The Dave Bailey Memorial Scholarship is an annual $500 scholarship awarded to a deserving high school senior playing on the SYC West End U-19 team.
The scholarship honors Dave Bailey, who played high school rugby for West End in the 1990s and also coached a SYC Rugby U-11 team in the early 2000s. Dave died in March 2006 at the age of 29 from an allergic reaction to medicine. See below for an article about Dave that appeared in the Washington Post.
Scholarship candidates must submit an application and essay (click for application form), and the winner is chosen by consensus of SYC West End’s coaches. Criteria for the award include active and regular participation with the SYC West End team, positive spirit and sportsmanship, rugby ability, and intention to play rugby after high school. The scholarship is a one-time award, presented at the team’s post-season banquet.
Note: For the Spring 2010 season, applications are due to Coach Rupp by May 31, 2010.
Money for the scholarship does not come out of the SYC Rugby program budget, but rather comes primarily via donations from those who knew Dave, with SYC Rugby as the conduit. However, the SYC Rugby program would like to build up an endowment to ensure continued scholarship awards. So, please consider a tax-deductible contribution. Click here to donate, and be sure to specify SYC Rugby during the donation process. Thanks!
Adventurous Burke Teacher Made the World His Classroom
By Louie Estrada
Washington Post, Sunday, April 23, 2006; Page C07
Reprinted with permission
Where in the world is Dave Bailey?
That’s the question Bailey’s sister, Leigh Anne Adusei, 34, of Burke would often ask about her globetrotting brother, five years her junior, as he backpacked in South America and Europe in recent years.
Sometimes several days would pass before Bailey, who grew up in Burke, sent an e-mail or made a phone call from an Internet cafe to assure his sister and parents that he was fine. Usually, though, he was eager to relay the details of his latest adventure and share the ironies he found in the wide extremes of his day-to-day experiences.
"One night he would be sharing a bottle of wine and hot dogs in a tar paper shack, and the next day he would be shaking the hands of the president of Chile," said his mother, Carol Bailey of Burke.
As he trekked across Argentina and Chile, as he did in 2003, and Spain, Italy and Romania, last year, he seemed to carry with him deep impressions of the cultures and traditions he encountered. Among them were spiritually uplifting street processions celebrating Holy Week in Sevilla, Spain, and the wonderment of seeing firsthand Leonardo da Vinci’s painting "The Last Supper."
Bailey, who had short dirty-blond hair, blue eyes and a square jaw, was also armed with a wide grin and gregarious, congenial manner that helped him make friends easily.
His first extensive trip overseas began in fall 2003, when he started a year-long teaching assignment in South Korea. It was one of three trips he would make to Korea to teach math and English to middle-school-age children.
Bailey came from a family with a long tradition in education. His father, Thomas Bailey, is a Lutheran minister in Burke. His mother is a Fairfax County teacher, two aunts taught kindergarten and a grandfather worked as a principal.
In between his work in Korea and traveling overseas, Bailey played as many games as possible with the Northern Virginia Men’s Rugby Club and worked off and on at Kiddie Country, a private preschool in Burke. He had started at the school as a summer lifeguard when he was a student at West Springfield High School.
Rugby had been a major part of his life since he was a teenager. He wore the number 10 jersey, indicating he played the fly-half position, otherwise known as the general of the backfield. At 5 feet 9 inches, he wasn’t the biggest or most athletic person on the field, but he was generally regarded as a smart, dedicated player.
Later, after graduating from Kutztown University in Pennsylvania, where he also played rugby, Bailey began working in Kiddie Country’s education program. For the past year, he was the team leader of the center’s elementary school before and after school program, in charge of organizing activities for the children.
"He had a fantastic way with children," said Nicole Fullerton, program manager at Kiddie Country. "He connected with them so well because he was funny, animated, always on."
In recent months, Bailey, 29, talked about returning to school to earn a certificate in speech pathology, his sister said. Working in Korea had heightened his interest in the way people acquire language development.
With all that lay ahead of Bailey, his family and friends find his death hard to accept, particularly given how sudden and unexpected it was. He had a positive tuberculosis skin test and was prescribed medication. An allergic reaction to the drug resulted in fatal liver damage. He died March 3.
When Bailey was once asked about his favorite quote, he picked the following: "To find happiness, be as if a child, play and share, love one another, dance and sing. Somewhere in there you may even find God."
