Sgt. Savannah Purdy, human resource sergeant from the U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command’s Human Resources Directorate, and fellow teammates of the Aberdeen North Bay Women’s Rugby Club recently won the 2024 Atlantic Super Regional Championship game in Wilmington, Delaware May 4.
The North Bay team secured a 52-5 victory against Garwood, New Jersey’s Union County.
Although Purdy is very proud of this accomplishment, more than four years ago prior to joining the Army, she would have never imagined herself even playing rugby. Purdy said she played soccer her entire life, but after her permanent change of station to Maryland, she couldn’t find a soccer team close to the area that she could join.
Then she learned about the North Bay Women’s Rugby Club and decided to join to maintain her physical fitness.
Purdy expressed gratitude to two important people that helped her reach this achievement.
“My head coach and his wife have driven my motivation for my military career and my motivation for my rugby development,” said Purdy. “They are definitely two key individuals I’ve met here during my time here in Aberdeen that have motivated to be better than I was the day before.”
When Purdy initially joined the team, she learned she had a shared military connection with the coach and his wife who were both retired Army. The coach’s wife informed Purdy about an opportunity to apply for the All-Army women’s rugby training camp.
“My Army recruiter told me about the All-Army sports program,” said Purdy. “I knew it was something that was going to pique my interest at some point in my Army career. But I didn’t know when it would align with my career, and I didn’t foresee my interest in rugby overcoming my interest in soccer.”
According to Purdy, All-Army Sports is a program run through MWR and it is available to Active Duty, Army National Guard and Army Reserve, and Active Guard Reserve. Coaches of the teams in that program select a certain amount of service members to participate in the training camp for a particular sport. From that point, the team that is selected will play the other military branches (Coast Guard, Marines, Navy, Air Force) in a competition.
After the coach’s wife convinced Purdy to apply for the program, Purdy submitted an application and was accepted to go to the All-Army Women’s Rugby training camp.
Purdy starts All-Army Rugby training camp July 2024.
To learn more about the All-Army Sports program, please visit https://www.armymwr.com/allarmysports
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