Year in Review: Highlights from 2025 at MICR!
To supplement our December newsletter, see our YEAR IN REVIEW below, where MICR staff picked out a favorite memory from each month of 2025!
January
Mentor-Mentee Night at the Memphis Grizzlies!
We kicked off 2025 with a mentor-mentee night at a Grizzlies game! We are so happy to continue our partnership with MENTOR Memphis Grizzlies, which helps us provide high-quality training and professional development for our mentors and opportunities for our mentor-mentee pairs to connect.
About the January Grizzlies event, one mentor reflected, “My mentee attends school out-of-state, so this was actually our first time meeting in person! It was such a great opportunity to get to know each other and spend some time together before she went back to school for the spring semester.”
February
Akilah Cathey Awarded All-NIRA with First Team Honors!
We are so proud of MICR alum Akilah Cathey and her accomplishments playing for Brown Rugby, where she was a leader on the team with 12 tries and 60 total points!
Akilah graduated from Brown in Spring 2025 and is now working part-time for MICR as an academic mentor in our Alumni Support program, while starting her career as a teacher with Teach for America!
March
All-Star Girls Win the Urban Rugby Championship!
After dominating pool play, MICR All-Star girls took the
field for the final and earned their second Urban Rugby
Championship title!
By competing in the Urban Rugby Championships, our students are trailblazing pathways for more youth on a national scale. By winning the Urban Rugby Championship, they demonstrate the success of MICR as a model for what is possible for mission-aligned initiatives nationally.
Check out this short video of MICR player Jada Dickens scoring a try!
April
MICR Alumni at the Collegiate National Championship!
7 MICR Alums represented their respective universities at the April 2025 Collegiate Rugby Championship. Darius Cooper & Erron Hubbard (University of Memphis) linked up with Akilah Cathey (Brown) for this picture between games.
Later that day, Akilah led her team to their 3rd consecutive national championship and was named to the 'Premier All Tournament Team' for her outstanding play.
May
Celebrating the MICR Class of 2025!
In May 2025, 40 MICR players graduated from high school, and 3 MICR alumni graduated from college!
Our high school graduates continued on to over 25 different colleges, universities, and trade schools, many attending the same schools as one another and joining older alumni who were already students at those schools! Some of our graduates entered the military - representing 3 different branches!
We were so thrilled to welcome the high school graduates into the MICR alumni network and the mentorship, employment, and community to be found there.
June
MICR at the Teach for America Welcome Event!
MICR Alumni Coach Kamyia joined the Teach for America (TFA) corps!
She started work at Soulsville Charter School, where she is also a coach for the girls rugby team!
Kamyia, along with fellow alum Akilah Cathey, are both current first-year TFA corps members. MICR’s connections with TFA go back to our roots, with MICR being founded in 2012 by two TFA corps members.
We are so proud of Kamyia, Akilah, and all of the 2025 TFA Corps Members!
July
MICR Scholarship Winners Announced!
Huge congratulations to the 2025 MICR Scholarship Winners!
The MICR scholarship, offered annually to graduating high school seniors and alumni, helps students bridge the financial gap and make progress toward their degrees.
The students who won the scholarship in 2025 are accomplishing great things!
For example, Tanyejah was accepted into the competitive radiology program at Austin Peay State University, and is currently working for MICR as a mentor, after having participated in college mentoring as a mentee during her first two years.
And stay tuned in 2026 - Akayla will be completing a paid internship with MICR this coming year, where she will earn academic credit toward her degree in Sports Management! We look forward to welcoming her aboard!
August
MICR Rugby Complex Groundbreaking!
In August, we gathered with stakeholders, policy makers, community members, and our players, alumni, and their families to celebrate the groundbreaking for the MICR Rugby Complex on Vance, our very first home field.
The ceremony featured a performance by the Craigmont High School band, as well as remarks by MICR leadership, stakeholders - including Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris - and our players and alumni.
Click here to see more photos from the event, or see News Channel 3's coverage of the event here.
September
Fall Season Kickoff and Rugby 101 Event!
We opened the season in September with a scrimmage between all five of our high school teams!
The scrimmage doubled as our Rugby 101 Day!
We welcomed families, community members, and all of our middle school teams to come out for the scrimmage. We had coaches and volunteers on the sidelines giving live commentary on what was happening on the field, as well as informational handouts about rugby.
Also in September was our opening Middle School Round Robin!
All four of our middle school girls teams - Soulsville, Bellevue, Power Center Academy, and Ridgeway - showed up on gameday to start the season strong!
Every year, we run middle school girls teams in the fall, with middle school boys playing in the spring.
October
MICR’s Jay Uiberall Leadership Series (JULS) Participants Volunteer at MIFA!
For our October JULS session, we brought our high school participants to MIFA for a workshop on community and collaboration. After the workshop, the students volunteered at MIFA’s food distribution center!
Our JULS program meets throughout the academic year for workshops and community engagement, culminating in an end-of-year celebration every spring.
JULS participants go on to be leaders on and off the field, serving as team captains, coaches-in-training for our middle school teams, and more!
November
College Workshops for MICR Juniors and Seniors!
In November, MICR organized three college workshops for our juniors and seniors, pairing a total of 30 students with individual mentors to help them plan their post-high school lives.
Mentors led their mentees through the process of identifying their academic and professional goals, searching for colleges, and planning out next steps.
And, for students who were looking to play collegiate rugby, coaches and volunteers helped them learn differences between varsity and club sports, how to decide what sort of college athletics will be best for them, and and how to get recruited.
December
Celebrating the Year at An Evening for MICR!
Our annual fundraiser, An Evening for MICR, took place in early December at the FedEx Event Center at Shelby Farms.
In line with our theme, The Voices of MICR, we invited players and alumni to share their stories with attendees.
Thanks to our supporters and attendees, we raised over $100,000! To everyone who attended, participated in our live action, and participated in our donation drive, thank you again. Your support strengthens the community our students rely on and helps open doors to the opportunities they deserve.
Looking ahead to 2026…
We are so excited for everything that is in store for MICR in 2026!
We are looking forward to continuing with traditions such as sending our all-stars teams to the Urban Rugby Championship and continuing our K-12 Pathways and Alumni Support programs, as well as launching new projects, including starting elementary school programming, creating a new high school rugby team, opening the MICR Rugby Complex, and piloting a new program to support our alumni.
