Victoria Folayan
2024
Inductee
Victoria “Vix” Folayan was one of the fastest and strongest players at the wing position in the history of USA Rugby. The all-star winger represented the USA earning 10 Caps on the National 15s team and 27 caps on the Eagle 7s. She is an incredible individual who excelled on the pitch and continues to excel off the pitch in growing the women’s game in America.
Vix was born and raised in Boston but moved to Florida in her junior year of high school where she was a star athlete at Poinciana High School in Kissimmee, Florida from 2000 to 2002. As a gifted young athlete, she excelled as a sprinter, played basketball, cross country, softball, tennis and became the only female wide receiver on the boys JV football team.
She played her first game of rugby while enrolled at Stanford University, where she ran track as well as competed in the Long and Triple Jumps. As a flanker and winger on Stanford’s women’s rugby team, she was part of two national title-winning teams in 2005 and 2006. “Vix was a huge part of the Cardinal’s two national championships. A powerful wing with a nifty side-step and the ability to run around, or through, tacklers,” comments Alex Goff, editor of Rugby Magazine.
After college, she joined the Berkeley All Blues Women’s RFC from 2006 to 2012 and started on the wing in both 7s and 15s. She helped the 15s team in winning the USA Rugby Women's D1 Championship in 2007 and 2008, and the USA Rugby Women’s Premier League Championship in 2012. In addition to her outstanding club performances, Vix was named to the USA U23 7s team and selected to the Pacific Coast Grizzlies 7s from 2009 to 2013 and was named to the USA Rugby Club 7s All-Stars in each of those years.
Vix debuted with the Women’s Eagles in 2009 and was selected to the 2010 Rugby World Cup 15s roster in England, where the USA finished in fifth place. Vix and Team USA won bronze at the 2013 Rugby World Cup 7s and she was named Rugby Magazine’s Women’s 7s Player of the Year. Goff asserts that Vix “was the consummate finisher for that team, setting a record for the USA women's team in the Sevens World Series with 64 tries. And while that total has been surpassed, when she set the record no one was even anywhere close. Her strike rate of 64 tries in 76 matches is astounding.”
During her 7s tenure, Vix would become the first American to be listed on a tournament World Rugby 7s Series Dream Team (in 2013). She finished her Eagles career in 2016 after the USA’s 5th place finish in the Rio Olympic games, competing in 100 7s games in 27 international tournaments.
Alex Williams, Vix’s coach with the All Blues and the Eagles, sums up why Vix was such a special player. “One of the ways Vix was unique and a pleasure to coach was that she played the game with absolute joy. Everyone I coached loved the game but on the field, ball in hand, Vix was joy in motion. She also had the ability to change the outcome of a game just by deciding to do it. I can only think of a couple of other athletes I played with or coached who were truly able to do that.”
Following her retirement from the USA team in 2016, Vix did not walk away but has unselfishly volunteered for many distinct roles to promote the women’s game. She has become a coach and rugby instructor for various youth and girls’ rugby clinics and assemblies, and the Washington Athletic Club just named her as head coach of its 7s team. Since 2022, Vix has been an international athlete representative on the USA Rugby Board of Directors and on the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee Athlete Advisory Council (in 2023, rebranded to United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee Athlete’s Commission).