Dana Teagarden

Dana Teagarden began playing rugby in 1988 at the United States Air Force Academy. 

She was a good player, and by her junior year, led Air Force to the first Division 1 Women’s Collegiate National Championship and was named co-MVP of the tournament. While playing for Air Force, she was ushered into refereeing. She later played for a strong Florida State team and landed in the player pool for the USA Rugby Women’s National Team for 5 years. However, she never stopped refereeing, and after an injury cut her playing career short, she committed herself to becoming an elite referee at a time when there were few women in the field.

In May 2005, Dana received her first international appointment refereeing the U19 Girl’s Canada vs. England match. From there, she refereed the NAWIRA 7s in 2006 and was selected as an assistant referee for the Women’s Rugby World Cup. During that 2006 Women’s World Cup, Dana was chosen to officiate the Kazakhstan vs. South Africa match and was appointed referee shortly after in the 2007 San Diego 7s.

In San Diego, Dana refereed six matches and was the head referee for the Bowl Final of Tonga vs. Argentina. The Bowl Final match was particularly dicey as the two teams had played the previous week and the referee had lost control of the match; Dana controlled the match from end to end and into overtime. At that point, she was the first and only female to referee at an IRB Sevens World Series Tournament.

In 2009, she was selected to the 7s Women’s World Cup in Dubai and in 2010, to the Women’s Rugby World Cup Referee Panel. 

In 2010, she was appointed by the IRB/WR to referee the international test match between The Netherlands and Hong Kong in Amsterdam. She was acknowledged as the first woman to referee a senior men’s 15s international match. However, Dana is quick to correct the record, crediting Gabriel Lee from Hong Kong as the first for refereeing Kyrgyzstan vs Mongolia. In 2011, she was the first Tier 2 AR in the Japan v USA match. 

As an international referee for 7s & 15s, Dana refereed 3 World Cups, Women’s Six Nations, and 23 tests from 2006 to 2014. She refereed her last international match in 2014, in Prague, as the Czech Republic played Switzerland.

In addition to playing for the USWNT, Dana has coached club, collegiate, and provincial teams. She has been a technical consultant to teams with a focus on the breakdown and relationship management. For 7 years, she served as video analyst for the German Men’s 15s team. She served as a World Rugby Trainer, as well as a High Performance and community referee (reviewing referees' performances and coaching referees). Dana has also served as a consultant for World Rugby, Rugby Europe, and USA Rugby.

In 2018, Dana was appointed by England Rugby as a Citing Commissioner (Citing Commissioners are appointed by the RFU for all Premiership, Championship, and Premiership Women's matches and are entitled to cite a player for any act of Foul Play that in the Citing Commissioner's opinion warranted a red card. She’s had similar appointments with World Rugby, Rugby Europe, EPCR, RFU, and MLR.)

A Civil Engineer, Dana lives in Heidelberg, Germany with her wife and daughter.