It’s easy to understand why Allan Dobson and his father Peter wanted to introduce rugby as a varsity sport at Sebastian River High School. The game is deeply embedded in their Scottish lineage.
They founded the SRHS girls rugby program in 2008 and this year a boys team was formed. The sport has sparked enough interest and curiosity among students to make it sustainable.
The girls team has been invited to participate in the Girls High School Rugby National Tournament May 20-22 in St. Charles, Missouri. This will be the second trip to nationals in the short history of the program. Additionally, nine girls have already gone on to play rugby in college and the 2016 team will add to that number.
The opportunity for further achievement in the sport is obviously there. However, at the risk of sounding out of touch with prevailing trends, we wondered how this unlikely union of rugby and high school girls came to be in the first place – and has evolved to the point that it is now flourishing.
“I believe that girls deserve the same access to athletics that boys do,” said Dobson, SRHS director of rugby and head coach of the varsity girls team. “And unfortunately, for whatever reason, girls are prevented from playing football, or at least you don’t see many of them playing football.
“Rugby is a rough sport, but I might not use the word rough. The word rough has negative connotations and there are scare mongers out there that will jump on the word rough. So I like to use the word tough – but girls are tough.”
Some girls and women play a version of padded contact football, and the popularity of flag football is on an upward curve at local high schools. However, rugby has carved out a niche at SRHS to the point that 30 girls or more have come out every season since its inception.
Nevertheless, girls hitting the equivalent of a tackling dummy in practice is not yet a common occurrence. Rugby is a full contact sport regardless of age or gender. Protective equipment is minimal and the proper technique for tackling – and being tackled – is covered in Rugby 101.
Benita Carson, Christina Norman, Cassie Nicolace and Yaelle Olivier form a core of senior leaders for the Sharks. The four provided some insight into why high school girls choose to play rugby. Nicolace and Olivier are also co-captains, which in rugby takes on a special significance.
“Being a co-captain means a lot,” Olivier said. “You are the only voice that can talk to the ref. It’s quite amazing because everybody looks up to you.
“My sister played when she was a senior and I was a freshman. I didn’t play back then because it was way too competitive. I started from scratch as a sophomore not really knowing a lot about rugby.
“It’s a different sport, especially for girls. We finally have a sport where we have full-on tackling and full-on hitting. There is finally a sport in which girls can take anyone down and not feel weird about it. We are smaller girls in general, but we know we can beat bigger teams because we have that strength. It gives you the confidence that a lot of girls need.”
Olivier and Nicolace lead the team in calisthenics before every practice and game. Nicolace told us, “I’ve been playing rugby for three years now. I had kind of lost confidence in my athletic ability before I entered high school. I knew that rugby was a new sport and not a lot of girls played it.
“You could get started without having any experience. So I thought it was a good opportunity to make new friends and experience the great bonding that comes with joining a team.
“Christina Norman is our pack leader. She takes control of the forwards. Yaelle and I focus on the back line and everything in general. I’m fly-half, the play maker on the backline, and Yaelle is inside center.
“We are really excited to take our team to nationals and have that experience there.”
Christina Norman’s dad played rugby in England and her two brothers followed in his footsteps. “Like my dad and brothers, I thought it would be a good idea to try rugby,” she said. “I’ve been playing for three years and this is so much fun.
“You get a lot from the sport, not only life lessons, but bonding and friendships. And you also get to hit.”
Benita Carson will go on to play rugby at Lindenwood University, the site of the national tournament in May. She said “I really enjoy this group of girls. They just bring love to the sport and make me feel as if we are all family.
“I started playing rugby as a junior and I really didn’t know how it was going to go. A friend told me about it and my first response was that I didn’t think it would be my sport. As the season went on I liked the competition and now as a senior I’m doing really well.”
The team must raise nearly $18,000 for the trip to Missouri and fundraising details can be found at www.gofundme.com/SRHSRugby.
