KSHB 41 reporter Tod Palmer covers sports business and eastern Jackson County. Have a story idea to share with Tod? Send him an e-mail.
—
The Opening Ceremony for the 2024 Olympic Games isn't until Friday in Paris, but the action actually gets started Wednesday with men’s rugby sevens and soccer.
Kansas City fancies itself as the Soccer Capital of America, but rugby isn’t as well known around town — something Richie Walker, the head of scouting for Premier Rugby Sevens, or PR7s, would love to change.
“Rugby’s kind of a combination between American football and soccer,” Walker said. “You can do all the skills — you can run with the ball, you can kick the ball, you can pass the ball, you can make tackles.”
Walker coached the U.S. Women’s Sevens National Team to a fifth-place finish at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
As the 2024 Paris Games get ready to start, Walker kicked off the PR7s Rise program Tuesday with a three-day PR7s Grow camp for high schoolers interested in rugby — or interested in getting better at rugby — at the Kansas City Current Training Facility in Riverside.
Gavriel Rojas was among the players in attendance on the opening day of camp.
“I’ve been playing since I was 7,” he said. “So, anytime there’s events for the sport and I get to meet more people that have more experience or I get to learn something to improve my game, I’ll be more than happy to go out.”
Rojas got into the sport because his older sister and brother played.
“My dad was like, ‘You know what? You’re next,’” he said. “I played it and I liked it, so here I am.”
He’s excited to watch rugby sevens in the Olympics, a fast-paced version of the 15-player sport, with fewer players and less time on the clock but the same massive field.
“It’s huge for the growth of the game, especially in the U.S., but also you see the growth of the game in other nations,” Walker said.
Walker served as an assistant coach for the Japan women’s sevens squad at the Tokyo Games three years ago.
“Coaching the U.S. at the first — obviously, inaugural — Olympics for sevens on the women’s side was an amazing achievement but also just an awesome experience,” he said. “... That experience was just phenomenal.”
As the head of scouting for Premier Rugby Sevens, a U.S.-based league with eight men’s and eight women’s teams across the country, Walker oversaw an ID camp for league hopefuls last winter.
He said Kansas City has a growing talent pool and appreciates rugby’s rising popularity, including young players like Rojas.
“It’s great, especially in the (Kansas City) area as it’s been getting more recognition,” Rojas said. “There’s been more camps. More kids are out here trying it just from word of mouth. It’s awesome to see the game grow.”
Both the U.S. men and women have teams that will compete in rugby sevens at the 2024 Paris Olympics, where 40 players from PR7s will compete on 11 teams representing eight countries during the next week.
The U.S. men open Group C play against France and also play Fiji on Wednesday before finishing off pool play Thursday against Argentina.
The U.S. women get rolling Sunday with matches against Japan and Brazil before battling France on Monday ahead of the knockout stage.
—