Evan Hoese is an incredibly striking person, quite literally. When she tackles, she aims low and powers her legs through, driving her opponent into the rugby pitch- even faster than she drives her Subaru. The experience of sitting in the passenger seat of an Evan-driven car strikes the same mixture of gut-wrenching fear and awe of speed that occurs when matched opposite of her on the field.
Even though she only started playing rugby in the spring of her freshman year at Harvard, Evan practiced running hard lines in the backyard with her father throughout her childhood. Her calm command was evident from her college days, as she captained her Radcliffe team to win a collegiate DII National Championship where she was named MVP. According to Shelby Lin, a teammate from Radcliffe Rugby, “Evan is a natural leader. She plays with a ton of confidence and is someone you want to give your all for, because you know she’s always going to leave everything she has on the field.” Upon graduating with a degree in Social and Cognitive Neuroscience, Evan didn’t stray far from her illustrious alma mater, and brought her rugby prowess to Beantown.
Prior to the 2014 World Cup, Evan was asked to attend the Top 50 US Camp, where disaster struck. While competing for a cap, Evan sustained a cartilage knee injury that would set her National Team vision back four years.
This injury did not keep Hoese away from rugby; in fact, she continued to hone her vision and skills as she developed new players such as Cathy Cai (attended Top 50 7s camp) and Courtney Hendrickson (Attended Top 100 15s Camp). Evan lent her wide knowledge to the next generation of rugby as she coached Berkeley All Blues D2 in 2017 and 2018, as well as acted as Assistant Coach to the Berkeley All Blues WPL side in 2017.
Striding on to Soldier Field this past November 3rd for the game against the New Zealand Black Ferns, Evan earned her first national team cap. Hard work, persistence and passion brought her to this moment where she could fly like an Eagle.
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