Tough as Nails:

Womens Rugby in the U.S.

By: Maddie Ecker
October 7, 2014
Molly Beans braided ponytail bounces off the back of her neck as she slowly jogs a cool
down lap with her team. Dirt from the Van Ness triangle, where American University
Womens Rugby Club holds practice, is smudged across her forehead. Unlike the rest of
her teammates, Molly Bean jogs silently, eyes down and eyebrows furrowed. The last two
hours were filled with a series of passing, tackling and fitness drills and that one tackle
that Molly Bean missed is on repeat in front of her eyes.
When something doesnt go right its really easy to get in my head and tell myself that
because I didnt make that one tackle I wont be able to make any of the other tackles,
says Bean. And even if I do make a tackle it makes me go back and think if I did it right.
Thats something thats very hard for me.
Tackling is just one of the many components that make up the sport of rugby and Molly
Bean is just one of the many women who have jumped at the opportunity to play a highcontact, fast paced sport. The moment in sporting history that women have been waiting
for has finally happened. Rugby is a sport in which both men and women play with the
same rules, same sized pitch, same ball and same equipment.
This sport has just recently made its impact on North America, garnering fans and players
alike to its cause. Although this has been said about other sports, rugby is truly a sport
unlike any other. While women have spent decades trying to shatter stereotypes through
their athletic ability, rugby obliterates any misconceptions of femininity. Here is a sport
that demands hard hits, quick decision making and assertive communication. Rugby
requires an 80 minute time commitment on Saturday mornings and asks for 100% effort
the entire time. It is a sport that you sacrifice your body for because the 14 other girls on
your side of the pitch are worth it.

Bean, age 20, is a junior at American University who is one of the lucky women to
discover rugby and fall in love with it. Bean joined AUWRFC her freshman year after
hearing about the club at summer orientation.
I first heard about rugby at Eagle Summit my freshman year and I saw the table and I
thought it was a joke because I didnt know women could play rugby. I was very excited
and it was the only thing that I was really excited about for college. As she speaks, Bean
radiates energy just thinking about the moment rugby entered her life. Her sentiment is
shared by women in the D.C. rugby community.
Sporting short hair with a streak of purple in the front and an eyebrow piercing, George
Washington Rugby Club player Antonia Keutzer, 21, explains how the rugby community
works. Rugby allows anybody to come in and find who they are and I think the rugby
community is just a lot more open to anything, says Keutzer. As long as you step on
that pitch with the desire to win and the desire to fight for your teammates on the field,
you're allowed to be who you want and you have your teams full support."
Her sentiment has been echoed by college rugby alumnae, rugby players who have gone
onto coaching and current ruggers.
Rugby requires a little curiosity and a lot of passion. Confidence will come later, but it
will come well before a rugby career is at its end. Olivia Pennock, an alumni and former
captain of American University Womens Rugby Football Club, reflects back on her time
in a leadership role on the team and how it has carried over into other aspects of her life.
Rugby has helped me be me, says Pennock. I feel more confident in saying what I
want and what I need. I know how to handle confrontation.
Pennock, nicknamed Navy by her AUWRFC family, speaks with the careful confidence
of someone who has learned to think before she voices her opinion. Part of being a
member of a rugby club comes with dealing with a variety of emotions, beliefs,
perspectives and loud, loud voices. As captain, Pennock learned to improve how [she]

talked to people. Everyone is different, says Pennock slowly, Ive learned how to
change my message and tone down aggression during confrontation.
Bean, an active member of AUWRFC, speaks about similar benefits she has experienced
from being a member of the rugby community.
Knowing that Im capable of tackling someone, knowing that I can play an aggressive,
fast-paced game for 80 minutes, its just given me this feeling that I can always do more,
says Bean. Theres not really a limit for me because I know how much I can push my
body and push my mind during rugby and I can just take that and apply it to basically
anything.
Women, who are so often told how to be the perfect, feminine version of themselves,
finally have the opportunity to shatter those restricting stereotypes through rugby.
Roland Pratt, 37, current coach for the D.C. Renegades and previous coach for
AUWRFC, describes the toughness he witnessed in his female players."I realized that
women are tougher than men. I've seen girls take absolutely devastating punishment on
the field and any guy would have tapped out. The perfect example was Veggie [a player
from AUWRFC] during Capital finals when her face was a mess and she kept playing,
says Pratt. I don't know too many guys who would've taken that kind of punishment.
These young women only had the opportunity to experience rugby once they got to
college. It would appear that rugby is a new sport, but it has actually been around for
ages.
Rugby originated in England in the first half of the 19th century. It is a full contact team
sport that requires one piece of protective equipment: a mouthguard. The most important
thing to know about rugby is that it can be played by sides of 15 or seven, lasting 80
minutes or 14, and the ball must always be thrown backwards. A forward ball is called a
knock-on and results in a turn over to the previously defending team. Scoring the pill, or
rugby ball, is called a try, which is worth five points. The team that scores has the

opportunity to kick a conversion for three points between the H-shaped uprights. The
positions on a rugby team are divided into forwards, who are numbered 1-8, and backs,
who are numbered 9-15.
Every position has a specific assignment, but the scrumhalf, or 9, is responsible for
telling the forwards and backs where they need to go. The scrumhalf communicates with
the flyhalf, or 10. The flyhalf calls their backline to cover either the left or right half of
the field depending on where they see space in the defensive line. The scrumhalf and the
flyhalf work together to move the ball advantageously down the pitch, or field.
Recently, rugby has made its way to the U.S. and is one of the fastest growing sports in
North America. It will make its worldwide debut at the 2016 Rio Olympics in the form of
Sevens, where there are seven people on each side rather than the usual fifteen. Sevens is
a fast-paced, 14 minute game on a full-sized rugby pitch with big hits and jaw-dropping
runs.
The U.S. men and womens teams have qualified to play in Rio in 2016, but the
the question of equal coverage is bubbling to the surface.
The Collegiate Rugby Championship (CRC) is the most recent event in the rugby
community. Men and womens sevens teams competed in a weekend of back-to-back
rugby competition. However, the mens teams were given preferential field space, access
to locker rooms and air time on local television stations
As a woman rugby player, Bean understands the struggle of putting her community in the
spotlight. I think [womens rugby] is something that could use a lot more exposure. Its
just coming to America, its just starting to rise in popularity and I think it would be great
if we could introduce both mens and womens rugby at the same time, says Bean.

People need to understand that this is a sport that has the same rules, there are no special
exceptions made for women and it is just as popular. It can be just as much ours as it is
theirs.
Women ruggers, despite their efforts to portray their sport in a certain way have been
painted differently by the mainstream media. Georgia Page an Australian player for the
rugby sevens team at Missouris Lindenwood University was dubbed the Rugby War
Goddess for a sporting a nose gushing blood and continuing to play on. While her
resilience in the heat of the moment is worth the title, every woman who plays rugby is a
rugby war goddess.
However, the influx of attention towards Page presented an interesting problem. Women
who play competitive rugby get devastating injuries all the time and are often met with
shock and disgust. Worse yet, they get no attention since womens sports hardly get
enough funding or media coverage to normalize bone-crushing injuries, concussions and
blood lots of it for women.
The exception of giving womens sports attention only when the footage is shocking is a
blatant show of the lack of interest or respect the general population has for womens
sports. The media has capitalized on rugby as an upcoming sport in the States and women
are just a shocking and entertaining part of the package.
Those within the womens rugby community know better than to look at the mainstream
media for their heroes. Emory and Harvard Womens Rugby Clubs each created
campaigns to help young women coming into the sport learn how to be confident about
being a rugby player and their bodies.
Emorys Because of Rugby campaign is a series of photographs of women on the the
team accompanied by quotes about something they have gained because of rugby. One
message reads, Because of rugby I have found strength in beauty and beauty in
strength.

Harvards team focused more on body love; an issue most girls deal with starting in
middle school and on through the rest of their lives. The teams women stripped down to
their bras and underwear and wrote positive words on different parts of their body.
Powerful was scribbled across a womans midriff, while ripped and huge were
scrawled across the biceps of two other team members. Words that are not always
associated with being a woman, yet these ladies all wore them proudly. This display of
camaraderie and power is a message to all women that their bodies have a purpose and
women who stand together are stronger than women who ostracize each other.
Theres this misconception that you have to be really tough and really big and really
strong to play rugby and even just trying to recruit people for our team, I think the most
common response I heard was Im too little, Im too weak, Im not athletic enough
said Bean with anger permeating her words.
Ive run cross country and its one of those sports where youre suppose to be a little
twig, where youre suppose to be this body type because it will make you faster. Ive
played lacrosse where you are suppose to be this body type so you can sprint fast. But in
rugby we take a huge variety of body types. Like, you can be a tiny little stick and youll
be an awesome back. You can be a really big, muscular forward and youre gonna be a
great forward. It has to do with your mentality, not your physicality so thats important to
keep in mind.
The issues of body image, social perception and self-acceptance are not new to female
athletes. Women who play rugby know what might be assumed about their sexuality,
identity and femininity; but in the heat of the game, other peoples opinions do not matter.
Your body and your team is all you have on the pitch and being ashamed to use it does
not factor well into a successful outcome.
Rugby is on the rise in North America and as more women recognize that they have the
opportunity to play a sport with the same rules and regulations as men, womens rugby is
going to draw a larger crowd.

Rugby has made its mark in the hearts of men and women across the country. It is a sport
and a group of people worth take big hits for and working through pain with. It is this
sport that has so uniquely spoken to women. This sport that has fanned the inner fire that
so many women are expected to extinguish within themselves to conform to societal
pressures.
It is this sport that has helped women burn brighter than ever. "You realize the sum of
your parts is so much more, Pratt says about standing up to the physical and mental
challenges of a rugby match.
I think people have a tendency who have never played sports before, they have an idea
of what their limit is. I think rugby might teach you that youre limitless.