{"id":82412,"date":"2025-08-21T10:57:03","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T10:57:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/82412\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T10:57:03","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T10:57:03","slug":"she-did-it-big-time-ilona-mahers-road-to-becoming-rugbys-biggest-breakout-star-since-lomu-ilona-maher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/82412\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018She did it, big time\u2019: Ilona Maher\u2019s road to becoming rugby\u2019s biggest breakout star since Lomu | Ilona Maher"},"content":{"rendered":"

One Saturday in September 2014, the women\u2019s rugby team from Quinnipiac University in Connecticut travelled to Norwich, Vermont. On the home team, a powerful 18-year-old prop scored three tries in a convincing win<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Quinnipiac coach Becky Carlson turned to her assistant. \u201cOh man,\u201d she remembered saying. \u201cWho\u2019s the kid in the pink scrum cap? I\u2019d give my right arm to have her.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then that same fall, I had a voicemail. I saved it. And she sounds like a little kid. \u2018Hello, Coach Carlson, this is Ilona Maher<\/a>. I just wanted to call and tell you I want to transfer from Norwich to Quinnipiac. I\u2019m a nursing student. I would like for you to call me back.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I was like: \u2018I didn\u2019t have to give my right arm.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

A decade later, many would give their right arm for time with Ilona Maher. Ahead of a World Cup in England set to take the women\u2019s game to new audiences, the 5ft\u00a010in US center is a global star. Followed by millions on social media, a reality TV contestant<\/a> and swimsuit model broadcasting a message of body positivity, the kid in the pink scrum cap has become a\u00a0phenomenon \u2013 easily rugby\u2019s biggest breakout star in the 30 years since the All Blacks wing Jonah Lomu stormed<\/a> the men\u2019s stage.<\/p>\n

Maher was born in Burlington, Vermont, in August 1996, a year after Lomu lit up his World Cup in South Africa. Michael and Mieneke Maher had three daughters, all athletic. In high school, in her dad\u2019s words, Ilona became \u201ca multi-sport star: starting pitcher for the softball team, state all-star, state all-star for field hockey, state all-star for basketball.<\/p>\n

Quinnipiac\u2019s Ilona Maher charges through the Army defense in 2016. Photograph: Donna Doherty\/Quinnipiac University<\/p>\n

\u201cBut when she got to senior spring, she didn\u2019t like the way the softball program was \u2026 in terms of the lack of exercise. She would say: \u2018Dad, they kept us for two-and-a-quarter hours, they didn\u2019t ever sweat it once. I\u2019m not going to do it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mahers had a rule: you\u2019ve got to play something. Ilona considered lacrosse or track but there was rugby too. Michael Maher found the game at college and stayed with it, propping for Mad River RFC, a club outside Stowe. While Michael played and refereed, Ilona spent a lot of time on the sidelines.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a rugby programme at the other high school in Burlington that allowed people from different high schools to come to it and was coached by friends of mine,\u201d Michael Maher said. \u201cIlona decided to try that. Phone calls started right away.\u201d<\/p>\n

US college sports are serious business, coaches competing to recruit the best of the best. Ilona chose Norwich, an hour south of home, once a military school. Her first year brought success on the field but the culture wasn\u2019t a fit. And so she placed that fateful call to Quinnipiac, a small college in Hamden, CT.<\/p>\n

Quinnipiac women\u2019s rugby had varsity status, bringing funding and focus. Most importantly to Maher, the program was led by Carlson, a coach widely known for her dedication to success on the field and equality with the men\u2019s game off it. As Maher described it to the Guardian in July, before<\/a> a US national team game against Fiji<\/a> in Washington: \u201cHaving a force like that behind you, who believes in you, believes that as a program we deserve more funding, as women we deserve more, that has kind of carried over.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carlson switched Maher from prop to center, her size and speed propelling the Bobcats to three national titles and herself to the MA Sorensen award<\/a> for best women\u2019s collegiate player. Maher got her nursing degree, top of the class, alongside an intense rugby schooling. As Carlson described it, for three years, Maher and her teammates \u201cgot up at five in the morning to lift. You have breakfast, you have training \u2026 two sessions a day. You\u2019re still talking about going through rigorous courses with nursing and all the pre-science they take. You\u2019re doing strength and conditioning, you\u2019re doing agility, you\u2019re going to practice. You\u2019re watching game film. All of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ilona Maher (right) flies in to try and thwart Fiji\u2019s Litiana Vueti during an international in Washington DC. Photograph: Amy Sanderson\/ZUMA Press Wire\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Maher graduated in 2018. There was no professional 15-a-side option for women but sevens had Olympic status. As her father tells it: \u201cShe said: \u2018You know, Dad, I\u2019m not done. I want to keep going, I think I can make the Eagles Sevens.\u2019 Which to me seemed a little funny, because I think of that as a skinny person\u2019s game. But boy, she just worked at it. She stayed so fit and she did it, big time.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2018, Maher made her US debut in Paris. Covid intervened in 2020 but at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, Maher made an impact<\/a>, her play and her social media posts attracting a growing following. In 2024, at the Paris Games, the Eagles took bronze<\/a> with a thrilling win over Australia, Maher\u2019s muscular contribution celebrated alongside widely shared TikTok videos from the athletes\u2019 village complete with her personal hashtag: #BeastBeautyBrains.<\/p>\n

Back home came lift-off: competing<\/a> on Dancing with the Stars, posing<\/a> for Sports Illustrated, endorsing<\/a> Kamala Harris, launching<\/a> her own line\u00a0of cosmetics. Wanting to play 15s at the 2025 World Cup, she signed<\/a> a short\u2011term contract with Bristol in England where she attracted record Premiership crowds before flying home.<\/p>\n

In July, at an awards ceremony in Los Angeles, ESPN named<\/a> Maher Best Breakthrough Athlete. From the podium, she told fans: \u201cStrong is beautiful. Strong is powerful. And I hope more girls can feel how I feel \u2026 Take up space. Pitch it faster. Run harder. Put another plate on the bar and never tone it down.\u201d A few days later, in DC, more than 15,000 paid to see Maher and the Eagles face Fiji \u2014 the Ilona effect clearly moving from the digital realm to the real world.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI don\u2019t know if anybody could quantify it,\u201d Bill Goren, USA Rugby CEO, says of her influence. \u201cShe has made a massive impact on our community, especially our young women who are engaging in a game they probably never would have otherwise.\u201d Similarly, Sally Horrox, director of women\u2019s rugby for World Rugby, saluted how Maher had \u201ccome out of the rugby bubble\u201d and entered the American sporting consciousnessto become \u201cthe eighth-most marketable sports property globally\u201d.<\/p>\n

Amid pomp and circumstance in DC, pressing flesh as cameras flashed, Maher sometimes seemed slightly uneasy, at least with her press. Frustrated by the Eagles\u2019 stuttering play, or her own performance, or just the questions thrown her way, her fierce edge was on display.<\/p>\n

From afar, Carlson looked on. She has experienced frustrations of her own amid 15 years at the sharp end. When Maher was there with her, she felt similar pressures.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would go from these really big peaks to these really deep chasms,\u201d Carlson said. \u201cIt was like: \u2018Yes, this is something I can do, this is what I want to do, no, I can\u2019t do this.\u2019 I\u2019m sure this is the story of a lot of high-profile athletes that we never see, because social media is what it is \u2013 it\u2019s beautiful, everybody was birthed perfect, there were never any hard decisions, never any hard conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ilona Maher is likely to be the centre of attention during US matches. Photograph: Australian Associated Press\/Alamy<\/p>\n

In reality, she says, Maher\u2019s path to stardom has been \u201creally hard\u201d. Seeking to help her athlete, Carlson \u201chad a long conversation with one of my really good friends, Becky Burleigh<\/a>, who coached [record-setting<\/a> USA striker] Abby Wambach<\/a> at Florida. I would be, like: \u2018How did you coach Abby through this?\u2019 Because Abby was very similar to Lo in stature, in the way she played, but also in this other sinking feeling of self doubt that never projected anywhere else. That\u2019s not something that\u2019s usually part of Ilona\u2019s story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nor, sometimes, is Maher\u2019s status as just another player. Before the Fiji game, at a gala dinner near the White House, Maher was in demand but stayed close to her fellow Eagles, dressed in uniform track jacket, jeans and sneakers, blending in when all were called onstage. She and sisters Olivia and Adrianna \u2013 co-hosts of a podcast, House of Maher<\/a> \u2013 regularly speak<\/a> of the need to\u00a0stay grounded. Michael and Meineke Maher are certainly so, radiating positivity.<\/p>\n

At the World Cup, the American women face a stern test. Samoa should be beaten but Pool A<\/a> also includes Australia and England, overwhelming favorites to lift the trophy. Next Friday, the Eagles will kick off against the Red Roses<\/a> in Sunderland, at the Stadium of Light. Fortunately for the US, their star is well used to fame\u2019s bright glare.<\/p>\n

At the DC gala dinner, at the Maher family table, Michael Maher looked back again to his daughter\u2019s days at college, in the program that made her.<\/p>\n

\u201cIlona came in, led Quinnipiac in tries for three years,\u201d he said. \u201cBut more important, she led in assists for three years too. Ilona loves being a playmaker.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll these people that were pooh-poohing her for wanting to play 15s, saying she doesn\u2019t know what she\u2019s doing? They should see her college record. She\u2019s the complete package.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One Saturday in September 2014, the women\u2019s rugby team from Quinnipiac University in Connecticut travelled to Norwich, Vermont.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82413,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-82412","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}