Riverdale’s Gandy brings women’s professional rugby to the pitch

Riverdale resident Koma Gandy fell in love with rugby in college, and cofounded the first professional league in 2024.

Courtesy Women’s Elite Rugby

Riverdale resident Koma Gandy is a Navy veteran and a Harvard University graduate. She is also the cofounder of the nation’s first professional women’s rugby team.

Women’s Elite Rugby — representing San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Denver, New York and Minneapolis — is entering its second season. It announced its broadcast partnership with the Women’s Sports Network on Feb. 18, a major step forward for a sport long ignored.

Rugby is a high-intensity team sport where 15 team members on either side of the field carry, pass and kick the ball toward the opponent’s-goal. Unlike other sports, play continues after a member is tackled.

In the 1990s, Gandy said, women’s rugby was overshadowed by old-fashioned, sexist views. She recalled women’s teams having to play on fields ridden with potholes and crooked lines, while men’s teams played on newer, properly maintained grounds.

But at one of the New York Exiles’ early matches last spring, she felt a sense of pride that moved her to tears. Surrounded by a broadcast team and nearly 1,000 fans, Gandy knew the rugby landscape had shifted.

“We were told you should be happy with crumbs, but we wanted the cake,” Gandy said. “We proved if you build it, they will come. People paid money to sit in those seats and watch rugby.”

The Philadelphia-native said she got “bit by the rugby bug” while a soccer player at Harvard. A friend of Gandy’s invited her to a practice, and despite her preconceived notions about rugby — missing teeth, broken noses and cauliflower ears — she went, and the affinity began.

She admired the sport’s inclusivity. There wasn’t one build or body type that made someone right to play, and the grit required in a combat sport was something she carried with her once she joined the service in 1996.

Fresh out of college, Gandy became a surface warfare officer, where she managed the operations of a naval ship. Since the policy that prohibited women from serving in combat roles was only lifted in 1993, women in leadership positions were still rare, and at one point Gandy was the only woman on the ship.

She had one bathroom available to her — a men’s bathroom with a sign that she flipped to read “female” — and faced pushback from others aboard. Sometimes she entered a room and everyone fell silent, another time a man slammed a door in her face and said “women’s lib,” a patronizing phrase that refers to the women’s liberation movement.

“Being a rugby player, you’re used to getting knocked down, and you just keep getting back up,” Gandy said. “For every person that was unpleasant, there were three more that said ‘We love your energy. We’re glad you’re here.’”

In 2022, after working in finance, consulting and tech, Gandy was selected to help lead an amateur rugby league into professionalism. What would later become Women’s Elite Rugby started in 2009 as the Women’s Premier League, an organization that ran on club members’ dues and typically played in community fields or recreation centers.

Gandy, a former player in the league, joined five other women with backgrounds that spanned athletics, investment banking and sports medicine, to spearhead the transition. Women’s Elite Rugby was finally announced in 2024, at a time when public interest in women’s sports was steadily rising, Gandy said.

“With the elite, professional experience, we’re playing in stadiums,” Gandy said, adding the initiative was funded by private investors. “We have professional level broadcasts … Players don’t have to pay anything for their travel and receive stipends for their meals.”

Women’s Elite Rugby debuted in March 2025 with 180 players across six teams, along with coaches, athletic trainers and support staff to lead marketing and operations. Gandy said, as the league continues to grow, it hopes to pay its members a living wage so they can play full-time.

Gandy moved to Riverdale 10 years ago with her husband and 5-year-old son. The New York Exiles play at the Stadium at Memorial Field in Mount Vernon, where Gandy said friends and family can connect over a sport they may not have had exposure to previously.

“They’ll be pleasantly surprised by how much they enjoy the athleticism and intensity,” Gandy said. “It’s such a positive, uplifting experience … Even if they don’t know rugby, they’ll come away with something they really enjoy.”