We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Avery Watts a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Avery, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about serving the underserved.

Rugby, traditionally in the hood is not something that’s heard of typically. There may be one or two kids who may have heard of the game or randomly had a P.E. Teacher have it be part of the curriculum, but in terms of a club team for them to grow up in, the same way that a kid can grow up playing AAU or pop Warner? Unheard of.

In 2021 when we started the club, we knew that we wanted to serve the South Los Angeles region (everything below the 10 freeway, as far south as San Pedro, west as inglewood, and east as East LA). We also knew that we would be dealing with unique, South LA issues. We’re not like other clubs who may have a long storied history of expats coming to the club and playing and having a plethora of experience.

Instead, we have players who may have been in contact with social workers throughout their life, have had run-ins with gangs, and/ or May not have had the opportunity to finish their college degree due to a lack of access and funding.

As the South LA Soul, we’re here to serve those players. To give them an outlet in their adult life, and to be part of a community. We’re not looking to remove them from that community, we’re there to help people embrace their community, give back to it, and represent their community in a healthy way, through rugby competition.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Avery Watts, I am the President of the South LA Soul Rugby Club. I have been playing rugby for over 15 years, starting in 4th grade with my P.E. Teacher and middle school teachers. I got into rugby because I was a football fanatic and wanted to engage with something similar in the winter/ spring when football season was over. Through time, rugby overtook my love for playing football and I decided to engage fully in playing, coaching, refereeing, and administering rugby. Playing in High School at View Park prep really solidified my love for the game, as I was able to travel to New Zealand, Tahiti, Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong through rugby. Having the ability to connect with people who may not have the same customs or speak the same language as you, all through a sport, is the love that I want to share with everyone.

As I graduated from college in 2018 and came back to my community, I noticed the changes. Gentrification, closed businesses, and less healthy outlets for the community. In 2021, with my board, launched the non-profit Soul Athletic Club, which administers the growth rugby in the community, and our first program is the South LA Soul Men’s team. While we have plans to launch a youth, and women’s program, we felt it was important to start with a men’s program to give the men in the community a positive outlet that represents their community, allows them to blow off steam, and to learn about one of the largest global sports.

We are open to everyone, but we seek to serve our community and align with people who have the same vision for growing rugby in South Los Angeles.

Football, basketball, and baseball are traditionally the sports played but my goal is to introduce rugby and within 20 years, there will not be a kid in our region, who does not know what rugby is.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

We built our audience on social media by investing heavily in the artist community around us. We have creatives, photographers, videographers, who are always looking to capture photos or videos, and tell a story through those images. When we first started, we didn’t have a huge budget for it, so we just asked if the people on the sideline who were watching would take videos or pictures for us. The first game we had, we had a supporter just take a quick clip of anything they found interesting, and it turned out to be an amazing play that then went viral on multiple rugby pages. People from around the world now knew what Soul was. The instagram page exploded from 300 to 600 followers within a month.

In the next year, we decided to elevate that, and never underestimated the power of having a photographer or videographer. You never know what that big shot is going to be.

Finding a local creative who’s willing to take pictures or videos of your business, product, event, etc. let’s the work that you are doing do the talking versus trying to explain to everyone the amazing work that you are doing. I’ve had to learn that I cannot be the forefront of Soul, and instead, Soul needs to represent the people who come and put in the work everyday, that’s our story.

Any advice for managing a team?

In order to manage a team, you must be able to manage yourself. Human beings are variable and unpredictable, sure, but if you as a leader are also the same way, and do not carry a set of standards, your team will have to come up with their own answers. When people look to you as a leader, they need to know that you will either have the answers, or will make a plan that will get the answers. This takes the personal work from you not reacting irrationally, and getting frustrated with everything that will go wrong, like I said earlier, human beings are unpredictable.

Maintaining a high morale comes when you celebrate all victories including the small ones. It lets your team know, that even if it doesn’t feel like, we are still moving the needle. Make daily deposits into getting better, and before you know it, you’ll see the dividends pay back.

Contact Info:

• Website: SouthLaSoulrugby.com
• Instagram: Lasoulrugby
• Facebook: South LA Soul RFC – Fans Page
• Youtube: LA Soul Rugby Team

Image Credits
Edgar Miguel