Many claim the sport started hundreds of years ago when villages would have contests trying to get a small animal, or the guts of a large one, from their village into another village. The sport was very dangerous back then, and still is now.
It often involved running through a rowdy crowd of villagers, passing the poor animal, and even tackling. It is this violent nature of the sport that attracts many college athletes to rugby today.
This rough sport is especially popular among Dartmouth College women. Although not a varsity team, the Dartmouth Women's Rugby Club is just as competitive and motivated as any other team on campus.
The team currently consists of 60 players, who practice, on average, three to four times every week, and competes against other schools during the fall and spring terms.
This year the club has been off to a spectacular start, defeating opponents in the fall by as much as 29 points. The team's only loss came to UMass, whom the team beat for the championship.
As of now, the women are Northeastern Champions and are preparing for the Sweet Sixteen in Orlando, Florida on April 21-22. If they continue to perform as well as they have in the past, the ladies may make it to the Final Four in May.
But before the ladies strap up for the big dance, they will host the Ivy League Tournament here at Dartmouth on the 14th. As they prepare for the tournament, many spectators wonder what drives many of these women to play what some consider a violent or even "masculine" sport.
"Rugby is the ultimate outlet for my aggressive, energetic nature. It is very empowering to leave the field after 80 minutes of hard, full-contact play and know that I have tried my hardest.
"If the amount of contact and degree of physical exertion makes it seem 'masculine' to some, than that's one stigma I'm willing to take. Rugby is a smart, organized, exhilarating game," Forwards' Captain Rosemary Rile '01 told The Dartmouth.
Another player, freshman fullback Catherine Dale '04, said she plays because "It's a great team sport, very social and because there are lots of fun people on the team".
Neither of the two seems to be concerned with rugby being too dangerous. The team as a whole seems to play for the sheer enjoyment of the game and doesn't give a second thought to the violence involved.
In fact, non-athletes would be shocked to learn what the team does right before they play such an injury prone sport. Sheila J. Hicks '04, who plays the position of prop or hooker, said, "we sing this song, it's such a happy awesome song, it's about the founding of the DWRC"
Whether it gets their adrenaline pumping or not, it works well enough, as the team lost only one of the eight games it played it the fall season. The team is hoping to repeat its performance in the fall season as the spring season starts off this Saturday against Boston University.
