Justin X. Hale – Project Pōpolo

Background

I started my rugby journey when I left Chicago for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I grew up playing soccer but loved how rugby offered the same level of that team mentality but in a new and challenging way. I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Communication and received my commission into the United States Navy. From there, I would move to Norfolk, VA for my first duty station and found my first women’s team when I went on an afternoon run one Saturday I wasn’t on deployment. I began refereeing four years into my Navy career when I wanted to start learning more about the game and expand how I could be part of the rugby community when deployment and Navy operations would take me away from my home club for months at a time. In 2020 I made the decision to transition to the Navy Reserves to offer me a chance to continue serving while having more time to pursue other passions – rugby refereeing included – and found my civilian career as an HR Professional.