Grassroots Community Club Rugby and the Last True Community Sport in America

At Bottom of the Ruck, the goal has never been to simply amplify one perspective on grassroots rugby, even when it is our own. The real strength of Clubland has always come from the shared experiences, debates, frustrations, and perspectives experienced by volunteers, players, administrators, and supporters everywhere.

While our accents, competitions, and geography may differ, rugby clubs across the globe wrestle with many of the same challenges. We all struggle for sustainability, identity, inclusion, and how to grow without sacrificing the core values of rugby. Creating space for those voices to be heard matters here at Bottom of the Ruck.

This guest piece is part of that commitment, not just to tell the story of grassroots rugby, but to let the wider community help write it. If you’re interested in sharing your experience, perspective or insights reach out to us to discuss further. 

Author, Steve Mace, Founder and President of Exiles Rugby Club in Alpharetta, Georgia

In an American sports landscape dominated by pay-to-play systems, elite pipelines, and disposable teams, one model has quietly endured. Grassroots community club rugby.

It may not be the most visible sport in the country, nor the most commercial, but it remains one of the last intact examples of a true community-based sport in the United States. And that alone makes it worth paying attention to.

A grassroots community club is defined by a few simple principles. Membership is open. Participation is not limited by age, background, or pedigree. Clubs persist year after year regardless of win-loss records. Governance is local and volunteer-driven. The club exists not just as a competitive entity, but as a social institution made up of players, families, supporters, and alumni.

Grassroots community club rugby in America still largely operates this way.

A men’s or women’s rugby club can still be player-run or volunteer-run. It can be multi-generational. It can be rooted in a town or neighborhood rather than a school, facility, or corporate brand. It can value competition without becoming transactional. Players come and go, but the club remains.

That combination is now exceptionally rare in American sport.

Many other sports once shared these characteristics. Adult soccer had strong community and ethnic clubs. Baseball and softball functioned as civic institutions. Basketball thrived in neighborhood leagues with lasting identity. Over time, most of these structures gave way to centralized leagues, facility-driven programs, and pay-for-access participation. Identity became seasonal. Teams became replaceable. The club, as a social organism, largely disappeared.

Rugby survived this transformation not because it was better managed, but because it was never fully commercialized. It arrived in the United States as a club sport rather than a scholastic one. Adult amateurism was normalized. Late-start players were welcomed. The social side of the game was inseparable from participation. There was no dominant professional model to distort grassroots identity.

In short, rugby missed the gold rush that hollowed out community sport elsewhere. That absence of commercial success turned out to be its greatest protection.

But that protection is eroding.

Across American sport, including rugby, familiar pressures are emerging. Youth participation is increasingly framed as a development product. Competitive success is treated as the primary measure of legitimacy. Administrative structures grow more centralized, while local control weakens. Clubs are subtly encouraged to operate as seasonal service providers rather than permanent civic institutions.

When that happens, the club stops being a club. It becomes a brand, a program, or a team that exists only as long as it produces results or revenue.

The irony is easy to miss. The very elements of grassroots community club rugby that are most often criticized as obstacles to growth are the elements that give it meaning. Rugby remains one of the few American sports where adults routinely play for life. Where winning matters, but not at the expense of belonging. Where the club exists before and after any single season, coach, or cohort of players.

Grassroots community club rugby is not perfect. It is uneven, underfunded, and often frustrating. But it still represents something increasingly rare in American culture: a voluntary, local, self-governed sporting community that values continuity over convenience.

If that model is lost, it is unlikely to return.

The question facing rugby, and perhaps American sport more broadly, is not how quickly it can resemble everything else. The question is whether we recognize the value of what has already survived.

In trying to modernize sport, we should be careful not to dismantle the last remaining examples of grassroots community club life in America.

About the Author

Steve Mace has been involved in club rugby for nearly four decades, beginning as a teenager in Canada at London St. George’s RFC, a club founded in 1958 where he first learned the culture and community of the game. His involvement has since spanned four countries as a player, coach, and administrator. He is the founder and president of Exiles Rugby Club in Alpharetta, Georgia, a grassroots community club with men’s, women’s, and juniors programs built on the traditional minis-to-seniors model. Steve previously served as president of the Georgia Rugby Union and currently serves as Director of the Georgia Barbarians programs, an invitational representative rugby concept focused on recognition and opportunity rather than permanent competition structures. He is a long-time advocate for community-driven club rugby and sustainable grassroots development in the United States.

Club: Exiles Rugby Club
Website: https://exilesrugby.org
Email: join@exilesrugby.org
Social: @ExilesRFC (Instagram, Facebook)