THE NAME

RULLA Sports Empowerment was founded by former professional soccer player Rashawn Dally.
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The name “RULLA” comes from the Jamaican Patois word for “ruler.” Rashawn’s father, a professional soccer player in Jamaica during the 1980s, was known for his ability to control the game from midfield. Fans said he “ruled the game,” and that is where the name was born.

Today, RULLA carries that legacy forward through a mission to intentional develop the mental side on sports, helping athletes grow through the experiences and challenges that comes with sports. 

Meet Rashawn Dally

I’m Rashawn Dally, founder of RULLA Sports Empowerment and a former professional soccer player.

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I was born in St. Ann, Jamaica, where soccer naturally became part of my life. My father lived in America at the time, but people would call my brother and me
“RULLA’s boys.” I eventually learned that my father had earned the nickname RULLA because of the way he “ruled” the midfield when he played.
Some of my earliest memories are with a soccer ball. I still remember trying a Maradona in my driveway in Jamaica, falling, and all my friends laughing at me. A few months later, I moved to America. One day, while my dad was shoveling snow, he saw me doing the Maradona and told me I was good. He continued to instill in me the belief that I could become a professional soccer player.

The game became everything to me.

In my town, most kids played basketball and football, so I often spent recess and gym kicking a soccer ball around. Soccer also became a safe space for me. Living with my stepmother, I often found peace outside of the house with a ball at my feet. I loved the game.

My journey took me through Bloomfield recreational and travel soccer, FSA, CFC, Western Mass Pioneers, and back to CFC. I played my first two years of high school soccer at Bloomfield High School. Going into my junior year, I received a scholarship to attend Watkinson School, where I finished my final two years before attending Quinnipiac University and playing there for four years. During college, I also spent time with the Jamaica U20 National Team. After my senior year, I became the first player in Quinnipiac history to be selected in the MLS SuperDraft. I eventually signed my first professional contract with FC Cincinnati. 
It was a dream come true. 

My professional career would take me from FC Cincinnati to Memphis 901 FC, Hartford Athletic, and eventually back to Memphis. But reaching the level I had dreamed about my entire life also exposed me to a completely different side of the game.

The Mental Side of the Game

During a preseason with FC Cincinnati, I felt like I was on fire. I was showing more of myself as a player, but my coach also told me the club planned to bring in another striker with more experience. The club suggested that I go out on loan. I decided to stay and fight for my place. I quickly learned that sometimes you cannot simply fight the system harder. I began being left out of training sessions, and the experience really affected me mentally. I told my agent I needed help.

That was when I was connected with a coach who supported players with the mental side of the game. I didn’t really know what to expect. But through our work, I started realizing something important. I believed I was good enough to excel, but my confidence and self-trust were holding me back. I remember telling him, “When the coach walks by, I get nervous and can’t even do the passing drill correctly.” We started exploring why. Some of those experiences connected back to my relationship with authority figures and experiences I had growing up. For the first time, I began seeing clearly that who you are will show up in what you do.That changed the way I understood performance.

A Different Kind of Development
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As I began peeling back layers through personal growth and healing, I started leaning on tools I had known about for years but had never truly bought into, especially meditation and journaling. I had read about athletes like Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan using practices like meditation, but I had never consistently made them part of my own development. Eventually, I volunteered to go on loan to Las Vegas. Then COVID happened. With the country shut down and much of that time spent alone, I went all in. I meditated. I journaled. I built routines. I read. I reflected. And I began changing my relationship with myself and with the game. When I played, I began experiencing greater joy, freedom, and intention.

The pieces started connecting.

The following year, while playing professionally in Memphis, I created RULLA Sports Empowerment. At first, part of what drove me was frustration. I wanted to help other athletes in ways I felt I had not been helped. I remember thinking, Why didn’t my coaches prepare me for the challenges that came with becoming a professional? Over time, I began to understand something else. Maybe they couldn’t give me something they had never been taught themselves. That realization became much bigger than my own playing career.

Why RULLA Exists

My journey has taken me from Jamaica, to college soccer, to the professional game, and now into my life as a business owner, coach, husband, and father.
Through all of it, I’ve learned that the more I can regulate my emotions, the more present I can become. The more present I am, the more I can pour into others, the better I can perform, and the more joy I can experience while doing it. That’s why I believe the mental side of sport should not be left for athletes to figure out on their own. RULLA Sports Empowerment exists to intentionally integrate mental development into athletic development, giving athletes tools that can help them navigate the inevitable highs and lows of sport while surrounding them with coaches who strive to model those same practices themselves.

Maybe RULLA will change sports forever.
But that’s not what determines whether this work matters.

The mission is to leave a positive impact on the athletes we touch by giving them tools that matter, creating environments that help them grow, and modeling what we ask them to develop.

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