I can’t even tell you how many times growing up I was told I couldn’t do the same things that my brothers did because I’m a girl. I couldn’t stay out with friends as late because it’s more dangerous for a couple of girls to be outside at night than it is for a couple of guys. I couldn’t get away with wearing whatever I wanted because it could be deemed “slutty,” whereas my brothers could wear pretty much anything aside from their birthday suit and just be deemed “odd” at worst. The same goes for playing rugby.
Rugby is a manly man’s sport. They ruck, they maul, they tackle, and they scrum; all without pads. The aggression, sweat and high risk for injury make it too risky for us damsels in distress to play. Right? Right?
Wrong. Rugby is so much more than just a bunch of strong, aggressive, beer-drinking sweaty men tackling each other on the pitch. It’s a bunch of strong, aggressive, beer-drinking sweaty women tackling each other on the pitch too! Ha, just kidding...kind of. It’s more than just the ability to play the sport and get the athletic benefits from playing – it’s about the team and learning to fight against the stigmas about being a female rugger and about totally abandoning your comfort zone to allow yourself to do something you never thought you would.
Everyone who has ever been a part of a team in any sport ever knows just as well as I do what it means to be a member of a team. Whether it’s because you’ve been through the worst of it scrummaging against a giant team together, you were holed up in a car for six hours driving to your last tournament, or you were internally crying over the late night practices during the winter season, an inexplicable bond comes from that. My teammates aren’t just girls I see at practice and on the field – in a lot of cases, they’re the girls I go to for advice, the ones I go out and party with, the ones I grab lunch between classes with; they’re some of my closest friends at Cornell. I can also guarantee that once a rugger, always a rugger. Nobody understands the sport like the vets and nobody ever will – what’s not to bond over?
I bet if you were to ask any given female rugger one of the cons of joining the rugby team, most answers wouldn’t be about playing the game itself, but rather it’d be about the stereotypes we face. According to society, we’re a bunch of super butch, hefty, man-hating lesbians who can’t stop drinking beer. But contrary to this popular belief, just like any sports team, there's a mix of sexual orientations, ideologies, body types and drinking preferences among the players. Becoming a rugger has taught me not to get caught up in what other people think about my life choices and to keep doing what I love. So what if I look too small to be a prop or not butch enough to be a rugger or too fragile to tackle bigger girls? I play rugby because I love the sport and I love the team, nothing too exciting.
I came to Cornell having known the name “rugby” but nothing else. I had no idea how it was played or what the positions were. I was a soccer girl through and through – I played from the ripe age of six all the way until I graduated from high school. After transferring to Cornell during my sophomore year, though, I decided to switch up sports and joined rugby. My first practice was a whirlwind of terms and rules and basic skills, and I left more confused than I had come. Partway into the season, I played in my first match – I’ve never had a more deer in the headlights moment than this. I took my comfort zone and punted it hundreds of feet away and played a brand new sport at a brand new school with brand new teammates I’d never met before, and now I realize I’ve never made a better choice in my life.
Above all, rugby has taught me to love the choices I make, even if they’re choices I’ve never made before, to appreciate the team I have by my side, and to not get caught up in what other people think of the way I conduct my life. So next time you see me, instead of asking how someone like me can play rugby, try asking how someone plays rugby.
