He was there on day one, part of the original class that built MICR from nothing. He went on to coach, and now he sits on our Board. This month, we are telling the story of Kyre Burt, and what fourteen years with MICR looks like.
In 2012, a group of high schoolers showed up to what they thought was a football interest meeting. What they found instead was a coach named Shane, a sport none of them had ever played, and the beginning of something none of them could have predicted.
Kyre Burt was in that room. A sophomore from Waterloo, Iowa who had made Memphis home four years earlier, Kyre was not sure what to make of rugby at first. Neither were his classmates. "There were a few betrayals," he laughs, "feeling like, what is going on, like this isn’t what we signed up for." But Shane's presentation put the room at ease, and Kyre decided to give it a shot.
He would go on to play all three remaining years of high school with MICR, part of the original class that built the program from the ground up with no blueprint, no upperclassmen to learn from, and no one to rely on but each other and their coach. He still remembers being the first player to receive a kickoff in that very first game. "I don't want to mess up, I don't want to mess up," he recalls thinking. "And then I was just kind of like, okay, this is it. Time to get a good one!"
They lost that day, and spent the next morning picking apart every moment where the game could have gone differently. "There were so many moments where we could have had them," he says. "We could have won! We kind of beat ourselves." That hunger, that sense of “we had them” and “we have to be better”, was the beginning of what Kyre calls a brotherhood. Growing pains and all, he says, "it was fun just getting to learn a new sport with my closest friends."
After graduating in 2015, Kyre had an offer to play rugby but he turned it down to focus on his academics, earning a bachelor's degree in accounting and building a career that now keeps him deep in financial work and audits. But he never left MICR.
He came back as a coach, and found himself standing on the other side of every situation he had once lived through as a player. "It's kind of like a little déjà vu," he says. “ You've been in certain situations, but now you're on the other side of it." Watching the program from that vantage point brought a new kind of appreciation. "I'm going through this experience and now I'm reflecting back on Shane coaching me and I'm like, I don't know how he did it with us being so young and not knowing any rugby." What struck him most was watching players turn to each other for guidance without being asked. The culture had taken root. He could see it.
Now Kyre sits on MICR's Board of Directors, getting a firsthand look at what it truly takes to keep the program running. He came in a little nervous, balancing board responsibilities alongside a demanding career and a toddler at home. But once he understood what was being asked of him, he was in.
When asked what he thinks people most often miss about MICR, his answer is immediate. It is the support that happens between the whistle blows. "Even back when I was in school, sometimes before practice we would have study hall, have someone sit with us and go through our work," he says. "I don't think that's emphasized as much. The fact that we do have these supports in place, and they go a long way in making sure we're not just able to play, but able to perform in life on and off the field."
And when asked what makes MICR special, he does not hesitate. "I don't think a lot of people realize that it's all just one huge web of connections," he says. "Even if you don't pursue rugby further than high school, you're part of a family. You have all these individuals you can reach out to who can guide you, who can give you advice, taking different steps in life." For Kyre, that web is not abstract, it is something he has lived, and something he now helps sustain from the boardroom.
Kyre Burt showed up to a football meeting in 2012 and found something that has never let him go. Fourteen years later, he is helping make sure it never lets go of the next kid either. Somewhere in Memphis right now, there is a kid about to walk into their version of that 2012 meeting. What happens next depends on people like you.
Somewhere in Memphis right now, there is a kid about to walk into their version of that 2012 meeting. What happens next depends on people like you.