Utah Warriors Co-Founder Announces Plans To Build School And Rugby Academy

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – Utah Warriors co-founder and partner Lucas Kjar announced the purchase of land and a facility to build a rugby academy for young men.

The founder of the Autosource Dealerships is going to build a privately-funded rugby academy that will focus on innovative, tactile, and engaging learning strategies for young men.

Lucas Kjar is calling the school Liberty Boys Academy in Liberty Lake, Washington. The school will launch grades 4th through 6th beginning in the fall of 2021 and will eventually scale up to 12th grade in the near future.

Utah Warriors co-founder and partner Lucas Kjar announced today the purchase of land and a facility to build a privately-funded rugby academy, focusing on innovative tactile and engaging learning strategies for young men. https://t.co/mRsA8k2e5K

— Utah Warriors Rugby (@utwarriorsrugby) December 1, 2020

The Academy was founded by Kjar with the purpose to address the evidence that boys in American society have a need for improvement in three key areas: identity, academics, and relationships. The school will also use an Academy-style use of sport, particularly rugby, to drive many of the school’s goals.

“Rugby is an amazing tool to teach young men teamwork, leadership, and hard work,” Kjar said, ‘The ethos of rugby is a natural fit to the ethos we want to establish at our academy. We are really excited to support a full spectrum talent pool from our programs and opportunities for rugby players in the Washington, Oregon, Montana, and Idaho areas.”

Assisting the important foundational work of Liberty Boys Academy’s vision, Kjar has tapped Chris Nesmith to lead the development of local rugby development initiatives with Cascade Rugby Union to foster and promote the sport’s growth in the region.

“This is a great partnership in achieving our equity mission in the Cascade Rugby Union,” Nesmith said, “There are many kids not involved in youth athletics for a variety of reasons. This partnership will guarantee all kids have access to the best coaching”

Once the Academy is opened to its full capacity, they will have programs to recruit, develop and train world-class rugby players who desire to be on a path to play professional rugby for the Utah Warriors.

Those initiatives have made it a goal of Liberty Boys Academy and the Utah Warriors to create the first fully-operational academic and rugby-specific Major League Rugby professional pathway option for players in the United States and around the world.

“The work that Luke and Chris are doing with Liberty Academy by using rugby as one of their tools for developing young men is aligned with the Warriors community initiatives,” Brandon Sparks, Utah Warriors Director of Rugby said, “Which is to use the game to help make better people. We are excited to support the school and its athletes’ growth!”