Kate Gets Ladyboner For Rugby At World Cup 7s In SF
Normally I don’t like to brag…
but as an 18 y/o freshman in college I played DII field hockey in the boonies of Indiana University of Pennsylvania (right next to California University of Pennsylvania if that clears anything up). Our starters were either local farm-town powerhouses or friends of our Euro-coach from the Netherlands; experts in their mid-to-late twenties.
Adding insult to the injury of my fragile ego, our team was good. We made it to the DII college champs in Lowell, MA & that meant a lot of good things for the program, but to me it meant sitting the bench 24/7 and worst of all – rules. Piss tests, long practices, short personal time, no leaving the dorms at night 48 hours before a game, no partying at homecoming or Halloween. (Which was a travesty b/c Halloween is when my sexiest self used to shine…)
And as a gal who spent her HS years under close watch, biding her time whilst re-watching Animal House & Tommy Boy, that was killer. I was finally free… but I still wasn’t allowed to go wild. I was an entitled moron who felt stuck.
That’s when I discovered rugby.
A few friends from my dorm told me to come to the dark side.. check out a couple practices & parties. They were only a club team who paid for their own way; carpools of ramshackle hoopties full of Sheetz wrappers & moldy old uniforms pulling up to Saturday games. The coach was a gent from the men’s team with too many concussions to keep playing. There were post-game chants, socials, songs, traditions.. & it felt like a family.
It was love at first sight. Next thing, I was sliding a note under the field hockey coach’s door (Vaarwel!) & was all in on club rugby, strutting across campus in my fabulous almost but not really wind & waterproof jacket. Both men & women’s teams had tough, fun practices, challenging games & a great off-campus culture that sometimes meant poop winding up in our dryer.
The game was confusing AF for me at first. Only backward passes? We – generally – weren’t supposed to fight against getting tackled? We were supposed to let go of the ball on the ground? Crossing into the try-zone wasn’t automatic points – you had to touch it down? Nothing felt intuitive & I sucked, but where my skill level plateaued my love of the game rose.
Seeing a great tackle in football is fun, but seeing one in rugby gets my blood going. I have a serious ladyboner for it. The fans, the plays, the hits, the break-aways… there’s something about it that – no matter how long it’s been since I played – gets me excited. And going to the Penn Mutual collegiate rugby 7s championships in June brought that back..
So I went out on a limb & asked if the Hi Haters crew could hit up the World Cup 7s in San Fran.
When El Presidente sent back a lengthy email full of support (“Sure – go ahead”) I almost did a cartwheel. And yesterday Chaps & I were finally there.
He knew nothing about the sport until I rambled on about it this week, but if you ask he’s a fan now, too. World Cup rugby is the happiest, wackiest party in town. We jumped in on chants, hung out with people from around the country & world, and got to see top notch athletes excel on the pitch.
Our incredible U.S. women’s team knocked out China & Russia, but lost to New Zealand in the finals. And the beyond-talented men’s team lost to England in overtime (despite having the snack-iest thighs around).
Through it all we were on our feet (mostly with the wild, wonderful fans from Fiji) and loved every second of it. Whatever team people were there to represent, the #1 priority of each attendee seemed to be ‘have a good time’, and it showed.
We’ll be coming out with some videos of our SF adventures & the World Cup this week. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.