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Our annual MedStar National Rehab Hospital benefit tournament

On Sunday, 22 November 2014, Great Falls Rugby hosted its first Annual Medstar National Rehab Hospital tournament in Great Falls village.

This project was then hastily put together by coach Gary Coetzee in an effort to honor the wonderful people at NRH and the hard work they perform to improve the quality of the lives of their patients. Gary himself is a patient at NRH following a neck injury and is able to walk again after being quadriplegic. Most of the credit goes to the therapists.

The tournament is used to raise awareness of the programs at NRH. Your participation ensures that the club can cover all the costs of the tournament and provides a meaningful donation to the Medstar Adaptive Sports Program. To date, we have contributed over $15,000 to this program. Please visit their webpage to learn more about what they do. More info can be found here: MedStar National Rehabilitation Network.

For this first tournament we started with only 10 Clubs and 25 Teams which included a handful of High School Teams (thanks to Rochambeau(Roosters), The Heights, St John and DeMatha for your support every year since!), and a few MS Teams. We also fielded 4 Clubs at the TAG levels. Today, we have grown to (capacity!) 18 Clubs from VA, MD, DC and PA; and 41 teams as of 2022. This reslults in a full day of play on 3 fields.

We are ever grateful to our Club sponsors Stan Vilgrain at Cuisine Solutions and Shane van Wygaardt at IndigoIT. Please visit thier websites to learn about our benefactors.

MedStar 2023

MedStar 2023: the 9th version sees us back at Nike Park, with all 3 fields in one location.




MedStar 2023: We were very happy to again host our tournament at Nike Park (next to Forestville Elementary School). All three fields and all 60+ games in one location! This makes for a more festival feel to the rugby experience.
Our 2023/24 Fall Session closed with our Tournament. Read about the tournament on the Goff Rugby Report. We take a short break for the Holiday season and start up again mid-January. More info to follow.

We will again have Kiwi Pies and Nando's on offer.

Tournament: MedStar Benefit Tournament (7-a-side)
Who: Teams from VA, MD, DC, PA
Levels of play:
TAG: U6, U8, U10.
TACKLE: Coed U12, Coed U14, Boys U16/JV, Boys HSV, Girls HS
Date: Sunday 19 November 2023
Time: approx. 8:30/9:00-5:00pm
Locations (see MAP):
Nike Park (at Forestville Elementary) 1111 Utterback Road, Great Falls VA 22066
1) Nike 8 (Grass): HS Boys, HS Girls, U12
2) Nike 7 (Turf/Soccer): HS JV, MS/U14
3) Nike 4 (Turf/LAX): TAG/FIT Touch (FIT Touch rules) and U12

Team/Coach/Ref meeting: Tackle: 7:30am and TAG/FIT: 8am at side of Nike 8.

Cost: $200/team TACKLE and $100/team TAG
Register TEAMS here.
Register Individuals (if your club is not registered or you are not part of a Motley Team) here

Map and Emergency Plan HERE

Previous Years:

MedStar 2022: the 8th version has a new location, and looking to grow the tournament and rugby

MedStar 2022: We were very happy to roll out the tournament at our new location at Nike Park (next to Foretville Elementary School). All three fields and all the games in one location! This added more of a festival feel to the rugby experience.

Thank you all for braving the sub-zero temps and gusting wind. Probably our coldest yet! Very happy to report that ALL teams that committed to the tournament, made it out. The wind and cold made it difficult, but we still had a great day of rugby. Fantastic!

Congratulations on winners Holy Family (HS Boys), WC Marauders (HG Girls), W. Suburbs (HS JV and U15), Culpeper/Great Falls U13. Will be checking on the TAG winners :)

Take a look at the article about our tournament here: The Goff Rugby Report

Thanks to Nandos PERI-PERI, every year they help us out with food. Please visit a Nando's restaurant near you, and the Reston branch has a Buy-One-Get-One (see digital voucher here).
Kiwi Pies thanks for going above and beyond! Please visit them here.

Thank you coaches, parents and kids for making this the biggest and best (under circumstances!).

See current pics & videos- if you have any please send to me.

Tournament: MedStar Benefit Tournament (7-a-side)
Who: Teams from VA, MD, DC, PA
Levels of play:
TAG: U6, U8, U10.
TACKLE: Coed U13, Coed U15, Boys JV, Boys HSV, Girls HS
Date: Sunday 20 November 2022
Time: approx. 8:30/9:00-5:00pm
Locations (see MAP):
Nike Park (at Forestville Elementary) 1111 Utterback Road, Great Falls VA 22066
1) Nike 8 (Grass): HS Boys, HS Girls, U13
2) Nike 7 (Turf/Soccer): HS JV, MS/U15
3) Nike 4 (Turf/LAX): TAG/FIT Touch (FIT Touch rules) and U13

Team/Coach/Ref meeting: Tackle: 7:30am and TAG/FIT: 8am at side of Nike 8.

Cost: $200/team TACKLE and $100/team TAG
Map and Emergency Plan HERE

This year the tournament moves to Nike Park at Forestville Elementary. While we love the fields in the Village Center, the 3 Nike fields allow all the Tag and Tackle teams to be at one close location, and easy access to watch any of the games.

A record 41 teams are registered across all the age brackets. There are Clubs from PA, MD, DC and VA. If you are not participating, please come join in on the fun rugby day!

Teams and spectators can enjoy food from Nando's restaurant and Kiwi pies.

Send info to/or more info from: Gary by email
MedStar 2021: a great success!

YES! We were so very happy to once again host the Great Falls MedStar Benefit Tournament this year. COVID did a number on all of us and we are just thankfull for some normalcy. Thank you to everyone for supporting our tournament.

Thanks to your participation we will be able to provide a sizable donation to the MedStar Adaptive Sports Program ($1,300.00). Please visit their webpage to learn more about what they do. More info can be found here: MedStar National Rehabilitation Network.

This year was bigger than ever with 33 teams and included HS Girls for the first time. That is around 500 people that were wandering around Great Falls village!

Please view, share and comment our FaceBook Tournament photos
Read an article about the tournament here: Goff Rugby Report

MedStar 2019: continues with strong tournament.

This year Old Glory Rugby was on-site and offered live ticket sales as well as 20% vouchers off of Old Glory gear for everyone that came to the booth. Games were run on 3 fields at the same time from 9am in the morning. Gonzaga won the Varsity bracket and Great Falls the JV and u15 brackets. In all, $1,200 was raised for MedStar Rehab.

Level of play offered: Coed TAG (Prek-4TH GRADE), Youth Boys tackle, Middle School Boys tackle, and High School Boys (JV & V).

o See the 2019 Medstar Tournament photo album here
o See the 2019 Medstar Tournament photo album winning JV team here
o Read The Connection 2019 article here
o Read the GOFF RUGBY REPORT article here

MedStar 2018: GF hosts 5th Benefit Tournament!

Great Falls Village was once again a busy place on Nov. 17, where our local Youth Rugby Club hosted its 5th annual tournament to benefit the spinal cord injury research and recovery programs at MedStar National Rehabilitation Network.

Congratulations to Legion for winning the Varsity bracket, beating Gonzaga in the final! Our Great Falls group went undefeated and won the u15 bracket. Our very young and new u13 players did well to hold their own in their group.

Great Falls Youth Rugby thanks the community for coming out to support players, as well as sponsors and vendors: Cuisine Solutions, Nandos South African style chicken, and Kiwi pies.

o View the 2018 Medstar Tournament photo album here for HS Tackle, and here for u15 Tackle and here for TAG
o Read The Connection 2018 pre-tournament article here

MedStar 2017: brings out the numbers!

Great Falls Village was once again a busy place on the Sunday before Thanksgiving. On Nov. 19, Great Falls Youth Rugby hosted its fourth annual tournament to benefit the spinal cord injury research and recovery programs at MedStar National Rehabilitation Network.

Great Falls Youth Rugby thanks the community for coming out to support players, as well as sponsors and vendors: Cuisine Solutions, and Kiwi pies.

o View the 2017 Medstar Tournament photo album here for Tackle and here for TAG
o Read The Connection 2017 pre-tournament article here

MedStar 2016: creates a lot of activity in the village!

The GF MedStar Benefit Tournament kicked off on a very brisk and early morning, 20 November 2016.

Once again, the tournament raises awareness of the programs at NRH and the great work done in those programs to improve the quality of the lives of their patients. Your participation ensures that the club can cover all the costs of the tournament and provides a meaningful donation to the Medstar Research Program, as usual in the range of $1,300.00.

Great Falls Youth Rugby thanks the community for coming out to support players, as well as sponsors and vendors: Cuisine Solutions, Strang Orthodontics, Glory Days, Kiwi pies and Buenda’dillas.

o See the 2016 Medstar Tournament photo album here
o Read The Connection 2016 post-tournament article here

MedStar 2015: bigger and better!

Sunday 22 November was a beautiful, chilly and unusually busy day in Great Falls, as Great Falls Rugby hosted its second annual MedStar tournament. Approximately 20 teams from all over the metro-DC area participated in the day-long event raising funds for important research. It was fantastic to see rugby being played on three fields at the same time!

Great Falls Rugby is proud to sponsor this annual event for kids aged 5 - 18 and is extremely grateful to the Great Falls community for their support of the event. Representatives of Katie's Coffee House and the Sci-Math School of Great Falls braved the cold to help keep the kids and parents warm with hot chocolate, coffee and treats.

Ayoba-Yo (South African style sausage and treats), Kiwi Pies and ASPIRE Beverages also provided food and drink with part of the proceeds going to the cause. It was great to see some of MedStar's therapists and wheelchair rugby players taking in the day's action.

Congratulations to Rugby Virginia's high school team for winning the "varsity" bracket and to Gonzaga College High School for winning the U-17 pool.

o See the 2015 Medstar Tournament photo album here
o Read The Connection 2015 post-tournament article here

MedStar 2014: debuts strong!

In all, in our first year, $1570.02 was raised and all proceeds will support the National Rehab Hospital Spinal Cord Program. See the note from NRH here. Thank you to all the contributors for the wonderful generosity!

Great Falls Rugby was excited that Rugby Virginia had agreed to calendar the tournament as an annual event. The Tournament saw teams of all age groups from DC, Maryland as well as Virginia. These included both club rugby organizations and schools. Significantly, the tournament saw the first ever competitive Fall rugby competition between the younger tag/touch kids (U11, U9, U7). It was a successful day and fun was had by all. We look forward to 2015! The event was covered by both print and television news media. Gary agreed to a NBC news spot. A link to that coverage appears here. Unfortunately all the good rugby bits about encouraging people to come out got cut!

Go look at NBC TV spot on Gary Coetzee's injury here
o Read The Connection 2014 pre-tournament article here.
o See the 2014 Medstar Tournament photo album here
o Read The Connection 2014 post-tournament article here





Year 2016: preparing the MedStar Benefit Tournament