{"id":3429,"date":"2015-01-14T22:27:49","date_gmt":"2015-01-14T22:27:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2015\/01\/14\/willis-commits-to-furman\/"},"modified":"2022-09-07T14:45:56","modified_gmt":"2022-09-07T18:45:56","slug":"willis-commits-to-furman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/willis-commits-to-furman\/","title":{"rendered":"Willis commits to Furman"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"austin\"<\/a>Austin Willis, a three-time Georgia All-Star, has accepted a Furman Rugby Scholarship and has committed to attend the University.<\/p>\n

Willis, son of Dr. Roger Willis and Dr.\u00a0 Margaret Ellison, attends Woodward Academy and is a member of the Alpharetta Rugby Club, a three-time state champion. Willis plays scrumhalf and was named most valuable player for the 2013-14 season.<\/p>\n

Willis attended the 2014 John Roberts Rugby Camp<\/a> where he impressed Head Coach John Roberts.<\/p>\n

\u201cAustin is very mature for his age. He very quick, deceptive and has a great work pace and field presence,\u201d says Roberts. \u201cMoreover, he is very serious about his school work and will fit in nicely at Furman.\u201d<\/p>\n

Willis’s brother, Devon, is a sophomore at The Citadel where he plays in the Bulldog backline.<\/p>\n

“As a student I am honored to be apart of such a prestigious university and as an athlete I am appreciative of the opportunity to play rugby for such a quality program like Furman’s,” said Willis. “Go Paladins!”<\/p>\n

Willis is the first commitment to Furman’s third scholarship class. Since launching a scholarship program in 2012, Furman — a three-time D3 national champion, has emerged as one of the top D2 teams in the nation. Last fall, the Paladins captured the Southern Rugby Conference 15s Championship and were ranked\u00a0 6th in the final national rankings<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Our 2015 Class will be our strongest by far,” said Roberts. “Austin will be part of very special rugby class. I am looking forward to seeing him in purple.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Austin Willis, a three-time Georgia All-Star, has accepted a Furman Rugby Scholarship and has committed to attend the University. Willis, son of Dr. Roger Willis and Dr. Margaret Ellison, attends Woodward Academy and is a member of the Alpharetta Rugby Club, a three-time state champion. Willis, plays scrumhalf and was named most valuable player for the 2013-14 season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":14248,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletics","category-rugby"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}