1 Project Title: Rugby Team Study 2 Interviewer: Madeleine Le 3 Interviewee: Lily (Alias), a current junior in college who has been on a women’s rugby team for 4 three years . Identifies as a woman (uses she/her pronouns) 5 Date and Time: October 22nd 2018, 11:00 to 11:30 6 Location: Sieg Hall, 4th floor outside of the student lounge 7 Interview #: RTIS01 8 Interview ID: 10_22_2018_RTS_Interview1 9 10 Madeleine: Okay, let’s get started. Can you explain rugby to me, from your perspective?
11 Lily: So, rugby is kind of like football, in that, you want to get the ball to the end of the field, into
12 what we call a try-zone, or what football calls an end-zone. The differences are that there is no
13 padding, it’s just a mouthguard, you have to pass the ball backwards, and we don’t stop the game as
14 many times as football does. Um… we have things called scrums which get called when there is like
15 a penalty or something. Scrums are when a bunch of people kind of mash into each other, that’s
16 something that I do. Every time – so there’s someone carrying the ball down the field – so every
17 time they get tackled, over them, after they get tackled and the tackler gets off of them, they place
18 the ball closer to their team and there’s two people that ruck over them – it’s hard to explain without
19 a visual, but it’s kind of like two people trying to tackle each other in a controlled manner. Um...and
20 so that happens multiple times until either there’s a team that gets a penalty, where they have to give
21 the ball to the other team, or somebody scores a try, like football, the team that scores a try, gets to
22 attempt to kick it between the two posts, and if they do they get an extra point.
23 Madeleine: Can you describe the different roles in rugby to me?
24 Lily: There’s two main different roles in rugby, forwards and backs. Backs tend to be people that run
25 more – or like, there’s this theory that I think has been disproven, but like, backs are people that can
26 run faster than they are strong, and forwards are people who are stronger and aren’t as speedy. Backs
27 are people that run more, they have the ball a little more, and they’re more likely to score a try.
28 Um… and they have different positions, they’re mainly like, where you are in regards to each other.
29 So, there are center backs which are in the center of this line of people, there are wings which are in
30 the very end. Forwards are very different, we tend to – I’m a forward – we tend to tackle more,
31 um… and we are in scrums, as I described earlier, and um… there’s also, when the ball goes off the 32 field – I can’t remember the name of it – but we lift players up, it’s kind of complicated, so forwards
33 do that as well, while backs are trying to help our team get the ball. Um… yeah, so there’s different
34 roles for forwards, depending where you are in the scrum, we have jumpers and lifters, when the ball
35 goes off the field, um… and I could describe a little more, but it would be really long.
36 Madeleine: Don’t worry, there is plenty of time, so you can definitely go into more detail.
37 Lily: Ok, so I can describe a little bit about the scrum. I’m either a second row, which is called a
38 lock, or I’m a flank, which is somebody that is off the side of a scrum. Once again, a scrum is like -
39 you’re kind of like - two teams are like going in at each other and um, one team basically – you’re –
40 well both teams separately – you’re grabbing onto each other and leaning forward a little bit and
41 once you’re connected, you’re basically leaning onto each other and once the ball is – once the sir,
42 which is the referee, will say that the ball can go in, the ball goes in the middle and what each team
43 is trying to do is push as hard as they can, so that they can get the ball to their side. Um… so I either
44 play a lock or a flank, and a lock is someone in the second row people in the scrum, they’re called a
45 lock because it’s basically like you’re kind of keeping the whole scrum together, you have three
46 people in front of you, one is called a hooker, they are in between these two people called props,
47 which tend to be much larger girls who are very, very strong. The lock kind of locks in between each
48 person – there’s two locks – they’re in between – and I have to put my head in between each
49 person’s knees and my arm, I have to put my arms between the props’ legs and grab their shorts and
50 we lock each hooker and the prop together and we also have the flanks on our sides which are
51 grabbing us and then we have the eight-man behind us. The eight man is – when the ball gets out,
52 either they grab it or the scrum half grabs it – that’s the person who’s running around who places the
53 ball and stuff. So, we’re locking the hooker and also the flank and the eight man, and we’re kind of
54 central. And yeah, once the sir says go ahead, we push the team as hard as we can.
55 Madeleine: So, in terms of equipment, what do you need in order to play rugby?
56 Lily: You need cleats and a mouthguard. Oh, and a ball!
57 Madeleine: What’s some key knowledge you need in order to play rugby? 58 Lily: Well, you need to know how to play the game, just generally. What our coach says, and I think
59 this rings true, is that you play for a year, like it takes like a year to really get the game, and after
60 that, you can kind of play. You need to know how the game works, how to pass a ball – we have
61 spinning passes – you need to know how to tackle someone and how to get tackled safely. Just a lot
62 of safety stuff too, like how to hold your head and where to tackle somebody, so that you don’t end
63 up hurting yourself. You need to know, unfortunately, rugby is the kind of game that for each
64 position, you don’t need to know a lot about it, but you need to get comfortable in it, especially if
65 you’re a forward. If you’re a back you can kind of play any role, but if you’re a forward, it’s like – I
66 can’t be a prop for sure, but I know how to lock. There’s other stuff that I’m probably forgetting, but
67 those are the main things.
68 Madeleine: How often do you practice, where are these located, and how long are these practices?
69 Lily: We practice two times a week – well we have two formal practices at a field that the IMA lets
70 us use. Then we have weight training two times a week, one of those we recommend you come with
71 others, the other we just say, make sure you do the exercises.
72 Madeleine: Can you explain to me what a typical practice looks like?
73 Lily: So, we start off with these warmups, we do these things called Auckland squares, where we
74 practice passing. Then we do some stretching, making sure we’re limber, and then we do some
75 different drills, mostly fitness where we do something as hard as we can, usually sprinting, so we do
76 that at some point during practice. Then we have other drills, which can be tackling or just other
77 passing drills, things with our offensive strategy. At the end of our practice, we usually play touch
78 rugby, or we play like a real game for like ten minutes. And then, sometimes we split into forwards
79 and backs and do different exercises.
80 Madeleine: Can you describe to me what a session of weight training looks like and how long do
81 those last? 82 Lily: We only do an hour of weight training, it’s all over the place. We normally have our coach set
83 out a number of exercises she wants us to do with weights. Then we split into pairs or groups of
84 three people and we just go do them, so that takes about an hour.
85 Madeleine: Can you explain to me how practicing and weight training tie together?
86 Lily: While practices is just like a lot of making sure that you have the knowledge to play the game
87 and have practiced it, weight training is purely athletic stuff and making sure that you’re using your
88 muscles as much as possible and you’re as strong as you can be.
89 Madeleine: Alright, how often do you have games?
90 Lily: Well, it depends. We’re about to get into pre-season, we’re going to have a game every
91 Saturday until the 24th of November, and then we’ll have one in December. Then we’ll get into
92 regular season, it will be about the same, the season will start, we’ll have a game every Saturday,
93 we’ll have a bi-week and then depending on how far we go, and then we’ll continue playing.
94 Madeleine: How long do your games usually last?
95 Lily: One game normally lasts – gosh it goes by so fast – an hour to two hours, including four
96 breaks.
97 Madeleine: Where are these games usually located?
98 Lily: If it’s a home game, we usually play on a field that the IMA has given us with the lines for
99 rugby drawn in and if it’s an away game, it’s on another team’s rugby field.
100 Madeleine: How did you get interested in rugby?
101 Lily: Well in high school, I used to work at a Starbucks and I had a co-worker who played rugby,
102 and she really liked that. I used to dabble in roller derby and I enjoyed that too, but I knew that it
103 would be hard to play roller derby in college, considering that the roller rinks were far. So, I decided
104 to try out for rugby, I went to one of the tryouts, I liked it, I continued playing, and it’s been really
105 great. It’s a really great community to be a part of. 106 Madeleine: How would you describe yourself as a rugby player?
107 Lily: I like to think I’m pretty good, I’m definitely a forward, so I am used to tackling and getting
108 tackled, rucking, and getting into a scrum. I definitely could be better at tackling, especially, I don’t
109 even want to say I’m aggressive, because when you start to compare yourself to other players, like
110 some people are just like really aggressive, I mean, I’m just there, I guess. I’m very communicative,
111 which you have to be in the sport, I’m a good support player, actually, that’s how I would describe
112 me.
113 Madeleine: You described the role of a forward earlier, but can you tell me about how you would
114 describe yourself as a forward player and a support player?
115 Lily: So, often, where I am in regards to other people on the field, there will be someone on the field
116 with the ball, and I’ll be right behind them, so that they can pass the ball to me or if they get taken
117 down, I can ruck behind them. That’s generally my role as a support player. In terms of just like
118 being a forward, in my position, I don’t think I’ll be a lock this year, because there are too many tall
119 people – locks are normally really tall people, I’m one of the shortest locks – I’ll be a flank, that’s
120 someone on the side of the ruck, and they sometimes help push, and once the ball gets out, they just
121 run for it. That’s what I do, also when you’re a flank, you help figure out where the ball is, and when
122 you’re on defense you yell at everyone to get flat or you yell that you have to be on defense or
123 whatever, um and if you’re on offense, then you try to help the backs, or normally line off the scrum,
124 and you make sure that the backs have support. You run to wherever you need to be. That’s kind of
125 what I do.
126 Madeleine: What’s something you like about this role?
127 Lily: Having the ball is fun and all, but you are in a very vulnerable position. I don’t mind having the
128 ball, it’s fine, it’s good to be like – it’s good to have an idea of what is like – it’s kind of a role where
129 you have to manage people a little bit, and I kind of like that. I don’t necessarily like the authority,
130 but that’s what makes it fun – like I know where people are, I know what the player with the ball
131 needs from me, I’m just going to – I will tell them that I’m going to bob or whatever and that’s 132 another thing, so that’s a way to – yeah, it’s um, ball handler, and then Billy and Bob – if the ball
133 handler goes down, the Billy is the one that over them and then the Bob gets the ball out from under
134 them. Just being like – this is who I am to you and I’ll grab someone else, and I’ll be like, “Ok,
135 you’re going to go behind me” or “You’re going to go ruck for me” or “I’m going to get the ball out
136 of there”. It’s a lot of like thinking fast and telling others, “let’s go, let’s go do this”.
137 Madeleine: What are some key skills that anyone who is playing in your role needs?
138 Lily: You have to be ready, you can’t hesitate. You can’t hesitate in rugby in general, especially in
139 this role. There’s a scrum half and a fly half, and they do more, they have to handle the ball. I’m just
140 helping support them. You have to deliberate with your moves, communication is so important, you
141 have to be loud and you just have to say whatever and you have to be confident in yourself. You
142 have to get used to tackling and you have to get used to getting tackled. That was probably the
143 biggest hurdle for me, it was just like, getting used to being tackled and feeling my body get hurt,
144 and then getting over it quickly, and being ready to go after someone and not hesitate.
145 Madeleine: How had your participation in rugby changed over time?
146 Lily: When I first started playing, like I said, it takes a year to get used to playing rugby, I wasn’t
147 playing in games very much, I was still just at practice and I was like, “Can I do this?” and when I
148 became a forward from a back, I was like, “Oh yeah, I can do this”, I was a lot more confident in
149 myself. A lot of it was building confidence and gaining knowledge and trusting other people and
150 understanding that we are a unit as a team. I’ve grown in my confidence a lot and my skill,
151 especially when I changed roles, I was much more confident in the position I am in now than I was
152 before.
153 Madeleine: Can you describe to me the timeline of how you transitioned from being a back to a
154 forward?
155 Lily: So, my first year, when I was a back, I was playing center, so I was supposed to be in the
156 middle, which is a role, where you know you have to be in a role where you have to know where
157 people are or like yell at them. I just liked running before, and now I’m not so sure. That’s why I 158 think my coaches put me as a back, because I said that. At first, I thought it was kind of fun, but as I
159 got stronger, as I started playing rugby and I liked rucking more and tackling more, then just running
160 and yelling at people. I feel like I’m a lot more helpful as a forward. I was a back my first year, and
161 then the year after, the coach we had last year left, and I was asking the coach we have now, “Do
162 you think I would be a good forward?” She was like, “I don’t know, what do you think?” So, I
163 decided to try it out, and when I tried it out, I was like, “Oh definitely!”, so she kept me as a forward
164 and that’s what I’ve been doing.
165 Madeleine: In general, how would you advise someone that wants to begin participating in rugby?
166 Lily: Come to practices, and be open as a person. I think some people – if you come in with
167 expectations, it’s going to be rough, and be ready that this is a contact sport, it’s going to be up close
168 and personal. It’s just really fun, and people – I trust everyone on my team, like I can come to any of
169 them with a problem that I have in rugby or otherwise. It’s definitely a close and personal sport and
170 be ready for the sisterhood.
171 Madeleine: You mentioned something about expectations, can you go into a little more detail about
172 that?
173 Lily: I think some people come in not understanding how much contact there is, like if you do watch
174 rugby, sometimes it is a lot of running, and that’s it. But often, that’s not true and they don’t expect
175 to get hurt as much as they do, just like when you fall to the ground, you get bruises, like every time
176 pre-season and regular season, I get a ton of bruises and some people, that’s not their thing, they
177 can’t deal with it. It’s good to come in, not to think “I’m not going to get tackled or anything like
178 that”, you will get tackled.
179 Madeleine: What are some health concerns you have surrounding rugby?
180 Lily: Definitely getting hurt, I have been lucky never to been seriously hurt, I did get punched in the
181 throat, that sucked. I’ve never gotten any bone injuries. My biggest concern is getting a concussion,
182 I’ve never gotten a concussion, I know that if I got one, I would just stop playing. Luckily, there are
183 ways to protect your head and I follow all of those practices, though sometimes – last year our team 184 captain got kicked in the head – sometimes, that just happens. That’s my biggest concern. Second to
185 that would be tearing my ACL, it’s pretty common for women in most sports and definitely rugby.
186 Madeleine: You mentioned that you’ve been taking some preventative measures to prevent yourself
187 from getting concussions, can you go into more detail about that?
188 Lily: Yeah! Say, I had the ball, then I go down, two people are going to ruck over you, so you are in
189 this cage, with all these people and all these feet, and that’s where you’re most likely to get a
190 concussion. So, whenever I have the ball, or I’m under two people rucking, I try to get out of there as
191 fast as I can, which is the main protocol. If I can’t, I cover my head like this (Covers head with two
192 arms) and I just wait. If I am about to tackle someone, what you’re supposed to do, is that you’re
193 supposed to have your shoulder on their opposite hip and then have your head down, and then have
194 your head on top of them when you take them down. And when I get tackled, I bring my head in, so
195 when I go to the ground, I have everything condensed, and I make sure to hit my shoulder before I
196 hit my head. Then when we’re in the scrum, unless something horrible happens, like it breaks,
197 you’re not going to hurt yourself. I mean, sometimes, I need to stop rucking over a person, I need to
198 stop trying, before it goes badly, so there’s things like that.
199 Madeleine: So, you talked a little bit about this, but how has rugby affected your social life?
200 Lily: I wouldn’t say positively – this is my closest group of friends, there’s just practices, there’s
201 games, and there’s socials, where the two teams go get together and party. When I first got to the
202 UW, I was unsure, I was in a weird dorm situation, I didn’t know anyone, so coming and playing
203 rugby, these people being so open and wanting to get to know me and I was with them all the time,
204 and definitely, where all of my social life is.
205 Madeleine: What is something difficult you run into during a rugby game? Why is it difficult?
206 Lily: There’s some people who aren’t great about practicing safe tackling or safe playing rugby stuff.
207 Sometimes, the sirs – the referees don’t usually catch it and that’s the most difficult thing for me,
208 when I’m on the field and there’s someone on the field who does not care about my safety and
209 wellbeing enough and I’m like, “Ok, this person might punch me in the throat”, or something similar 210 to that, or someone is trying to make it personal, for example, they’ll get really angry when they get
211 tackled and they’ll get pissed at the person who tackled them. That’s the biggest thing in the game,
212 which luckily doesn’t happen very often. Like, there was one girl who was pulling people’s hair
213 which was disrespectful and overall not helpful if you’re trying to win a game. The ref was not
214 catching that, but eventually they did and the girl had to get sent out. Yeah, when people aren’t
215 playing rugby safely, high tackling, things like that, now that’s like an extra thing I have to worry
216 about.
217 Madeleine: Just a clarification, do you see this behavior in your own team or in the opposing teams?
218 Lily: Mostly the other team, there’s been times on our team, especially if they’re a rookie and
219 they’re still trying to get the handle of some things. Sometimes they get into high tackling and things
220 like that and we normally have to get our coaches to pull them off the field. Normally our coaches
221 are good about that, but other coaches aren’t – I don’t really know them, but they might not notice
222 that they have a player who is not being safe, and especially if the ref is not paying attention. I feel
223 that if it comes from our team, I feel like I can address it, like “You need to not high tackle, it’s
224 really dangerous, you’re going to get hurt, and somebody else will get hurt”, if the other team does
225 it, I don’t have any authority over that.
226 Madeleine: How does this behavior affect the outcome of rugby games?
227 Lily: Um, kind of depends, it doesn’t super affect it. There will be times where it does and the other
228 team wins or our team wins. It adds a level of anxiety and like aggression on top of everything else.
229 It depends on how bad they’re being, because normally, if they’re being really bad, the sir will take
230 them out, but in cases like the girl pulling hair, it’s like, “This is just stupid”, then it doesn’t really
231 affect the game.
232 Madeleine: What do you enjoy about rugby?
233 Lily: A lot – I like the social aspect, this is a close group of girls. I used to play soccer and a bunch
234 of other sports, there would be like a start player and then everyone else was like whatever and I
235 didn’t know my teammates that well. With rugby, because it’s such a team sport, it doesn’t matter. 236 There are girls who are definitely better than me, but it doesn’t matter because we have to work
237 together as a team. So, I like that – and um, rugby has a lot of gay people, so that’s cool, I get to
238 hang out with a bunch of girls who get to own their sexuality and their personality, and they don’t
239 take anything from anyone. It’s very empowering to be around those people. I also like that I get to
240 work out all the time and there is purpose to what I am doing, even though it is not a big deal. There
241 is a lot to love about rugby.
242 Madeleine: Alright, those are all the questions I have for you today, do you have any questions for
243 me?
244 Lily: Nope!
245 Madeleine: Well, that concludes this interview, I hope you have a great day! 1 Project Title: Rugby Team Study 2 Interviewer: Madeleine Le 3 Interviewee: Alexa (Alias), a current senior in college who has been on a women’s club rugby team 4 for four years, is the team captain of the team. Identifies a woman, (uses she/her pronouns) 5 Date and Time: October 26th 2018, 14:30 to 15:15 6 Location: HUB fireplaces 7 Interview #: RTIS02 8 Interview ID: 10_22_2018_RTS_Interview2 9 10 Madeleine: Ok, let’s get started. Can you explain what rugby is to me, from your perspective?
11 Alexa: Rugby, I like to call it a mix between soccer and football, with a bunch of weird European
12 mumbo jumbo. Um, it’s a large team sport, because there’s fifteen players on each side of the field at
13 all times – there’s thirty people on the field at all times. But, it’s separated into smaller groups on the
14 field at all times, so we have eight people who we call forwards and seven people who we call backs.
15 The forwards job is to – I say essentially punch through the opponent’s defensive line and make
16 these big tackles and make these rucks, keep the ball, and it’s the back’s job – the tiny faster people
17 – to take the ball and score at the other end, by the try zone. There’s a lot of weird rules in rugby that
18 I still don’t know – like the basic ones I know, one of them being you can’t pass the ball forward, so
19 I say that everyone is a Marshawn Lynch, everyone is a running back in rugby. Then, you can kick
20 the ball, so everyone in theory is like an Alex Morgan or a Cristiano Ronaldo. Um, and then anyone
21 can score, which is another thing in rugby that is like a cool thing, because I know – I guess you
22 could in soccer in theory – but because of the way that rugby is set up, when everyone is in this one
23 line and everyone kind of operates together it means that everyone has the opportunity to score,
24 which isn’t the same in most sports, so it does speak to kind of its – it’s nice team oriented,
25 egalitarian state.
26 Madeleine: Alright, so you mentioned the roles of the forwards and the backs, can you describe these
27 roles?
28 Alexa: Yeah! So, when we have new people join the team, we split them up into backs and forwards.
29 We say that you are a forward if you are stronger than you are fast, and you are a back if you are
30 faster than you are strong. The forwards are like the powerhouses on the field in a sense, they’re
31 usually larger players – they’re the ones that go into scrums – a scrum is when we get a penalty by 32 doing something bad, such as falling into a ruck or passing the ball forward or like a high tackle,
33 anything like that – it’s up to the forwards, they link together. There are the tight five, there’s the
34 flanks, then there’s the eight-man, they all link together, and then push against the other team
35 forwards, like a weird mosh pit – I wouldn’t say a mosh pit because there is some order – and they
36 essentially fight with feet to kick it out and give it to our backs, so that our backs can grab the ball
37 and score, or if that doesn’t happen, we go back on defense. Then, backs are more like – they’re not
38 wide receivers in football, I’m going to be comparing rugby to football because I like football – but
39 they’re not the wide receivers because there’s like no passing forward in rugby – they’re the faster
40 people that we try to get on the outside of the field, so that they can just run down the sidelines and
41 score. In theory, we want all of our forwards to kind of like, create this clump of defenders, so that
42 there’s like a bunch of holes that the backs can run through and score, that’s what we try to do. It
43 doesn’t always happen, but that’s the goal. I do think the forwards work a lot harder on the field than
44 the backs, because the backs will have some sprinting up and down the field, but the forwards are
45 constantly going into contact, going into the scrums, and going into these different penalties, so
46 kudos to the forwards.
47 Madeleine: Which position do you play?
48 Alexa: I am a back, I am the fly half. I will put this in football terms – I’m like the quarterback, but
49 I’m not like the quarterback, I call the plays for the back line. My job is to essentially look the
50 opposing team’s defense and what they’re doing on the field, then determine how we can get
51 through and puncture through that defense to score at the other end. So, I have a bunch of drills that
52 we run as backs, now it is my job to call them and if they fall apart, then it is my job to like, “Ok, so
53 that didn’t work, we’re going to try that this time.”
54 Madeleine: How does your role interact with the other roles?
55 Alexa: With the other backs? So, if we were setting up in a diagonal line, I am the first person
56 closest to the center of the field and then all of the backs line up diagonally behind me, so I have a
57 twelve, a thirteen, a fourteen, and a fifteen, and there is an eleven on the other side of the field. 58 Those are centers, there’s a wing and a full back, they are ones who get the ball from me, there’s the
59 scrum half who I get the ball from, the scrum half is in weird, weird terms, - that’s where the
60 European mumbo jumbo comes in. The scrum half is the link between the forwards and the backs
61 because the scrum half is the one that gets the ball from the forwards in the case of a scrum of a ruck
62 and then they distribute to me, then it’s my job to essentially to distribute the ball to the rest of the
63 backs. Everyone plays off of me and what I decide to do, like if I decide we kick it or if we’re going
64 to run this play – they just have to listen to me, that’s it.
65 Madeleine: And have you played any other positions besides the one you are currently playing?
66 Alexa: Yes, when I was a freshman, when they were deciding what to do with me, they did put me in
67 the forwards at first, there’s a position called a flanker, where it’s not like our biggest people, the
68 role of the flanker is to tackle someone as quickly as possible, there’s not much ball handling, you’re
69 supposed to be like a homing missile that tackles the first person with the ball, um, but they didn’t
70 like me there – or they didn’t do anything with me there – so they made me an inside center and then
71 an outside center – I’ve played both of those roles, so those are like the people that crash with the
72 ball in the back, so they get it from my role as a flyhalf now, then they kind of play off of each other
73 to see if they can kind of take it into contact or maybe they can get it out wide, so I was one of those
74 at a time and then our flyhalf graduated and so they put me there when I was a sophomore.
75 Madeleine: How was that transition between roles?
76 Alexa: It was terrible – it wasn’t terrible anymore – I like being a center, when I was a center, the
77 only thing on my mind was “get the ball and run”, in that position, all I had to do was get the ball
78 and run for it. Now as a flyhalf, I have to consider more of what’s happening on the field, as the
79 forwards have done, like what the defense is doing at the time, put more – I have to put more faith in
80 my teammates than in myself, because my role in all honesty is just like to get the ball to them, so
81 that they can take the ball and run. If I was to take the ball and run all the time, it would never get
82 anywhere – it would be a weird selfish move.
83 Madeleine: What is your level of satisfaction in your current role? 84 Alexa: On a scale of one to ten, probably like a nine, a nine. Sometimes I wish I could just grab the
85 ball and run forward like the good old days, but I do like the fact that I understand the game more
86 and that I can have more control over what we are going to do on the field. I’ll say nine out of ten
87 satisfaction level.
88 Madeleine: What do you need to play rugby in terms of equipment?
89 Alexa: Rugby’s pretty cool, because the only thing you need in terms of equipment is a mouthguard,
90 a different thing from other sports – well there’s rugby shorts. You could in theory wear normal
91 shorts, but rugby shorts are kind of like made to be pulled at – they’re very sturdy shorts – there are
92 people who wear like Nike running shorts, those could get torn up in a game like especially if you
93 are a forward and people are like hooking onto you in the scrums and all of that. So, we have rugby
94 shorts and I just wear soccer cleats – they sell rugby cleats but they’re not much different from
95 soccer cleats, they’re like “these are rugby cleats and they’re special”, so they make them more
96 expensive, but it’s dumb. The only thing is that you can’t have any metal on your cleats, so anything
97 will do. The current cleats I wear I got for six bucks at Goodwill and they’re amazing. Um, and then
98 you need a mouthguard because you are going into a lot of contact and we don’t want tongues
99 getting bitten off. Some people wear scrum caps, which are like weird rugby helmets, they’re not
100 like football helmets with that hard kind of like element, they’re soft padded little helmets that some
101 people put on. And after that, the jersey is all you really need, we provide that. The way that rugby
102 jerseys work – in football, Russel Wilson’s jersey is always number three, that’s his personalized
103 jersey – that’s not how you do it in rugby, we have a set of twenty-five jerseys, for the first fifteen,
104 your jersey number coincides with what position you are playing. So, for example, if I’m playing the
105 flyhalf, I would always wear a ten, if I were an outside center, I would wear a thirteen, but it’s not
106 like my jersey.
107 Madeleine: Can you go into a little more detail with the roles and the jerseys?
108 Alexa: There are fifteen players and there are jerseys that coincide with that position. So, if you look
109 across the field and see someone, you’re like “oh, that person is wearing a number nine”, I know 110 they’re going to be the opposing scrum half. One to eight are the forward numbers – let me see if I
111 can get this right – one and three are the props, which means in a scrum they support the number two
112 who is called the hooker, they hook the ball with the foot, their main role is to get the ball and push it
113 backwards so that we stay on offensive. Number four and number five are called locks, so their role
114 is to, they literally lock themselves into position between the one and the three to create more
115 stability within the scrum. Then you have the six and seven, who are flankers – they chill out at the
116 end of the scrums and when the ball is loose they go out and tackle someone, the eight, which is just
117 an eight-man. The eight-man is the last one who can get the ball out of the scrum, to our scrum half
118 which is the start of our back line, nine through fifteen is the back line, nine is the scrum half – the
119 link between the forwards and the backs – ten is the flyhalf, the play caller within the back line.
120 Eleven is the weak side wing, so they chill on the side where no one else is and if there is a hole,
121 they’re really fast, we just give them the ball and they run down the aisle. Fourteen is the strong side
122 wing, that means they’re off to the side on the area where a majority of other people on one side are
123 on, depending where you are. Fifteen is a full back which is great, they are like the last line of
124 defense, they hang out behind the line – so just in case the other team goes behind the line, we have
125 that last person who can go and make that tackle or when we’re running offensive plays, it’s a nice
126 way to overload their defense. Everyone wears those numbers that coincide with those roles.
127 Madeleine: What is some key knowledge that you need in order to play rugby?
128 Alexa: Um, I think when you go into rugby, the knowledge you need is how to communicate with
129 each other. We teach people the basics of rugby, but the only way to learn is to get in there and play
130 it. Through playing it, you develop this bubble of rugby knowledge and I can talk about it now, like
131 freshman year I was unable to talk about it, but they put me in the game anyways so that I could talk
132 with the people in my line, like “What is this? What are people doing? Where is the ball going? So, I
133 think that it’s very social team-oriented game – before you start learning the rules, you need to know
134 how to interact with a team, like what it means to be a good team player is the foundation for what
135 you can do, adding knowledge to it, so you need to know how to talk, how to be a support player, be
136 there for another player, call for another player to be your support player – you really need to know 137 how to communicate with each other on the field so that there’s less confusion. When you start to
138 learn the rules, the confusion goes away, but that only really happens when you ask questions and
139 when you talk to teammates on what they’re doing.
140 Madeleine: So, you mentioned earlier that you were in different roles, can you describe to me how
141 the communication between you and your teammates were different depending on your role?
142 Alexa: Um, so when I was a freshman – I was really quiet, mainly because I was confused – and
143 they threw me out there, and I was like, “What are we doing?” Halfway through when I was playing
144 in the middle of winter quarter, I was more confident with the rules, because I had played a couple of
145 games, so I would ask them specific things like, “Which area of the field is this in? Are we
146 attacking? How deep do you need me to get on this play? Should I get the ball?” The questions
147 stopped being like, “So like what are we doing now?” to “How do you want me to attack this?” For
148 the forwards, their communication – I’m not exactly sure, I know a little bit about the roles that they
149 have, when one person calls the movements, one person tells you to get ready and low to start
150 driving, we have one person calling, “Hips two three, hips two three!”. The forward’s main element
151 of communication is being there for the contact communication, so a forward needs to tell a back,
152 “Hey go down forward with the ball, I’ll protect you” or “Hey, I’m right next to you for an offload,
153 just pop it off to me”. For the backs, because we’re spread out wider, the communication stems from
154 a lot from the plays we plan ahead of time. For example, when I call a “rock-off-one”, because we
155 practice it, the rest of my back line knows how to set up, so when I pull the inside center line closer
156 to me and we put the outside center to set up a little farther back and past those set plays, the
157 communication for backs is also kind of this element of, “Hey, I’m deep behind you and you need to
158 pass this a bit backward, I’m close behind you, and we need to switch plays so that other people can
159 pass it off” – switch is like a trick play, changing the channels on the field – communication on the
160 field is like that and that also comes with actual knowledge about the game, you stop asking, “What
161 do we need to do?” and start asking specific questions like, “How do you want me to do this?”
162 Madeleine: Is there any other key knowledge you would like to share with me? 163 Alexa: Um… I think watching rugby – when I started playing it, I would start watching rugby on
164 YouTube, where people post stuff. I think by watching rugby on YouTube, it gives you the
165 knowledge you need, you see the plays you practiced on the field unfold in ways that you normally
166 haven’t looked at it before. It’s super confusing to watch the first time, but once you watch, play it,
167 watch, and then play it, you get used to it and you understand how the game works. I had absolutely
168 no knowledge of what it was like before, I literally walked to their booth right by the IMA and
169 asked, “Is this like football?” and that’s why I joined. Then I found out it was not like football, but it
170 was not – sort of. We tell people who want to join the team, “You don’t need to have any
171 experience, we will teach you the basics of everything you will need to know”. Our coach has been
172 playing rugby for twenty years and she says they change the rules all the time in rugby - it’s
173 something that you by being in, not thinking that, “I know rugby” – unless you have played rugby
174 before, but then again, we all started from not playing rugby before, I think that is one of the
175 attractive things about it and gets people to join. We have other club sports here, like soccer and
176 boxing – soccer is a super popular sport in middle school and high school – so when you enter those
177 sports, there’s an expectation that you know exactly what you need to know on the field, it’s not very
178 welcoming to those who have never played before. With rugby because there is a majority our team
179 who did not play rugby before they came here, we all know what it is like to be that new person, that
180 is like, “I have no idea what is going on” and then seeing yourself develop into this person who
181 knows what has happening. I’ve been playing for like four years and I know the basics of rugby, I’m
182 a lot more confident in myself than when I first started playing – but there are so many weird rules
183 that I could not tell you about.
184 Madeleine: How often do you practice with your team and where?
185 Alexa: We practice twice a week at – we do various fields – in the fall we practice on the outdoor
186 practice facility behind Husky Stadium. In the winter because it is our league season, they give us
187 the practice field right next to the IMA, IMA field number one. In the spring, because it’s our
188 seven’s season – our fun season, we go back to the outdoor practice facility. We usually aim for like
189 6:30 to 8:30, 6:00 to 8:00, just because people are free around that time, and we do it on Mondays to 190 Wednesdays, Mondays and Thursdays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, we like to space things out, and
191 gives them some rest time between intense sport contact practices. We also have a little weight
192 lifting session we do from 6:30 to 7:30 on Tuesday mornings at the IMA, because that’s before
193 people start classes, that’s a good time to wake up and start the day working out. Three times a week,
194 we do solid team practice activities.
195 Madeleine: What does the two-hour practice look like?
196 Alexa: Our coach plans out practice ahead of time, then she emails us the plan for us to review and
197 for us to see what equipment we need to bring. For example, if we’re going to do a lot of contact, we
198 bring special pads that are designed for contact drills. The first twenty minutes we spend doing
199 warmups, it’s this same warmup we do every time that our coach found online that supposedly
200 reduces the chance of an injury related to legs, which is cool because ever since we started it, I
201 haven’t seen anyone go down for a leg injury – so I think it’s working. So, the first twenty minutes is
202 a warmup, then we’ll fitness and conditioning – we’ll do sprinting or burpees, something that gets
203 our heart rate going, and a lot of anaerobic activity. We like to devote most of our time to rugby and
204 we like to get all of our conditioning done during the first half hour of practice. That hour after the
205 warmup, we do practice drills that change depending on the goal of this practice – for example if the
206 goal of this practice is to be a better defender, we’ll do some defense drills. We’ll do rucking drills,
207 defensive drills, and scrum drills for an hour, and then we’ll split into forwards and backs to discuss
208 our roles during that time. Then we like to come together as a whole team for the last half an hour,
209 we’ll either do a drill or since the rookies have practiced doing full on tackles and contact, we’ll do a
210 full on tackling – like mini rugby games and then we’ll do that for five minutes, stop, take a break,
211 discuss what needs to change, do it for another five minutes, stop, and keep repeating that until the
212 end of practice. Then we huddle together, talk about what went well, list any announcements who
213 have – if there’s a big event or a big game or if we’re doing a team bonding activity – then we go
214 “Go Dawgs! Woof!”
215 Madeleine: What do your weight lifting sessions look like? 216 Alexa: Our coach plans it out, so that there’s two workout plans that she has us do throughout the
217 week, so that everybody goes to the gym twice a week outside of practice – you know to get fit, it
218 helps you play rugby better, you can do the things that you need to do. So, at 6:30, there’s a short
219 warmup that we do, usually some cardio, doing a bike machine or a rowing machine. Then for the
220 next fifty minutes, we’ll break into groups of four to five people and then go to the different
221 machines, like the squat rack, a bench press, or the free weights. Our coaches walk around to make
222 sure that we are in the right position or doing something correctly. Each group is responsible for
223 critiquing each other’s form, helping each other lift the weights, and spotting each other. Our coach
224 is a huge part of it, but it is more dependent on the players there to do the things that they are
225 supposed to be doing.
226 Madeleine: How often do you have games?
227 Alexa: We have so many games – we have games basically every Saturday. Starting now, we have
228 four weeks of a Saturday rugby, we take a break for Thanksgiving, and then we kind of finish out the
229 fall quarter, and so that’s our friendly season – getting people getting used to playing rugby, playing
230 teams we usually don’t play such as Eastern Washington University and Western Oregon State, and
231 they’re not a part of our league conference, so we would never really play them in a winter quarter.
232 From January to March, that’s when our competitive season is, so have three weeks of Saturday
233 games, take a break, and then two more Saturday games, that’s against people who are in our
234 conference, such as Boise State, Western Washington University, University of Oregon, Oregon
235 State, and Washington State University. We have a lot of games for these first two quarters at least.
236 In the spring, it dies down, it’s our seven’s season, where there’s only seven players on the field at a
237 time. They’re shorter games, as a regular game is eighty minutes long, while a rugby seven’s game is
238 fourteen minutes long, where everyone is sprinting down, it’s really fun but it’s awful. That is not as
239 busy of a season, we only have two tournaments that we go to for the span of three months, so it’s
240 much more calmed and relaxed over that span of time, and slowly and smoothly.
241 Madeleine: How would you describe a typical rugby game? 242 Alexa: Oh my gosh, it is simultaneously the longest and shortest eighty minutes of my life, so the
243 very beginning, everyone is nervous so we like to warm up for an hour before we start, kind of get
244 out those practice anxieties out. Those thirty minutes before a game starts, I feel butterflies in my
245 stomach the entire time, every single time. It’s nerve-racking and exciting because it’s eighty
246 minutes of running and hitting people, it’s crazy, you have no idea what could happen. It seems like
247 in the beginning to get onto the field and kick the ball off, it takes forever. Finally, when we kick it
248 to them or they kick it to us and we catch it, the game starts and it does not stop. The only time that
249 the game is ever stopped is when a penalty happens, if someone is tackled and the ball goes down,
250 the game doesn’t stop – like you keep moving, you keep fighting to keep position of the ball. You
251 keep adjusting your game plan so that your team scores. You kind of get a break if you score a try,
252 you get the chance to score another point by kicking the ball through the posts. Then it starts all over
253 again, and it is a never-ending cycle of just like getting the ball, running, hitting someone, tackling
254 someone, and rucking someone. Then, halftime comes along after forty minutes and it feels like it’s
255 been the longest forty minutes ever but it also flew by. Then we start the second half, another forty
256 minutes. The second half to me, is like the smoother half, because the first half everyone is still
257 getting their nerves out, and then all the new people on the field that still don’t really know what’s
258 going on and are learning what is going on. The second half it really comes together for them, so for
259 the second half, I like to say that we come together as a team, so that’s when we finish strong.
260 Madeleine: You talked a little about this earlier, but how did you get interested in rugby?
261 Alexa: I was at the IMA, this was during my freshman year, I was looking for the track on the top
262 floor because I wanted to go for a run. I’ve always been pretty athletic and I used to run a lot. I
263 didn’t play a lot of sports in high school, but I would work out on my own time, just to stay fit –
264 that’s what I was doing at the IMA. There was the club sports symposium set up, I saw the rugby
265 table at the end of the hallway, but there was like no one there, there were just two players sitting
266 there. I don’t know if it was pity, but I went over there – just because I felt bad – and I was like,
267 “Rugby – is that football?” and they looked at me and said, “Yeah sure”. Then I wrote my email
268 down because I like football, they emailed me the information about the rookie clinic, the first week 269 before school started. I went down there and they showed me the three basic things in rugby,
270 tackling, rucking the ball, and passing the ball. I thought it was absolutely nothing like football, but
271 it was absolutely fun, I wanted to continue. The people there were so fun and encouraging, and I
272 wanted to keep playing. I really liked the physical aspects of the sport, such as tackling down others,
273 so I kept coming to practices and stuck with it.
274 Madeleine: How would you describe yourself as a rugby player?
275 Alexa: Number one, my development and growth as a rugby player has been one of the things that I
276 liked seeing. I was super confused freshman year and now I have people on the field asking me what
277 to do, and I can answer them and tell them exactly what they need to do. Like I can yell at people –
278 yell not in a mean way – it’s just really loud, so I have to like yell really loudly, tell them, “No, you
279 need to do this, or this”, something I would never have even considered being able to do as a
280 freshman. I would say, I am an intense player because – I don’t know if it’s because I’m smaller, I
281 feel as if I have something to prove, but I love it when larger people run down the field with the ball
282 and I can like tackle them into the ground like, “That’s right, you thought you were just going to run
283 over me, but you can’t because I’m going to grab your ankles”. I can’t tackle them above the hips,
284 but I can grab their ankles, it trips them up. I like to be a person on the field that people can come
285 and ask questions, like the majority of my back line – the rookies in my back line will ask me what
286 to do. I think that’s great because I want to help them learn and be someone they can ask questions
287 to and be like a good role model for them, but I don’t hesitate for them at all on the field and I kind
288 of want that to be spread to them too because I think hesitation in rugby is one of the most dangerous
289 things that any player can do, because tackling – the way we teach tackling is super safe, if you use
290 proper technique, you’re hitting with your shoulder, you’re driving with your hips and with your feet
291 and like your head and upper body – everything is going to be fine. It’s when people hesitate and
292 second guess themselves, that they get injured, because they don’t – last second, doubt prevents
293 them from doing well – everyone is super talented and they know what they can do. I like to be that
294 person to show them that they can do it as long as they don’t hesitate – like as long as they can do it
295 as long as they don’t hesitate, even if it is a bad decision. Like, “There’s two giant people in front of 296 me and I’m not going to pass it, I’m not going to hesitate and just run for it, and I’ll be successful
297 because I didn’t hesitate in doing it. So, that’s something that I have developed as a player, like I was
298 pretty nervous freshman year, but now I don’t hesitate. I think that is something I like to show other
299 players, like as long as you do not hesitate, you’re in the clear.
300 Madeleine: How has your participation in rugby changed over time?
301 Alexa: My participation in rugby, has just skyrocketed, I was new and I didn’t do anything. Then
302 when I was a sophomore, they elected me secretary of the board, and I was in charge of keeping
303 everyone’s paperwork kept together, we have many seniors that were a part of a team, they showed
304 up to games, but they weren’t helpful in running the team – because it is run by us, our coach doesn’t
305 run, it’s not run through us, we handle everything that needs to be done. Sophomore year, they asked
306 me to be the captain of the backline and I was like, “sure, sounds cool”. Since then, there’s been so
307 much responsibility and then my junior year, I was elected vice president, and then this year I was
308 elected to be the president, so every single year, it’s been responsibility over responsibility. But I
309 really like it, because I’ve gotten better at being someone at the board, but being in a leadership
310 position on the field, so even though my responsibilities have skyrocketed, it feels very manageable.
311 Madeleine: How would you advise someone that wants to begin participating in rugby?
312 Alexa: I would say, it’s scary putting yourself out there, putting yourself out of your comfort zone,
313 but it’s so worth it. When I first got here – the first time you do anything and it was scary, especially
314 during my first year as a freshman, I had a ton of doubt – you just have to get past that and feel fully
315 capable of doing something. That first step of going to a rugby practice or going to a clinic, it’s
316 going there and with the mindset you’re not going to go anywhere several times, stick around and
317 you’ll eventually learn more. It’s just that first step of showing up and getting out of your comfort
318 zone.
319 Madeleine: What are some health concerns you have about rugby?
320 Alexa: It is a very physical, high contact sport, there’s always this fear of something going wrong –
321 my number one concern with new players is that hesitation is prominent, hesitation is one of the 322 most dangerous things that you can do. My first rugby game, three of my teammates, there was no
323 communication, they all hesitated, and they all went in for the same tackle at the same time, clunked
324 heads, with the three of them, all three of them had to get concussion tested – that’s the danger of
325 hesitation. We don’t get many concussion scares because of the way rugby is where you – it’s a safe
326 tackling drill where we pound into their brains, so that when you go to tackle someone, your head is
327 completely safe. I’ve never had a bad neck or head injury. The main concern for me is that I don’t
328 have the best shoulders. I went to a physical therapist once and there was something weird in my
329 shoulder blade, so the past couple years, at like one point in the season, had like a sprain in my
330 shoulder that has taken me out of a few games and in the back of my head my concern, but I’m
331 supposed to be wearing a shoulder blade that prevents my shoulder from moving in the direction of
332 where it’s not supposed to go, so that makes my shoulder feel better. People get stepped on, when
333 you’re on the ground and people run around, you get stepped on. It’s nothing bad, because I have
334 cleat marks on my shins and calves and didn’t notice them, and then someone will step on my hand
335 because I didn’t tuck it in quick enough and it hurt a lot. As far as injury goes, there’s bruises, after
336 every game everyone looks like a bruised banana. Nothing bad though, in the years I’ve been here,
337 I’ve only ever seen broken bones, only one of them was on our team, the other instances were on the
338 other teams, I’m not really worried that people are going to get super injured.
339 Madeleine: Alright, how has rugby affected your social life?
340 Alexa: Rugby is my main source of any sort of social activity, just because I’ve met so many people
341 through playing rugby. Every weekend, if we’re going to do something, it’s rugby people, I’ve met
342 some of my best friends here because of the rugby team and even if it’s not a rugby event, we do
343 something on Saturday. We have like this thing on Tuesday night, where we do a movie night, one
344 of my friends is an AMC movies member so she gets five-dollar movie tickets on Tuesdays, so
345 thanks to rugby, I get five-dollar movie tickets. I think rugby has made me more of a social person –
346 I was never super shy, but I was never outgoing – but when you are thrown into this pool of fifty
347 people and you’re all responsible for like leading them and getting information from them, it forces 348 you to get out of that comfort zone and be outgoing. Also, the people on the rugby team are super
349 cool, that you just want to be their friend, you want to go out there and do that.
350 Madeleine: You talked about this earlier, but what’s something difficult you run into during a rugby
351 game and why is it difficult?
352 Alexa: I think one difficult thing is the mentality, your mindset is an important part of a rugby game.
353 Physically I think everyone is more than capable of doing what they need to do, even if you’re
354 against some rugby player who is like a gigantic person on the other team, you can take them down.
355 It’s just like you have to believe that you are tough and confident and I can do this. When things
356 aren’t going to well on the field, you’re confused, or our team is down on the scoreboard, getting
357 past that mentality of defeat is difficult and is the next step of everyone’s process in becoming a
358 better rugby player, than just the physical aspect to the mental aspect. Don’t let anything small you
359 do let you down, because I hate it when a rookie will come up to me and be like, “I’m sorry, I’ve
360 done this...” and I’ll be like, “In the span of twenty minutes, I’ve done like forty things wrong, so
361 don’t worry about it”. It’s that mentality of, “No, I’m going to do better next time and I’m not going
362 to let this bring me down”.
363 Madeleine: What do you enjoy about rugby?
364 Alexa: Number one, the sport is so fun, I played basketball and track in the past and I didn’t think
365 those were super fun, but rugby it was like, I like playing rugby and I look forward to playing rugby,
366 and talking about rugby makes me feel super happy. I really like the people, because a rugby culture
367 thing is to be very friendly and very warm and very welcoming, so it’s not with our team, but with
368 every team we play with. I have super close friends on other teams we play against, because of
369 rugby, because we interact with them so many times, sometimes we’ll go to other colleges just to
370 hang out. The huge social aspect of being in a giant rugby family and sometimes you tackle each
371 other. Overwhelmingly, there’s such good sportsmanship and such good bonding between each
372 other, that’s it’s just like an encouraging group of people to be around. 373 Madeleine: So, those are all of the questions I have for you today, is there anything you want to ask
374 me?
375 Alexa: Nope!
376 Madeleine: Well, that concludes this interview, I hope you have a great day! 1 Project Title: Rugby Team Study 2 Interviewer: Madeleine Le 3 Interviewee: Rudy (Alias), a current junior in college who has been on a mostly women’s club rugby 4 team for three years, identifies as non-binary, uses they/them pronouns 5 Date and Time: October 29th 2018, 13:00 to 13:30 6 Location: HUB fireplaces 7 Interview #: RTIS03 8 Interview ID: 10_22_2018_RTS_Interview3 9 10 Madeleine: Ok, let’s get started. Can you explain what rugby is to me, from your perspective?
11 Rudy: Rugby to me – I joined because I was looking for a community of strong women – that’s what
12 rugby was to me, it is really family based and incorporates sportsmanship, into just like being there
13 for your players on and off the field. So, rugby to me is like my home away from home.
14 Madeleine: Can you describe some of the different roles in rugby?
15 Rudy: We have – what we call families – and they are like different personalities on the team, we
16 have a lot of like – yellow families is like our motherly women, they take care of everyone, green
17 family is the crazy ones that are always looking to have a good time. Pink families, which is the one
18 I’m in, we’re like the tough love big sisters. Then the purple family, we like to call them our
19 puppies, because they’re like the sweet smaller ones. So, I guess like – when you mean roles, do you
20 mean like on the field?
21 Madeleine: If I could hear about the roles on the field, that would be great too.
22 Rudy: On the field, you can be a back or a forward and backs are usually your taller quicker ones,
23 forwards are your thicker girls running around – they can be fast too, but we’re looking for a lot of
24 power and force in those, that’s what I am, a forward. There’s one called a fullback and she has to be
25 big and fast because she’s the last line of defense. So, if the entire opposing team gets past our
26 defensive line and they’re about to make a try – which you would call making a score – she’s like
27 our last line of defense, and she can hopefully bring them down.
28 Madeleine: So, what’s your favorite position as a forward, that you like to play? 29 Rudy: I am a prop, I really enjoy being a prop. So, in a scrum – scrums are basically like – um, to
30 compare it to football, though I try really hard not to do, because they are fundamentally very
31 different – you know when people are going in for a tackle? So, that’s our version of a scrum and
32 our props – I guess are more heavyset because we are trying to push against the team and to try and
33 get the ball to cross an invisible line onto our side. For me, that’s really fun, because it’s not just you
34 out there, it’s a whole line of girls out there who are pushing and you kind of have to work together
35 and it’s really cool – like you can tell that you have a good relationship with someone off the team
36 when it comes to a scrum, everyone is communicating and they’re not afraid to say, “Hey, we’re in
37 the wrong form, we need to readjust”. You can tell the more comfortable you are, the better the
38 scrum works.
39 Madeleine: Switching gears a bit here, you talked a little bit about your rugby families, can you tell
40 me how you got into your rugby family?
41 Rudy: So, we actually take tests at the beginning of the year, every quarter if there are new rookies.
42 So, you take a big and little test. When you have graduated after your first year of rugby, you are a
43 vet, before that you are a rookie. Every vet gets a rookie, so we call them our bigs and littles, it’s a
44 mentor thing. You take the test, as in you fill out a bunch of questions. Then our rookie master, who
45 gets elected every year, she compares test results in order to check for compatibility, so that’s how
46 you figure out who you’re paired with. And, whichever vet you get, you belong to your vet’s family.
47 My big was in the pink family, so I became a pink family rookie, so that’s how it begins every year.
48 Madeleine: What’s the dynamic between the members in your family look like?
49 Rudy: Our family line is really close, we try to hang out often and make sure we’re doing things that
50 are inclusive – there are some events that involve drinking and some people aren’t comfortable with
51 that, so we will be doing dry events that don’t involve drinking because we want to make sure
52 everyone has full accessibility to the team on and off the field. My family line is particularly close, I
53 know other family lines are close. We do emphasize that we’re looking for community and identity,
54 and if we can’t do that, people can’t feel welcome. Our line is close and I do enjoy that. My specific 55 line is very much – one of our favorite topics because we’re all like very open and verbal feminists,
56 so that is something we are constantly – like when we talk about rugby and playing rugby as women
57 and queer people, that’s something we’re always bringing up, it’s a very intersectional thing.
58 Madeleine: Alright, switching gears again, what do you need to play rugby in terms of equipment?
59 Rudy: There isn’t a lot of equipment, depending on your position. You’ll get a uniform, but you pay
60 for that at the beginning of the year, it’s only 45 dollars. You typically want soccer cleats and a
61 mouthguard, and that is pretty much it. Some will wear headwraps which are super specific to rugby,
62 that’s like associated with one specific position. Not everyone is wearing it, one person is wearing it.
63 Madeleine: Could you tell me about the specific position that wears it and why the wear it?
64 Rudy: I believe that position is – wait, I’m blanking – I believe the position is a back, because they
65 have got to – they wear the cap, sometimes to – we clonk heads, there are concussions that can
66 happen, but they aren’t super common, the cap is one way to prevent them. We don’t like wearing
67 helmets because helmets have been proven to cause concussions. Rugby really is – the only way you
68 get injured is that you aren’t confident in, like, going into playing rugby. There’s a lot of hesitation
69 that causes injuries.
70 Madeleine: Ok, can you describe to me what the uniform looks like?
71 Rudy: The uniform is – so rugby shorts are pretty specific, that is your only uniform that you want to
72 make sure everything doesn’t slip off. So, the rugby shorts have a tight waist, you know – you can
73 tug on rugby shorts and they’re not coming off, the material is really nice. Then it’s a simple jersey,
74 traditional jerseys will also have stripes, ours used to be black and purple, but over time, we’ve
75 gotten new jerseys – I don’t know what the new design looks like now because they just came in
76 now and I haven’t seen them yet, that’s about it. Then, knee high socks and that comes in from
77 around the beginning, like the original parts of rugby – internationally everyone wears knee high
78 socks, ours are purple.
79 Madeleine: What’s some key knowledge you need in order to play rugby? 80 Rudy: As long as you are excited to learn, there aren’t a lot that you need to go in. We are an open
81 team, you can be an expert or have no knowledge and it’s fine, because we’re all still learning. But I
82 think you should know that it is a full body contact sport, there is really no way around that even if
83 you are a back – forwards usually do the tackling, but backs have been known to do the tackling and
84 get tackled, so that’s something you have to be ready for. Um, beyond that, you have to be confident
85 in yourself, because you are tackling someone without any gear, it’s intimidating if you aren’t used
86 to that. But, beyond that, nothing really.
87 Madeleine: How often do you practice?
88 Rudy: We do try to practice two times a week, but there are two lift days in the mornings, and then
89 we try to have separate forwards and backs practices, to get time dedicated to their specific skills.
90 Madeleine: Just a clarification, forwards and backs practices are separate?
91 Rudy: Yes.
92 Madeleine: Can you describe to me what a typical practice with everyone looks like?
93 Rudy: Practice with everyone starts with a warmup, so you’ll do a lap around the field. We practice
94 on the field behind Husky Stadium. Then we’ll do warmup stretches and different variations of
95 cardio and different ball handling techniques, we’re trying to get used to being able to pass the ball
96 left to right, because of the way you pass a rugby ball is different than other sports on how you pass
97 the ball, so with a rugby ball it is different – so, we’re trying to teach rookies how to handle the ball
98 and practice yourself. Then after that, we’ll go into like drills, usually our coach will have us play
99 like a mock game and then our coach will give us a list of things that we need to work on and then
100 she’ll make us do some drills. Then we end practice with another mock game.
101 Madeleine: And how long does normal practice last?
102 Rudy: Normal practices can last between two hours to two and a half hours.
103 Madeleine: What do the lift day practices look like? 104 Rudy: So, weight lifting, we have another person who is elected, a fitness coordinator on the team
105 and our coach. They get together and figure out – when we start getting into our competitive season
106 that’s when we’ll start lifting weights, around winter quarter – so it’s going to be a lot like heavy
107 workouts, trying to reach their maxes. This quarter, since it’s just friendly games, we are trying to
108 make sure that everyone is getting used to like constant working out. Nothing extreme, just moderate
109 weights.
110 Madeleine: Just a clarification, where are your weight lifting practices located?
111 Rudy: We practice at the IMA.
112 Madeleine: How long do these weight lifting practices last?
113 Rudy: Around and hour to an hour and fifteen minutes.
114 Madeleine: Since you are a forward, what does the separate forward practices look like?
115 Rudy: Practice as a forward, it’s a lot of – forwards are practices in scrums, so we’re practicing a lot
116 of scrums, a lot of – when you pass the ball you need a lot of follow, basically you need to follow the
117 ball. When you’re passing it and a back catches it, you need to stand behind them, because when that
118 back gets tackled, you’re going to be huddling over them to protect them so that they can pass it to
119 someone else. It’s a lot of offensive practices, being able to support your other team members.
120 Madeleine: Where are your separate forward practices located?
121 Rudy: We try to – if we can reserve field one, which is the one right next to the IMA.
122 Madeleine: How long does your separate forward practices last?
123 Rudy: Those are an hour to an hour and a half?
124 Madeleine: How often do you have games?
125 Rudy: Because our competitive season just started, we typically have games once a week on
126 Saturdays, because it is traditional to play rugby on Saturdays. 127 Madeleine: How long do these games last?
128 Rudy: The game is split into two quarters, each quarter lasts forty minutes, so you have an eighty-
129 minute game total.
130 Madeleine: Where are these games located?
131 Rudy: The games are located on the field number one right by the IMA, if it’s at the UW. If it’s at
132 another school, it could be anywhere from the local park to a field at the university we’re playing
133 against.
134 Madeleine: Can you describe to me a typical rugby game?
135 Rudy: A typical rugby game, because everyone still has energy is very high impact for the first
136 twenty minutes. Then, after everyone gets tired, the second twenty minutes is a little slower, because
137 it is a friendly season – we are going to incorporate a lot of rookies into the roster, it’s chaotic on the
138 field. You can practice playing rugby as much as you want, but once you start playing against other
139 players who have been playing for four to five years, people are still trying to figure out where they
140 have to stand and you have to figure that out because there are fifteen positions on the team and
141 fifteen of those positions have a specific job. You have to try to remember like, “I’m number six and
142 I’m supposed to be doing something here”. A lot of it is messy, because it’s trying to get their
143 grounding.
144 Madeleine: You talked a little bit about this earlier, but how did you get interested in rugby?
145 Rudy: I’ve been playing rugby for three years. I got interested in it after seeing it at the Olympics, I
146 do enjoy watching football, not as much as my family. But with rugby, I felt really connected to it, I
147 loved the community around it and their values and beliefs of team and family and how they are the
148 same. So, when I found out there was a UW women’s rugby team, I joined winter quarter.
149 Madeleine: How would you describe yourself as a rugby player? 150 Rudy: I don’t take – I really enjoy rugby and the social aspects of it, so I’m not like super intense on
151 rugby, more like making those connections and making people feel comfortable playing the sport.
152 Um, being a bigger person playing a sport, I know it can be really intimidating to show up to a team
153 and not see your own representation, so I try to make myself well known on the team as possible, so
154 that I can show that there are different body types in rugby.
155 Madeleine: How has your participation in rugby changed over time?
156 Rudy: So, I typically play rugby during the autumn and spring, just because I get busy during the
157 winter and I work. It’s a lot of things stacking up on each other and I would rather be their
158 sporadically. So, I figured if I take a step back during one winter and let myself recuperate during the
159 long haul of winter, I can be more involved during winter and spring.
160 Madeleine: Was this different than in your past years?
161 Rudy: I tried to be super involved my freshman year and I wiped myself out. It started to affect my
162 schooling. Because I was worried about schooling, I was not giving it my all at rugby and I was half-
163 assing everything.
164 Madeleine: How would you advise someone that wants to start participating in rugby?
165 Rudy: Come show up. It’s a very accepting team and we’re always excited when new people show
166 up. I mean, even if you’re considering it, you should give a try to it.
167 Madeleine: What are some health concerns you have surrounding rugby?
168 Rudy: Um… I don’t know if I have any concerns surrounding rugby, sometimes it’s cold? So, dress
169 properly. But when people do get injured, it’s usually an accident or something that could have been
170 avoided – I don’t know. I think every sport has its own concern for injuries, but we play in all types
171 of weather so prepare for that.
172 Madeleine: You mentioned that – when a player does get injured, it’s something that could have
173 been avoided, could you go into a little more detail about that? 174 Rudy: Um… a lot of people that have gotten injured, there has been hesitation on someone else’s
175 part and they didn’t go for a full tackle or they stopped running. I know when I injured my ankle, I
176 was running and I thought I could go for the tackle, then I was like “oh no, I’ll wait”, and I tried
177 skidding my feet backwards and I ended up getting tackled two different ways, so that messed me
178 up. Had I been confident enough to go for the tackle and do it, I wouldn’t have gotten hurt. So, when
179 I notice people getting injured or hurt, it’s usually like – if they had been more confident or had more
180 practice in whatever they were doing, it could have been avoided.
181 Madeleine: Ok, how has rugby affected your social life?
182 Rudy: Rugby has enhanced my social life, because it is such a big team, there are always people who
183 are like, “I’m going to do this, want to join me?” So, there’s always like an accessibility to like
184 friendship, which is a cheesy way of saying. I actually live with two other rugby girls now because
185 the team is so close and family oriented. It has made my social life better. I think it’s funny when
186 people see my rugby sweater and they ask me, “Oh hey, do you know one of the 75 girls on the
187 team?” and I’ll be like, “Yes, I do know her as well”. I like when people get interested in rugby
188 because it is really interesting. I think more people should watch it and enjoy it.
189 Madeleine: What’s something difficult you run into during a rugby game and why?
190 Rudy: When you’re doing a lineup and someone else doesn’t know what they’re doing, it’s supposed
191 to be very organized, it’s from one to fifteen, there’s supposed to be a diagonal line. When I did it –
192 in my rookie year I had a bad habit of freaking out and running in a circle, it would throw off other
193 players and they would ask, “Oh hey, what is she doing?” Another rookie asked me, “Should we be
194 doing that?” and I was like, “No, please don’t follow me, I’m panicking.” But it’s like in the start –
195 rugby helped me become more comfortable in vouching for myself and I was like, “I don’t
196 understand”. While I do feel a bit dumb for asking the question over and over again, I realize that if I
197 don’t know what I’m doing, I’m not helping the team in the long haul.
198 Madeleine: What do you enjoy about rugby? 199 Rudy: Really everything, I love playing the sport, I love watching the sport, to me – a new line of
200 rookies every year – I think we are such an accepting group of people – people are more there to
201 become more comfortable and to have that support, even in like academics. We have like a
202 GroupMe, and we’ll ask, “Hey is anyone in ode?” and then sixteen other women will show up and
203 then we have to find more chairs. It’s really nice to have a constant connection.
204 Madeleine: Alright, those are all the questions I have for you today, do you have any questions for
205 me?
206 Rudy: No, I think we covered a lot.
207 Madeleine: Well, that concludes this interview, I hope you have a great day!