I never really understood rugby. It uses such strange terms: scrum, maul, ruck.
But that’s all changed. All it took was watching my 9-year-old line up as a hooker in his scrum — cap and funky rugby socks — and then scoring his first try, and I was hooked. Pun intended.
Rugby has grown in Colorado by 330 percent in the last year, according to Jack Vail, a manufacturer’s sales representative for Gilbert Rugby. In February, The Economist reported it was “the fastest-growing team sport in the country, outpacing rivals such as lacrosse and hockey.”
Rugby was born in 1823 when, legend has it, William Webb Ellis famously disregarded the rules of soccer, picked up a ball and ran it into the goal. It isn’t even new to Colorado; the Denver Barbarians have been playing now for more than four decades. What is new is the rise in youth teams. Rugby is becoming a generational sport; dad, grandad, or older brother played, so now we are seeing astounding growth in the youth leagues.
J.R. Lapierre, executive director of Rugby Colorado, says in 2008, there were 125 kids ages 5 to 15 playing in clubs. In 2011, that number rose to 718. There are now 20 high schools offering rugby for boys in the state.
Glendale has already placed a bet on the future of rugby, to the tune of $50 million, when it built Infinity Park, the first municipal rugby stadium in the nation, in 2009. With the World Cup coming up in early September, the stadium will host an exhibition match between the U.S. and Canada on Saturday.
The International Olympic Committee has added rugby to the venue for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. The last time rugby was in the games was in 1920 and 1924. (The U.S. won gold at both, so we are the reigning champs.)
But here’s the question I hear from parents: “Is it safe?”
I’ve heard the horror stories. One friend whose husband used to play blamed “too many trips to the ER” for not wanting to sign her son up for a team.
While I was concerned about signing up my own son, I took the word of my husband, who played for the Colorado School of Mines Orediggers and later for the Barbarians. He said it was safer than football, which he played in high school. Tackling in rugby is more of a wrapping up the opponent and pushing, as opposed to the hits you see in football; no spear tackles, no receivers jumping for a ball at midfield and being T-boned by a safety.
At a tournament in June at the Aurora Sports Park — which hosted some 20 teams from Florida, Minnesota, Texas, California, and more — I spoke to the medical director, Robert Arnold. “The mistake people make,” he said, “is they think [rugby players] are playing football without pads.”
The injuries in “most matches are just scrapes and bruises,” Arnold said. “It is far, far less injurious, especially with knees and vital joints, compared with football.”
Any sport has risk. Cheerleading has one of the highest reports of serious injury. And my friend who didn’t want her son playing rugby? Her daughter is on the sidelines for up to a year with a concussion — from soccer.
Still, the reputation that rugby has could also be attributed to the players and fans themselves, from the bumper-sticker slogans (“Give Blood — Play Rugby”) to the chill-inducing Haka (the pre-game chant of the New Zealand All Blacks).
But after a match, you will find the players sitting in a pub, one arm hoisting a beer and the other wrapped around the shoulders of their opponents. Now that’s sport.
Katherine Braun (kathi_braun@comcast.net) of Littleton is a stay-at-home mom who is working on a book about the Deer Creek Middle School shooting in February 2010.
