The Women’s Rugby Club at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville was coming off a terrific fall season. The team was ranked eighth in the country by the National Small College Rugby Organization and was looking forward to the spring season, but everything changed once COVID-19 hit. Instead of feeling defeated with their season being cancelled, Mackenzie Darkow, president of the rugby team, and her teammates decided to spread virtual messages of hope through their UW-Platteville Women’s Rugby Facebook page.
“Everyone is struggling in their own way,” said Darkow, a junior mechanical engineering major from Hartland, Wisconsin. “We want them to find happiness even though we are all having to stay at our homes. It doesn’t mean we have to disconnect from each other.”
The uplifting messages are not the only way the team is giving back. They are also recording themselves reading children’s books. “Not everyone is fortunate enough to have books or to have people to read to them,” said Darkow. “We want to help where we can.”
Although this is not the outcome the team wanted, Darkow noted they are already preparing for next season.
“We are still doing team workouts. We do what we can from all of our homes. We are hoping we can come back just as strong as we left off,” she said. “We are holding on to the fact it might be a little longer until we can play than we thought. We are excited to see each other again, start practicing and do as well as we did last year.”