It’s no secret that American rugby is having a moment. While we see the Dancing with the Stars clips and the medal ceremonies, what we don’t often see is all of the work that went into making USA rugby competitive on the international stage. We also rarely get to know any of the women who did all of that work, which is why we’re so excited to introduce Nicole Heavirland to all of you.
Nicole grew up in Whitefish, Montana with two brothers: one a few years older, and one who just pipped her at the line by 45 minutes. They all grew up spending more time outside than in, and Nicole doesn’t remember a time when sports wasn’t a huge part of who she is. Two of her favorites were tackle football and wrestling. Although she started to get sized out of football, her eventual outcast from wrestling took a slightly more psychological turn. Nicole wrestled with the boys, and most of the time that was fine. But it was hard to forget that often she was an only: an anomaly. At competitions there would be some parents who would refuse to let their sons compete against Nicole, worried that it would encourage their sons to “beat up on girls.”
At the time, there wasn’t a viable path forward in football for Nicole, or for other girls who like to tackle. I asked, if tackle football had been a high level option, would Nicole have pursued that or still found her way to rugby. She admitted that she would have loved a career in American football, making it all the more exciting that football is one of the fastest growing sports for girls in the United States.
Instead Nicole chose basketball, in part because she was told she’d never make it. At only 5’5”, the rim looked far away, but Nicole was willing to go the distance. She took her talents across the country to Phillips Exeter, then down to West Point Army. But despite proving the haters wrong and enjoying the game, it wasn’t the right fit. She decided to leave basketball and join the rugby team and immediately knew: these are my people. Rugby has long been a sport that recruits from other disciplines, welcoming and molding the misfits. Because of rugby’s relative obscurity in the United States, kids don’t grow up aspiring to be rugby players.
You don’t find rugby: it finds you. And if you’re an American girl who loves to tackle? Chances are it will come calling.
Something unique about coming to a sport as an adult novice, and into a sport that has a lot of novices, is that it encourages humility. Learning how to put the ball in play in the scrum is not something everyone learns to do as a child. Passing or kicking a rugby ball isn’t intuitive to the American consciousness, and being taught the rules felt like being initiated into a very special club. Everyone within the sport is trying to grow it, so everyone is incentivized to be a teacher. In turn, everyone also has to be a learner.
Nicole learned quickly. She had her first national team appearance in 2015, and with the Rio Games right around the corner, she went all in for that coveted title of Olympian. She was named as a reserve, a hair’s breadth away from being named to the team as a full member. Missing out on the team crushed her, and she thought maybe she and rugby had reached the end of their shared road. She started looking at school applications, thinking that finishing her degree seemed like the safer option.
A phone call with her dad changed the rest of her life. He asked her, “What if you just played rugby?” He reasoned with her that school would always be there, but she’d never get the chance to chase a dream like this again. So she stopped scrolling for admissions information, and put her nose back to the rugby grindstone.
Nicole has spent 10 years in the national team system, and has never been beaten by anyone on a fitness test. She’s become a treasured teammate, leader, player and person both within the 7s national team system and on her 15s team. Rugby has taken her all over the world, and she’s shared big and little moments with her family and friends. One of her favorite memories is the first time she helped Team USA topple New Zealand, the All Blacks, whose blood runs thick with rugby royalty. New Zealand was dressed in white for the match, and Nicole could smell their vulnerability all the way from the pre-game locker room. She just knew the story of that day would be different. And it was. She also earned that illustrious Olympian title in Tokyo, and traveled again to the Olympics as an alternate in Paris.
After Tokyo, Nicole’s playing minutes started to go down, and she knew the time had come to start thinking ahead. She’d seen too many athletes retire from sport without a plan, and struggle as a result. Retirement is a huge problem in the sporting community, with a paucity of resources leading to uncertain transitions, which in turn can lead to a variety of mental health issues and illnesses. In a study done by the NIH of over 24,000 athletes, it was found that retiring and retired athletes were over two times as likely to be diagnosed with depression compared with the average population.
I asked Nicole, if she could, whether she would play rugby forever. She laughed, acknowledging how much she loves it, but also how much it costs physically. She doesn’t know when she’ll be ready to hang up her boots, but whenever she does, she knows she’ll be leaving behind a lot more than just rugby. She’ll be leaving a community that has made her feel so free to be herself, that’s treasured her tenacity, taken her on countless adventures and filled her life with teammates who’ve become best friends. She hopes to find some of that same community in the Chula Vista fire department, where she’ll head once she’s ready. She has already completed EMT training, and plans to finish her firefighter training upon her retirement from rugby.
Many athletes feel as though focusing on their careers beyond sports distracts them, but for Nicole, the knowledge that her next career is waiting for her has allowed her to live more in the moment with rugby, and worry less about what comes next.
For many of us, it’s hard to know when or where to start when thinking of retirement. Years of dedication to sport leave behind unfinished degrees and massive holes on resumes. It can feel easier to put the decision off, but there are lots of small actions you can take during your athletic career to make that eventual transition easier. And, as we know too well, the timing of that transition is not always on your timeline. Nicole advises patience and openness. It takes a long time to reach our athletic goals, and often there is a pressure to immediately transition into another career we feel equally passionate about. Most of the time good things outside the sports world also take time, so be patient with yourself. Nicole also loves to say, “Walk into every room like you don’t know who you’re going to meet.” She advises eating lunch with someone else other than your team bestie who you’ve shared every meal with (we’re all guilty of it). Instead, keep an open mind to who you might meet and how that connection might help you advance your career later on. At Parity, we also recommend giving your LinkedIn a little TLC!
Until she’s ready to move on to the next chapter, you’ll catch Nicole continuing to smoke rugby rookies on fitness tests, traveling for competitions and giving incredibly official tours of Boston. And when the noise gets too loud, you can find Nicole on the river. She doesn’t remember the first time she went fishing, but it’s always been what’s felt like home. Like a lot of athletes, Nicole finds it hard to find peace in true stillness. Sitting on a meditation cushion doesn’t feel like unwinding. The balanced pressure of the rod in her palm and the gentle yet firm swish of her line as she casts out into a quiet morning are what sets Nicole’s busy mind at ease. Keeping her hands busy in the habitual movements allows her mind to slow down and take her away from rugby or putting out fires, both real and metaphorical.
Wherever the next few years take Nicole, she’s had a career to be incredibly proud of, and we envy the team who recruits Nicole in her next chapter.
About Parity, a Group 1001 Company
Minority-founded in 2020, Parity's mission is to close the gender income and opportunity gap in professional sports. By developing high-impact collaborations between brands, professional women athletes and their fans, Parity has proudly put more than $3.5 million in the pockets of women athletes, attracting dozens of brands to the movement in the process. The platform offers connections to more than 1000 women athletes from 80+ sports, including well over 200 Olympians and Paralympians. For more information on how to tap into the rapidly rising influence and popularity of women athletes, visit https://paritynow.co or follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Threads.