Taylor Wreath’s (Col ’26) height and athleticism made her a natural basketball player throughout high school. But another sport would prove to be a better fit. “Because I fouled out of most of my games,” she joked, “rugby felt like a natural transition.” Wreath was unfamiliar with rugby when she came to UVA, but after an enthusiastic group of players recruited her at a student activities fair in her first year, she was hooked. Virginia Women’s Rugby, which just celebrated its 50th anniversary, gave Wreath a community at the University—and has provided a significant number of global experiences.

A National Collegiate Rugby All-American Division I player, Wreath was nominated Player of the Year in 2025. She also joined fellow UVA women’s rugby players on trips to England and Ireland. Last summer, along with 22 other men’s and women’s club rugby players, she traveled to South Africa for Game Change: Race, Rugby, and Reconciliation, a UVA course combining athletics, academics, and cultural immersion.

Race, Rugby, and Reconciliation represented the second iteration of Game Change, a program developed by UVA Global Affairs to connect U.S.-based student-athletes with global communities using sport for diplomacy and to address complex social challenges. In 2024, Bridging the U.S.-China Divide Through Sport brought UVA’s table tennis teams to Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Beijing to explore the legacy of “ping-pong diplomacy” through friendly matches, academic exchanges, and cultural site visits. The 2025 Game Change trip engaged student-athletes in South Africa’s Western Cape, combining coaching clinics and competitive play with sustained study of rugby’s transformative power during and after Apartheid.

“Sport has the power to be a tool for social change,” said Carson Crenshaw, a 2025 Batten graduate in public policy who participated in the Game Change program in South Africa. “But it’s important to understand that it’s just one component of a larger approach to address deep-seated systemic and institutional issues.”

South Africa offers a vivid case study. Having emerged in 1994 from decades of repressive white-minority-rule, the country was on the verge of chaos, threatening to further splinter along racial lines. Rugby played a central role in subsequent post-Apartheid national healing when new president Nelson Mandela famously embraced the Springboks—South Africa’s national rugby team, once a symbol of white Afrikaner identity and the violent Apartheid policies this represented—as a force for unity during the South African-hosted 1995 Rugby World Cup.

At Stellenbosch University, the UVA rugby players attended lectures on South African history, Apartheid, and sport. In Langa, an area of Cape Town established as a Black township during the Apartheid era, the students spent time with non-profit organizations including Bridges for Music Academy, which creates opportunities for youth through music and entrepreneurship; and Vusa Rugby & Learning Academy, which provides educational and athletic programs for local children. During the trip, the student-athletes also engaged in friendly scrimmages with teams from the University of the Western Cape, Stellenbosch, and False Bay Rugby Club.

“Some of the most important things I learned about were the biggest issues facing South Africa and the many local organizations that are working to better the lives of everyday citizens,” Wreath said. “I saw how sport connects people and can build more secure communities.” Wreath is majoring in foreign affairs and global studies in part because of the international experiences rugby has provided. Her fourth-year capstone project was inspired by her first-hand engagement with non-profit organizations in South Africa. The work incorporates case study research to examine different organizational models for leveraging sport to promote community development and positive educational outcomes with the goal of making policy recommendations.

Support from the UVA Parents Program and several alumni and parents meant that all the students were able to participate in the Game Change program at no cost.

“From the time I heard about the trip, I was trying to figure out how I was going to be able to pay for it,” Wreath said. “I’m so grateful to the donors who were willing to use their hard-earned money to send us on a trip like that because it was really life-changing.”

Jennie Young (Col ’95), a former colleague of UVA’s Vice Provost for Global Affairs Stephen Mull, who launched the Game Change program, was one of those donors.

“As a Foreign Service Officer, having served at the U.S. Consulate General Cape Town and with Vice Provost Mull when he was Ambassador to Poland, I was delighted to contribute to last summer’s rugby program,” said Young. “I look forward to the opportunity to enable more global experiences for UVA students!”