Recently on social media, attention has been drawn to the continued success, but lack of visibility, of the UNI Women’s Rugby team (UNIWR). Having competed at the national championship in New York, team members are looking to make their presence known on campus and in the community.

Eileen Lieb, co-captain of the women’s rugby team, stated in a Facebook post that, “UNI Women’s Rugby is the only UNI sports team to hold a national title.” Lieb’s post also stated that, “UNIWR is the only UNI sports team to make it to the playoffs 14 of the past 15 years.” These statements were confirmed by the former UNIWR team advisor, Jennifer Murra.

“All the girls on the team are full-time students. Most of them have jobs on top of that,” Lieb said. “We have to pay dues to play rugby and then we have to do a bunch of fundraising on top of that, and we have to do our workouts and we have practice. So it’s really busy, and then we had to fundraise more since we found out we were going to nationals — so it’s just a lot of stuff we have to do.”

On top of school, work and team practices, UNIWR pay dues in order to keep sufficient funds for the team. For veterans, dues are around $250, which is turned in by the first game. For newcomers, dues are $100, due by the last game. Eileen stresses that the team is flexible should students need more time to come up with their assigned dues and payment plans can be made.

As a sport club team under Recreation Services, Women’s Rugby is allotted funds set aside for all 20-plus sport club teams at UNI. The rest of their funds are supplied by alumni, local businesses and other supporters.

“It’s a partnership between recreation services and the clubs and we’re always looking for different ways that clubs can do fundraising,” said Tim Klatt, associate director in recreation services. According to Klatt, the fundraising aspect of club teams may seem intimidating, but there are plenty of resources to make sure the team’s needs are met.

Those resources are extremely important when club teams make it to nationals.

“We love to see our clubs participate on the national stage,” said Luke Bartlett, sport club coordinator.

According to Lieb, when the UNIWR team went to nationals in New York this year, they did everything they could to raise awareness and support for their trip. Lieb explained that getting a team of 22 girls across country is expensive, with the charter bus alone costing $10,000.

In order to raise funds, the team contacted local businesses, sold posters and went door to door in the Cedar Falls area; the remainder of the funds were paid out of pocket by the UNIWR team members.

“I think the biggest thing is, we want to get rugby well known. It’s a great sport. It would just be great if it was more well-known around campus and other students knew about our success and everything — that would be cool,” said co-captain, Molly Langhenry. She also explained that UNI is a widely recognized team in the rugby community.

Lieb explained that the Facebook post was not only reaching out for financial support, but also to increase the visibility of UNIWR. According to Lieb, UNIWR always welcomes new members and encourages anyone who is interested to try rugby.