“What am I doing?” It’s a question Erica Legaspi sometimes asks herself during the three-hour round trip home from rugby training.
A member of the Philippine women’s rugby team, Legaspi already has enough on her plate as an athlete. Yet alongside training and competition, she has spent the last several years helping build something much larger than herself.
As a co-founder of the Magandaquins, Legaspi has spent years building a community that offers mixed-race and overseas Filipinas a way to reconnect with their heritage through sport. The name combines the Tagalog word “maganda” (beautiful) with rugby terminology, reflecting the program’s Filipina roots. What began as an effort to bring people together has since evolved into a support system, a legitimate pathway to the national team, and even a family.
Before helping other Filipinas find their place through rugby, Legaspi was navigating her own identity as a Filipino-American. Born and raised in the United States to parents who immigrated from the Philippines, she was primarily raised by her mother and longed for the sense of community she imagined came with her heritage.
Playing rugby since 2007, Erica tried out for the Philippine Volcanoes in 2019 through a Facebook recruitment post. Her quest to explore her untapped physical and competitive potential eventually became an unexpected bridge to her Filipino roots.
