Kelly Griffin Jillion Potter The Rio Summer Games

Rugby is making its return to the Olympic Games for the first time since 1924. Kelly Griffin and Jillion Potter will compete as a part of the U.S. rugby sevens team, a variant of rugby in which teams are made up of seven players playing seven-minute halves, instead of the usual 15 players playing 40-minute halves. In her first Olympic Games, Kelly Griffin was voted captain of the 2016 U.S. Olympic Women’s Rugby Team. She was named most valuable player of the 2011 Women’s Club Sevens National Championship team, and won the Women’s All-Star National Championship and Women’s Premier League Championship that same year. Kelly also won bronze with the 2013 Rugby World Cup Sevens. In addition to her athletic commitments, Kelly is a student at DeVry University’s Keller Graduate School of Management, pursuing an MBA with concentrations in sustainability management and marketing. Jillion Potter’s personal fight to compete in her first Olympics is unlike any other. Six years after breaking her neck in a friendly match and less than two years after her battle with Stage III cancer, Jillion is one of 12 players named to the 2016 U.S. Olympic Women’s Rugby Team. Jillion won bronze with the 2013 Rugby World Cup Sevens and was previously a captain of U.S. rugby team for the women’s sevens and has been a part of the team since 2007. She is also a student at DeVry’s Keller Graduate School of Management, pursuing an MBA with a concentration in entrepreneurship. DeVry University is an official education provider of Team USA, providing the athletes with the opportunity and resources to earn undergraduate and graduate degrees while pursuing their Olympic and Paralympic dreams.