Ada Milby

Ada Milby (born 6 July 1983)[1] is a Filipino rugby player who plays for the Philippine national women's team. She is also the first female member of the World Rugby Council.

Ada Milby
Born	6 July 1983
Nationality	Filipino
Children	2
Relatives	Sam Milby (brother)
Military career
Allegiance	United States
Service/branch	U.S. Army
Years of service	2005
Rank	Staff sergeant
Battles/wars	Iraq War
Rugby career
Height	162 cm (5 ft 4 in)
Weight	81 kg (179 lb; 12 st 11 lb)
Height and weight correct as of August 2017
Rugby union career
National team(s) Years Team Apps (Points) 2012– Philippines National sevens team(s) Years Team Comps 2012– Philippines (sevens)

Early life and education

Milby was born to an American father and a Filipino mother[2] in Troy in Ohio in the United States.[3] Ada Milby has a younger brother Sam Milby who would later be an actor in the Philippines.[4][5] She grew up in Tipp City in Ohio where she attended high school.[2]

In high school she played American football for the boys' team of her school as a left half back or safety.[2] She described the experience as "unwelcoming".[6] She only stayed in the team for a year due to gender discrimination she encountered from her own male teammates. Prior to playing American football she was a competitive figure skater for 12 years.[2]

She attended the DeVry University for her college studies.[6] It was on her first year of college when she decided to take up rugby when she encountered a booth of girls recruiting rugby players at the Wright State University.[2] She graduated from DeVry with a degree in "Business Management, Klemmer & Associates in Leadership".[6]

After graduating from Devry, Milby entered the US Army in 2005[3] and was stationed in Iraq for a year.[5] She held the rank of staff sergeant.[7] In Iraq, she served in a 500-personnel batallion, with only 25 women.[3]

She would later come to the Philippines in 2011 to reside with her brother who had settled in the country.[5]

Playing career

Milby made her international debut for the Philippines in 2012 and was designated captain of the rugby union team later that year.[8] She also captained the sevens side.[6] She was part of the rugby sevens squad that competed at the Asian Women’s Sevens Series in 2013.[9] She has also competed at the Southeast Asian Games having competed at the 2015 Southeast Asian Games where she helped the team secure a bronze medal,[10] the 2017 Southeast Asian Games.,[11][12] and reclaimed the podium in the 2019 Southeast Asia Games with a silver medal finish.[13]

Rugby administration

Milby is involved with the Philippine Rugby Football Union as its Secretary General. In 2013, she was the head of development for grassroots rugby in the country, launching the "Get Into Rugby" program in the same year. This led to her nomination as a member of the Philippine Rugby board of directors. She then became a member of the Asia Rugby Executive Committee[8] and the Women's Rugby Chairperson of the continental body.[6] The World Rugby Council decided in 2017 to allow for 17 new members provided that all of them would be women.[14] Asia Rugby was the first one to respond to the move of the global body naming Milby as the first woman member of the World Rugby Council in mid-November 2017.[15] In 2020, she was named to Rugby World Magazine's list of Top 50 Most Influential People in Rugby.[16]

Milby was elected as president of the Philippine Rugby Football Union in December 15, 2020. She will succeed Rick Santos.[17]

Personal life

As of 2017, Milby has two daughters with the younger born in 2015.[6]

References

1. "Athlete Profile - Ada Milby". KL SEA Games 2017 Result System. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
2. Careem, Nazvi (13 June 2020). "How Filipino Ada Milby went from playing American football with the boys to the top of women's rugby in Asia". South China Morning Post. Retrieved 14 June 2020.
3. Pedralvez, Manolo (23 November 2020). "Despite celebrity surname, PH rugby official Ada Milby carves own path". ABS-CBN News. Retrieved 23 November 2020.
4. Policarpio, Allan (17 March 2013). "Sam Milby an adrenaline junkie". Philippine Daily Inquirer. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
5. "Sam takes role of 'big brother' to sister". ABS-CBN News. 20 November 2012. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
6. ""My dream is to make 50% of rugby players in Asia be women and girls"-Ada Milby,". Asia Rugby. 9 August 2017. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
7. https://sports.inquirer.net/398335/influential-womens-standout-ada-milby-working-hard-to-raise-rugbys-ph-profile
8. The Wires (24 November 2017). "Boost for Volcanoes as Ada Milby becomes first woman member of World Rugby Council". Sports Interactive Network Philippines. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
9. Atencio, Peter (14 January 2017). "Saldo is Slimmers World Ms Great Bodies 2016". Manila Standard. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
10. "2015 SEA Games Medalists" (PDF). Philippine Olympic Committee. Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 December 2017. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
11. The Wires (19 July 2017). "Letts, Morris, Olivier head 19-man Philippine pool for SEA Games rugby sevens". Sports Interactive Network Philippines. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
12. Reyes, Marc Anthony (18 August 2017). "SEA Game: Active PH Volcanoes ready to erupt". Philippine Daily Inquirer. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
13. https://news.abs-cbn.com/sports/12/08/19/sea-games-ph-volcanoes-keep-rugby-gold-lady-volcanoes-settle-for-silver
14. Greene, John (26 November 2017). "John Greene: World Rugby sets the gender balance standard Ireland must strive to match". Independent.ie. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
15. "World Rugby council set for historic women representative reform". ESPN. PA Sport. 24 November 2017. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
16. Dymock, Alan et al. “The 50 Most Influential People in Rugby.” Rugby World Magazine, Aug. 2020.
17. https://www.philstar.com/sports/2020/12/18/2064767/philippine-rugby-body-elects-new-president