Saturday's a Rugby Day

This is my mantra beginning today and and will last through May 23.

Then it will be my mantra on and off during the summer (I am determined to play 7's this summer, though my position is not actually on the field in 7's, but a flank turned lock can dream, can't she?).

Four years ago, I hadn't even heard this phrase and if I did, it wouldn't mean anything to me. Seriously, who cares?

But this has changed my life and I owe it to my friend and teammate Tammy. She and another teammate suggested I come to practice.

When you've had a few beers, really, is anything a bad idea?

Tammy called me a few days later and reminded me that I was going to practice with her. Naively, I asked if there was a lot of running involved. It's not that I was completely out of shape then; It was that I didn't know anything about rugby except that I'd always had a penchant toward the rugby style shirt.

Tammy and I took a run around my block twice that night and, presto! I was ready to join the team.

Oy.

I started playing the sport at 25 years old. I wish I'd learned about it sooner. I wish it had been an option for me in high school or in college.

No, I should say: I wish I'd known sooner that I needed this in my life.

If rugby was offered at my college (which I found out there had been a team years earlier), I don't know that I would have joined. My hobbies in high school were mostly theater arts-related. When I started smoking cigarettes in college I quit singing, and didn't see myself as an athlete (beer pong and keg stands excluded).

Is it just that I'm part of a team now? Nope. I did play softball through the parks and rec in my town and actually did indoor track for two seasons in high school (until I broke a hurdle with my trail leg toe). I've been on teams before. And, it's also not the same as being a cast member, though, my closest friends in high school were my cast mates.

It's nearly indescribable for me, this feeling I get when I'm playing or even just thinking of playing. I get intimidatingly enthusiastic on the pitch. And I'm thankful and fortunate that my teammates understand this about me enough to know it's a fire inside me.

Part of my love of the game is that it feeds so well into my feminist ideals. I want women to play rugby with the same frequency that men play (though it's a minority sport in the US, the number of men's to women's teams is... a lot more. I don't have the statistics). I want women of all ages to help spread the sport here. I want women to say that they're playing this sport they never imagined playing and to find more women with whom to share this bond. AND, I want women's rugby to be held with the same regard as men's rugby.

To date, I've had four black eyes (one involving stitches, another involving a golf ball bruise on my forehead), a softball-sized hematoma under my knee which was eventually drained, and I'm currently icing my ankle for its second sprain of this season. (Tomorrow my team is playing a night game in Portland, ME. I'll be driving two hours to watch and yell from the sidelines in 37 degree weather.)

I've also had a dozen conversations with my family about this and I think they're starting to understand it more -- not the rules of the sport -- they're starting to realize that rugby is in my life. For reals. While they don't know why I am so torn about choosing to play or choosing to miss a match on the big Jewish holidays, they know this is one of the biggest decisions I face every fall.

Rugby has taught me so much about myself. I want to play for as long as I can. I get sad thinking about the time when I won't be on the pitch anymore. I get fired up every season as younger and younger women are joining us. The fear that a new teammate could take my position is what motivates me to keep pushing, to keep driving, to keep. going.

And, I think, what if I knew at 18 years old how much I needed rugby...

(tears welling)