Women’s Rugby Kicks Down Doors to Become Trailblazers, Champions

Katie Dowty was hired as the first varsity head coach of the women's rugby program in June of 2015.

The program had been around since 1978 as a club team — as the second oldest women's collegiate team in the country. With an already strong reputation, Dowty called accepting the Dartmouth job a "no-brainer."

"I knew a lot of rugby players from Dartmouth and knew how well-supported and successful they had always been," said Dowty. "I knew they had all the pieces to build a program of sustained success at a place that had already invested in rugby the way Dartmouth had, even before elevating to NCAA status."

A member of the USA Rugby national team from 2010 to 2014, Dowty has been at the forefront of several steppingstones in women's rugby. And she continues to be to this day.

Dowty is the leader of the program, but just one part of what has made Dartmouth women's rugby a perennial force and national championship contender year-after-year.

She continues to be at the forefront of a sport that is putting not only women's rugby on the map, but also helping women's athletics grow to new heights.

The Program is Born
Where Dartmouth women's rugby is today wouldn't have been possible without the original members of the team.

Kelly Fowler Hunter '83 joined the team in 1979.

"There were some women in the class of 1980 or 1981 who had approached a couple men's rugby players to teach them to play rugby," said Hunter. "They said absolutely. They dedicated time — and I'm sure put up with a lot of friendly abuse from their teammates for working with women and putting together a women's rugby team, which was unheard of at the time.

"This started a year and a half before I got to Dartmouth, but was still very much going on when I was there."

The women joining the team were primarily recruited athletes from other sports who were looking for more opportunities… and looking to break new ground.

"They were doing their recruiting on the Dartmouth Green the first week before classes started," said Hunter. "And there were some very, very lively, fun Dartmouth women who were trying to recruit people and get us to come to a practice. All they needed to say was you can tackle without any equipment, which was incredibly attractive to me."

Hunter, and many others at Dartmouth, wanted to see what it was all about.

The program was off and running.

Women's Rugby Turns Varsity
The program grew over the years and built a reputation that led to another breakthrough — turning varsity for the 2015-16 school year.

The Big Green's rise since that point has been impressive, which includes national championships in 2018, 2021 and 2022, along with championship game appearances in 2017, 2023 and 2024.
2018 Rugby Championship Ledyard

What's one reason Dartmouth succeeded so much so soon?

It had a foundation to build on.

"Some schools who added NCAA women's rugby never had a club women's rugby team, so those programs were building from scratch," said Dowty. "The infrastructure was in place here — a really strong club team with the best fields in the country, a beautiful clubhouse, regular access to the gym and players who were used to an elite level training schedule.

"Then we went varsity and brought in multiple full-time coaches and refined some of the playing style, and we were able to hit the ground running."

Things began in 2015 similar to 1978 — finding women who hadn't come to Dartmouth to play rugby, but who played sports in high school. As Dowty said, they "were really interested in a fledgling varsity program where they knew they could pursue a new sport at a high level."

The Big Green, who had a strong group of walk-ons, beat Brown in the 2015 Ivy Rugby Championship. Dartmouth fell to Norwich in the NIRA Quarterfinals — a team that included Ilona Maher, who was one of the top stories and ascending athletes from the most recent Olympics (more to come on that).

From there, the Big Green continued to chip away. They reached the NIRA Quarterfinals again in 2016 before reaching their first NIRA Championship Game in 2017 where they fell to Quinnipiac, 29-20, in their only loss of the season. That set the stage for 2018 and Dartmouth's first NIRA Championship, beating Harvard at home.

The Big Green won NIRA Championships in 2021 and 2022 before falling in title games in 2023 and 2024.

"I think most importantly, our success is driven forward by our coaches and administrative staff who take on all of the nitty gritty details behind the scenes so we as players are able to focus on developing our skills and connection," said Abbey Savin '24. "I have come to realize over the years what a unique experience it is to be an athlete, and most specifically a rugby player at Dartmouth."

Catalyst to the Success
As Dowty said, "We are one of the programs that's been able to sustain a level of excellence. I've been here long enough now to see the evolution of the game at Dartmouth and globally."

What has led to that sustained success?

"When our team talks about our core values, the thing that always comes up is authenticity — be real, be yourself and celebrate that," said Dowty. "And then, the connections between each other and the community, which is very much a broad value of rugby around the world. What we tell recruits is we believe the culture of our program is so strong because we believe in player leadership. We give the players as much space to lead as we can."

Olympic bronze medalist Ariana Ramsey '22 is extremely happy to see the culture continuing to flourish.

"From my experience, what has allowed us to succeed was our desire to always want to do better," she said. "Everyone wants to do great and therefore we make each other better. I also think the culture that's been cultivated by our coach is the most important thing.
2021 Rugby Championship Ledyard

"We've cultivated an environment where people feel connected to each other."

That connection, and the ethos of the team, hasn't changed since the program began in 1978.

"Those women were some of the first women to go to Dartmouth," said Dowty. "I call them door kickers; they were absolutely pioneers. They did not care about stereotypes. They started the team at a time when women in sport and certainly women in contact sports were not popular."

"At some point, somebody probably would have started a women's rugby team at Dartmouth," said Hunter, "But I like to think that we were not only the ones who started it, but the glue that kept it together during the early years. We had very little funding from the college, and we were playing out at fields that were miles away. It was really a hodgepodge of putting it together and keeping that spirit alive."

Hunter called the Dartmouth women's rugby program "The little engine that could."

"I take pride in knowing it could have folded any number of times in the early 1980s and we just kept it going," she said.

"They planted the seeds for what is now one of the most successful varsity programs in the country… and that's not a coincidence," said Dowty. "All of our alumnae are still very involved in the program, more so than any other rugby programs I'm aware of.

"They're a huge part of our success."

Savin feels deeply invested in Dartmouth women's rugby.

"When incoming students answer why they chose Dartmouth, generally the most common answer is for the sense of community, which very much held true for me through the years," she said. "However, I couldn't quite have foreseen how deeply I would feel that connection to the rugby legacy at Dartmouth, how transformative that would be for my relationship to my sport and how I perceive my role as a continuing player and alumna who hopes to remain invested in and connected to the future of the DWR program."

Playing After Dartmouth
Not only has Dowty helped the Big Green earn success as a program, but also a number of her players have gone on to play internationally and professionally.

"I recently heard [legendary women's basketball head coach] Dawn Staley speaking about taking pride in making sure her players at South Carolina are ready for the league and that they're turning out players who will go on to be leaders in the game and play in the WNBA," said Dowty. "We feel the same way. We take a lot of pride in our players who leave here and are ready to jump onto the international stage or play in professional leagues around the world.

"There's even a budding domestic professional league in the United States that a lot of our alumnae are playing in."

The league, Women's Elite Rugby, which includes the Boston Banshees, features a number of Big Green alums — one of which is Savin.
Abbey Savin Ledyard

"My involvement in WER has been an incredible reminder of the greater purpose of sport," she said. "The rugby community is small. Many of the players who have spearheaded WER's development were until very recently, or still are, players themselves. I feel so passionately about the future of the sport and incredibly grateful to be where I am at this moment in time.

"My experiences with Coach Dowty, and connections to DWR alumnae, have modeled for me what it means to be a trailblazer," Savin continued. "Alumnae will tell us stories of the difficulties of maintaining DWRC in the early years — drives to Sachem, affording jerseys, finding coaches — and when I think of how proud they look when they come to see DWR play, it reminds me how lucky my generation of players are to have the kind of opportunities that lay in front of us."

Part of Something Bigger
Big Green alumna Ramsey was part of the U.S. Olympic Sevens Team this summer, which won bronze. It marked the first women's rugby medal for the United States.

"There were multiple NCAA athletes on that squad to win the first Olympic medal for us," said Dowty. "And the attention they garnered for the sport, that truly has been a watershed moment for women's rugby… sliding glass door… whatever metaphor you want to use. You can't not mention Ilona (Maher) in terms of the growth of the game, because she's the most-followed rugby athlete in the world. And in 2017, we were playing against her [when she was at Norwich]."

In the Bronze medal match, the U.S. defeated Australia, 14-12, as time expired.

"It was amazing to win the country's first medal in history by women in rugby," said Ramsey. "Women in sports are on a rise right now and are adding to the growth of games that have already been populated by men. It's great for everyone to add a new spark to the sports world.

"I'm excited to keep growing this game and being a part of its journey."

As Dowty said, the "everybody watches women's sports" movement is very much real.

"Now, everywhere I go, people who have no idea about rugby ask me if I know Ilona Maher," she said. "She's literally exposed millions of people to rugby who hadn't been exposed to it before. You have to think that's going to start even more people playing in their younger years, which could trickle up to fill more NCAA programs, and could be the tipping point for us if all goes well."

More NCAA programs mean more opportunities and even further growth for everyone involved in the sport.
2022 Rugby Championship Ledyard

"There's a paradigm shift happening," said Dowty. "We started this program a little bit before that totally tipped over, and now we want to make sure we rise, along with all women's sports — total equity parity with the men's athletes. Our players are part of that."

No better example than not only Ramsey, a Dartmouth alum at the highest level, but also all the Big Green athletes.

Hunter sees the sport's growth when she attends current Dartmouth women's rugby games.

"I see ESPN+ out there, often having a former women's player giving commentary," she said. "Just to see the attention it's getting is exhilarating."

"The coolest thing I have come to realize in the past year is that in our lifetime, the opportunity gap between men and women in sports is going to close," said Dowty. "With the emergence of the 'Caitlin Clark effect,' and in rugby, the 'Ilona effect,' people are realizing how authentic and exciting these athletes are to watch. And as long as they are on TV and more young girls are being encouraged to play sports as a child, they are equally exciting as athletes in the professional or international realm.

"We're going to live through a century when there were no women playing rugby to where they're equally celebrated, marketed, broadcasted and paid fully as professional athletes," Dowty continued. "That gap is going to completely close in our lifetimes and we're part of it."

Very much so.

Dartmouth women's rugby was kicking down doors in the late 1970s/early 1980s, and continues to do so to this day.