When he arrived at Dartmouth in the fall of 1996, fresh off three national rugby championships at Utah’s legendary Highland High School, a few Big Green players asked if he was interested in joining the squad. Alex Magleby, who “didn’t even know they had a team,” said yes.
Since then, he has had a monumental rise in the world of rugby, including his appointment as co-president of Major League Rugby (MLR) in December. With America hosting the 2031 Men’s Rugby World Cup, Magleby sees an opportunity to continue growing the sport domestically. “Our intent is building our professional competition up until that moment,” he says. “We’re doing a lot of the hard yards now.”
Magleby, who is responsible for MLR’s strategy and external growth, in 2018 cofounded the league’s winningest team, the New England Free Jacks, with Dartmouth teammate Errik Anderson ’00, Th’06, Tu’07, and served as its CEO and executive chairman.
A key mission, Magleby says, is increasing parity across the league. The Free Jacks have won the last three MLR championships and have grown dramatically. “We’ve got to make sure that all of our partners in the league are in the same situation,” he says.
Magleby won three Ivy League championships as a player and eight as a coach for the Big Green. While coaching, he played for the U.S. national team and, once retired from playing, started an analytics company. He then went on to coach nationally. “He made it work because he always worked two jobs,” Anderson says. “If you’re a Dartmouth student and you’re like, ‘I want to grow up and do this,’ just get ready: You gotta work two jobs.”
