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Overview
In this episode of the With You! Rugby Podcast, host Jon Hinkin sits down with Bill Sexton, one of the newest inductees into the USA Rugby Hall of Fame Class of 2026. Bill's story starts the way so many rugby stories do — almost by accident. A wrestler sidelined by a knee injury, he wandered into a single practice at UC Davis and never looked back, eventually taking the field for his very first match as an untrained prop at Hastings Law School in San Francisco.
From there, Bill's rugby life carried him from the front row to the front office. He built a college program from scratch at Truman State (then Northeast Missouri State University), helped found the Heart of America Collegiate All-Stars, and spent 22 years as president of the Western Rugby Union — all while co-creating the Club and Individual Participation Program (CIPP) that helped stabilize the sport's finances at the grassroots level.
Jon and Bill trade stories about international tours through England, Wales, France, New Zealand, and Argentina, a memorable USA win over Scotland in Houston, and the humbling phone call that let Bill know he was headed to Fort Lauderdale as part of the Hall of Fame Class of 2026.
Show Notes
[00:01] Jon opens the episode, noting the Hall of Fame Class of 2026 ceremony is set for August 14th in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with a USA vs. Argentina test match to follow on August 15th.
[00:54] Jon introduces this episode's guest: newest USA Rugby Hall of Fame inductee Bill Sexton.
[01:22] Jon notes he and Bill have known each other since the mid-1990s, and that Bill has been a fixture of Midwest rugby since the 1980s.
[02:08] Jon points out it wasn't Bill's playing days that earned him this honor — setting up the story of how he actually got into the sport.
[02:39] Bill recalls the chance meeting at UC Davis that led him to rugby — a former college wrestler sidelined by a knee injury, he'd been playing intramural soccer when a roommate introduced him to the game.
[03:34] Bill describes his very first rugby match, played at Hastings Law School in San Francisco, thrown in as tight-head prop after the team's starter didn't make the trip.
[04:48] Bill explains his move from the number 3 jersey to the number 1, after a coach, Alan Chapman, told him "the ones are the thinking props."
[05:15] Bill details his earlier athletic background — wrestling at American River College in Sacramento before transferring to UC Davis.
[07:08] After finishing his degree at Davis, Bill heads to Kansas State University for grad school, where he finds a new rugby team simply by wearing his old UC Davis jersey around town.
[09:36] Bill explains how a "couple of years" job at Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine in 1988 turned into a decades-long career as a professor there, with his wife now serving as associate dean for medical education.
[12:45] Bill discusses the toll COVID took on the Truman State program, and the ongoing challenge of rebuilding student interest and rugby culture on campus.
[15:25] Bill reflects on his coaching success at Truman State, including a dozen Heart of America titles and multiple Western championships.
[16:01] Bill remembers the early days of the program in 1989 — a roster of ten or twelve players, held together with a mismatched set of cheap red jerseys.
[16:59] Bill recounts founding the Heart of America Collegiate All-Stars in 1995 to give college players a higher level of competition.
[17:30] Bill mentions his work with Eddie O'Sullivan and George Hook through a coaching certification program early in his coaching career.
[22:53] Bill describes how he "stumbled" into the USA Rugby board of directors after representing the West territory for years.
[23:15] Bill emphasizes the importance of surrounding yourself with good people, citing colleagues like Bob Latham and Paul Mabry who came up through the West.
[25:20] Bill traces his path from secretary of the Heart of America Rugby Union — a role he took at the urging of founder Jerry Seymour — up through vice president and eventually president, then 22 years as president of the Western Rugby Union.
[26:18] Bill explains the origins of the CIPP program (Club and Individual Participation Program), created with Randy Stainer to move the sport toward individual member dues instead of flat per-club fees.
[27:47] Bill details the financial challenges the West faced, including inherited debt from a prior tour, and how building a cash reserve helped the territory weather leaner years.
[30:14] Bill and Jon dig into his travels with the University of Kansas rugby club's touring program, which has sent teams overseas every two years since 1977.
[31:41] Bill recalls specific tour highlights: watching France beat Scotland at Parc des Princes in 1981, the All Blacks face the British Lions at Eden Park in 1982, and Argentina — led by Hugo Porta — upset the All Blacks in 1985.
[34:34] Bill shares a lighter memory from Buenos Aires, where local kids mistook his touring side for a real national team and asked for autographs.
[34:59] Bill describes meeting British Lions front-rowers like Graham Price and Bobby Windsor informally at a motel bar in New Zealand.
[37:35] Bill names the USA's win over Scotland in Houston as one of his best rugby memories.
[38:08] Bill reflects on rugby's culture of humility, describing how he sat quietly rather than celebrated after that Scotland win, out of respect for the opponent.
[40:24] Bill recalls the phone call from Jon informing him of his Hall of Fame selection, and how humbling the news was.
[42:50] Asked to sum up his career in one word, Bill lands on "reliable" — a description a coach once gave him for showing up, game after game, at loosehead prop.
Wrap Up
Jon closes the episode by thanking Bill Sexton for a career that's touched nearly every corner of American rugby — as a player, a coach, an administrator, and a builder of programs and pathways for the players who came after him. From a red-jersey college team in Kirksville to two decades leading the Western Rugby Union, Bill's story is a reminder of how much of the sport's growth has been carried by people willing to simply keep showing up.
Don't miss the chance to celebrate Bill in person — join the celebration on Friday, August 14th in Fort Lauderdale as Bill Sexton and the rest of the Hall of Fame Class of 2026 are officially inducted into the US Rugby Foundation Hall of Fame.
