{"id":868278,"date":"2026-04-17T09:57:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T09:57:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/868278\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T09:57:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T09:57:20","slug":"ilona-maher-didnt-recognize-jaxson-dart-at-super-bowl-party-it-did-not-go-well","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/868278\/","title":{"rendered":"Ilona Maher didn’t recognize Jaxson Dart at Super Bowl party \u2014 it did not go well"},"content":{"rendered":"

Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart might be known by most \u2014 but not all.<\/p>\n

U.S. Olympic rugby player Ilona Maher falls into the latter category, admitting on her \u201cHouse of Maher<\/a>\u201d podcast on Tuesday that she had no idea who Dart was when she met him at a Super Bowl party back in February.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was at the Super Bowl, I went to this party and there\u2019s a lot of like football players from the Giants were there,\u201d Maher told her sisters, Olivia and Adrianna Maher, on the podcast. \u201cThere\u2019s this one guy, he\u2019s like blond, he\u2019s an attractive guy, young-looking, and I\u2019m like, \u2018Hey what\u2019s up man?\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

\"IlonaIlona Maher on the court at halftime of UCLA\u2019s blowout win over South Carolina Gamecocks in the National Championship game of the women\u2019s 2026 NCAA Tournament at Mortgage Matchup Center. Joe Camporeale-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

She continued, \u201cI\u2019m like, hey, you play football?\u201d<\/p>\n

Even when the Giants QB confirmed that he did, Maher continued pressing him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m like, \u2018What team do you play for?\u2019 Mind you this is Giants\u2019 (Cam) Skattebo\u2019s party,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I was like \u2018Sweet, man that\u2019s awesome. What position are you?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Maher finally realized her gaffe once Dart answered that he was indeed the quarterback.<\/p>\n

\"NewJaxson Dart greets fans after the Giants\u2019 blowout win over the Cowboys on Jan. 4, 2026 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ. Robert Sabo for NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cNo idea,\u201d she told her sisters. \u201cI mean he knew who I was.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maher, 29, who has represented the U.S. at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the 2024 Paris Olympics, has recently spoken out against her alma mater, Quinnipiac University, after they abruptly cut their NCAA women\u2019s rugby program.<\/p>\n

In a statement released on Tuesday<\/a>, Quinnipiac said a realignment of their athletics program was necessary \u201cto support long-term competitive, financial, and Title IX objectives.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGo behind the scenes with Big Blue\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Giants by Paul Schwartz, a weekly Sports+ exclusive.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cThese decisions are never easy, but they are essential to ensuring that Quinnipiac Athletics remains equitable, competitive, and sustainable for the long term,\u201d\u00a0Director of Athletics Greg Amodio said in the statement.<\/p>\n

In response to the news, Maher took to social media, posting an Instagram story captioned \u201cShame on you,\u201d while tagging the school\u2019s athletics account.<\/p>\n

Maher, who graduated in 2018, helped lead Quinnipiac to three straight National Intercollegiate Rugby Association (NIRA)\u00a0while earning a spot on the NIRA All-AmericanTeam for three consecutive years herself.<\/p>\n

She eventually went on to win a bronze medal for Team USA in rugby sevens at the Paris Games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart might be known by most \u2014 but not all. U.S. Olympic rugby player Ilona…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":868279,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2067],"tags":[7,519,13,1917,56,2321,2469,6,19167,9,10],"class_list":{"0":"post-868278","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-giants","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-giants","10":"tag-jaxson-dart","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-giants","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkgiants","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-rugby","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-sports-entertainment"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116419458704040045","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=868278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/868279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}