All-American fifteens coach, Alex Magleby, who also acknowledges the need for an elite squad as well.

"In order to pump better prepared, more highly-skilled athletes into our national sevens team, we need to have a competitive test environment for would-be international sevens players as we do for fifteens,” said Magleby.

Magleby himself was a mainstay of the USA Men’s Sevens team, is a former USA captain and former national team assistant coach.

Sherman recognizes that Magleby has done great things with the All-Americans, and is looking forward to him taking the helm of the CAA7s.

“Under [Magleby’s] guidance, many players have developed into full internationals, evidenced by our current national sevens and fifteens teams being made up of consistently heavy contingents of current and former All-Americans.  We look forward to Alex’s final assembly with the fifteens team, and even more so to him taking over the sevens program,” said Sherman.

Magleby’s experience and expertise with sevens will be an asset to the Men’s All-Americans program, developing skills that sometimes suffer from neglect in the fifteen-a-side game.

"Whether it’s sevens developing for fifteens, or vice-versa, there is plenty of skill complementation: defensive line speed control, footwork through the tackle; evasive running skill and ball management; leg-drive, upper-body combat and efficiency in the tackle contest, to name a few.  An athlete has to do these skills well, at velocity and under pressure, either way."

The CAA7s are slated to compete in the National All-Star Sevens Championships at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, Calif. and possibly in the North American Caribbean Rugby Association 7s this fall.

Magleby will coach the Men’s Collegiate All-Americans fifteens team through the summer and the three-match series with a New Zealand Universities in July.  He will then take the reins of the sevens team in August.

The application process for the Men’s Collegiate All-Americans fifteens team will begin in the fall of 2011.