Press Release

USNA MEN’S RUGBY CLUB TRAVELS ABROAD DURING SPRING BREAK

NOTE TO EDITORS AND REPORTERS: Naval Academy Midshipmen involved with this team will be available for interviews by request upon their return to USNA. Please call the Public Affairs Office at 410-293-2292 for information.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. - The United States Naval Academy Men’s Rugby club will travel to Toulouse, France and Bilbao, Spain for a ten-day spring break tour and competition with local teams beginning Friday, March 9. Led by head coach Mike Flanagan and team captain Midshipman 2nd Class Seamus Siefring, of North Olmstead, Ohio, the Navy Men’s Rugby travel team is comprised of forty of Navy’s top players.

Traveling abroad will give the Navy Rugby team exposure to competitive, international rugby with highly-regarded opponents: the Basque French Rugby Team and the Bilbao Spanish Rugby team; as well as an educational experience with foreign culture. The USNA Men’s team has traveled to other rugby nations in the past including Ireland, the United Kingdom and South Africa.

The USNA Men’s Rugby club is a member of the Collegiate Premier League in the Mid-Atlantic Rugby Football Union, the highest level of collegiate competition in the United States. Navy Rugby has consistently been among the top clubs in the nation since its inception in 1963 and since the introduction of the Collegiate National Championship in 1980, USNA Rugby has made a name for itself as one of the toughest teams. USNA Rugby has qualified for the National Championship ten of the last 12 years and boasts 34 All-Americans at almost every position on the field.

Founded in 1845, the U.S. Naval Academy today is a prestigious four-year service academy that prepares midshipmen morally, mentally and physically to be professional officers in the naval service. More than 4,400 men and women representing every state in the U.S. and several foreign countries make up the student body, known as the Brigade of Midshipmen. Midshipmen learn from military and civilian instructors and participate in intercollegiate varsity sports and extracurricular activities. They also study subjects like small arms, drill, seamanship and navigation, tactics, naval engineering and weapons, leadership, ethics and military law. Upon graduation, midshipmen earn a federally funded Bachelor of Science degree in a choice of 23 different subject majors and go on to serve at least five years of exciting and rewarding service as commissioned officers in the U.S. Navy or U.S. Marine Corps.

For more information about the Naval Academy, please visit www.usna.edu or our Facebook page. For more information about Navy Rugby or the spring schedule, please visit www.usna.edu/Rugby/index.html or the Rugby Facebook page.

USNA