OUR STORY
Memphis Inner City Rugby was founded in 2012 by two Teach for America teachers who had moved to Memphis and quickly discovered that what their students needed most wasn't happening inside a classroom. After the school bell rang, there was almost nowhere to go, no structure, no mentorship, no consistent adult presence, and very little that said to a young person: you belong somewhere, and someone is counting on you to show up.
So, they started a rugby team! They believed sport could create the environment their students were missing, and they knew how to build it. They added a mandatory study hall and they coached on the same values they wanted to see in their classrooms. They showed up, season after season, and so did their students.
It worked in ways they did not fully anticipate. Students who had been disengaged found a reason to show up. Young people who had never been part of a team learned what accountability felt like from the inside. Academic performance improved, behavior changed, and relationships formed that lasted years. The rugby field became one of the most consistent and genuinely supportive environments in their students' lives, and word spread.
By 2017, MICR had grown from one team into a city-wide program reaching over 300 student-athletes per year. That same year, the organization hired its first full-time employee. The following year, Andrea Wensits joined the staff and established MICR's Alumni Services program, extending the organization's commitment beyond high school graduation and into college persistence, career readiness, and early adulthood.
As the organization grew, so did its understanding of what students actually needed. Rugby opened the door, but the work that kept young people on track was mentorship, academic support, transportation assistance, nutrition, college guidance, and a community that refused to disappear when things got hard. Programming expanded to reflect that reality, and MICR evolved from a sports organization into a comprehensive youth development model built around long-term, relationship-based support.
In 2021, MICR launched a formal strategic plan and adopted the Pathway model, concentrating resources into three anchor communities in Whitehaven, South City, and Hickory Hill, each with connected middle and high school programming and a full-time Pathway Coach embedded in the community. That same commitment to depth over breadth guides the organization today.
In 2026, after more than a decade of work, MICR opened the MICR Rugby Field, a permanent home for programming and community gatherings in the heart of South Memphis, made possible through $1.1 million in funding from Shelby County Government. It is the most visible symbol yet of what this organization has built, and of what Memphis chose to invest in.
