Gopher Rugby Welcome Week Update
Minneapolis, MN – While university has only been in session for a week, the University of Minnesota Men's Rugby team has already had an action packed couple of weeks getting ready for an exciting 2025 fall season. Between training camps, fundraising, recruiting, and much more, the Gophers have spent a great deal of time kicking this season off to a big start.
On the recruiting side, social media recruiting efforts this past year led to many local midwest players joining the club. Ten Gophers attended two major welcome week club events, led by recruiting officer Josh Nacker. During these events alone, the Gophers recorded over 50 new recruiting contacts that are already making an impact on the team.
On the fundraising side, the Gophers continued their tradition of cleaning barns for the Minnesota State Fair. During two total cleaning days with 28 combined volunteers, the team raised over $6000 towards new gear and travel. Fundraising officer Declan Rusk also has scheduled other fundraising efforts such as “Do Good with Chipotle” to help the team.
On the practice side, the team has been putting in a lot of effort to keep the momentum from the spring going. Between summer practices, joining local men's rugby clubs, and other conditioning, the Gophers came to this year's mini camp ready to put in the work! In addition to the preseason mini camp and resuming weekly practices, the Gophers also had an exciting practice/scrimmage opportunity with the Eau Claire Blugolds. This is thanks to a lot of work behind the scenes from Gophers head coach Paul O’Brien and the Blugolds head coach Andrew Boucher. Both teams learned many valuable skills from this session and the Gophers are ready to continue the improvement while they gear up for their first conference game at Nebraska.
