Rugby is a great equalizer.
It’s a sport that most people don’t discover until college or later, long past when they believe they are in their “prime athletic condition.” It welcomes men and women of any age and with every body type you can think of.
Rugby is truly a sport for anyone – anyone who doesn’t mind full-body tackles with nothing but a mouth guard, that is.
Around the country, rugby is gaining popularity as a club and collegiate sport, especially, perhaps surprisingly, among women.
So why doesn’t SMU have a women’s rugby team? We have both an undergraduate and graduate men’s team, but no women’s team. I think this is fundamentally a problem of exposure.
As children, most of us learned the basics of our nation’s most popular sports, such as soccer, baseball, basketball, and football. However, many Americans do not learn anything about rugby until high school (if they’re lucky), college (maybe), or at worst, during some vacation overseas where they see it as some weird form of European football. By the time we get to the age where we could actually play rugby on an organized team, it appears foreign, confusing, and dangerous. And so we don’t play.
Fortunately, these barriers have not stopped many teams from forming around the country. Sadly, much like women’s lacrosse, women’s rugby has yet to take off at SMU.
I really don’t think that SMU girls are too girly or not interested in contact sports. There is simply no outlet available for them. But many other Texas schools, including UT Austin, SFA, and Texas Tech all have flourishing teams.
As more teams develop, the word has spread that rugby is a pretty fun sport.
A rugby game consists of two teams of 15 players facing off for 80 minutes of passing, kicking, running, and tackling. It resembles soccer in some ways, football in others, but also has many of its own unique and nuanced rules.
While I lamented the fact that Americans do not learn enough about rugby as youngsters, it is also a blessing. We don’t expect you to know what you’re doing – you’ve never heard of it before, so how could you know the rules? Rugby therefore has a very special element of mentoring and camaraderie that may be lacking in more “established” sports because we must all be coaches for one another in order to learn the game.
Let me expound on the element of camaraderie. I attended college in Massachusetts, where I first heard about rugby as an unassuming freshman. Rugby forced me to come out of my shell and to commingle with my classmates.
During my junior year, I studied abroad in France, where I used rugby as a way not only to exercise in a land that subsists largely on cheese and red meat, but also to make friends.
While most of my American friends stayed comfortable with their English-speaking classmates, I was developing my language skills and forming lasting friendships. Whenever I return to France, I know that there is an entire rugby team to welcome me back, and that is a wonderful feeling.
I moved to Dallas this year when I began law school at SMU. I didn’t know anyone in Dallas, or Texas for that matter, but I immediately joined the Dallas Diablos rugby team.
Moving to Texas was a little less scary for me because I was certain that whatever team I joined would welcome me instantly and introduce me to Dallas. I have found friends and mentors through this team who will support me for years to come, both through personal friendships and through valuable professional contacts.
Joining a rugby team is like gaining an instant family: once you join them, they will never let you go.
Whether you have played sports all of your life or have never run a mile, you may discover that this sport will change your life as much as it has changed mine.
Molly Whitman is a Candidate for Juris Doctor, 2013 at the SMU Dedman School of Law. She can be reached for comments or questions at [email protected].
