Rugby is a sport with positions that sound exotic, like flyhalf, scrumhalf, props and hooker. There's tackling, but no pads to speak of, and aficionados of the sport have been known to post bumper stickers on their cars that read, "Give Blood. Play Rugby."

Most Americans probably could describe the shirt named after the sport before they could describe the sport itself, though there's a notion that it involves bone-crunching contact and lots of beer drinking. Indeed, the mention of the word "rugby" calls to mind for some the images of drunken college men in various states of undress parading about the campus and singing bawdy songs.

That unflattering image may be true to some extent, particularly when it comes to men's club rugby in the states. But advocates of rugby also point out that it is a sport that can involve dedicated athletes who spend hours in the weight room, who are top-notch student-athletes and who are led by certified, experienced coaches.

Those who believe rugby can be a viable sport for women in the United States would like to see it identified as an NCAA emerging sport, thus permitting institutions that field a varsity rugby team to use that team to help meet the requirements for sports sponsorship and financial aid.

If the NCAA did designate women's rugby as an emerging sport, perhaps many more institutions would add it as a varsity sport for women. And if that were to happen, advocates say about 30 to 35 female student-athletes at each institution could benefit from a varsity sport experience unlike anything currently available to women.

An image to overcome

Many athletics administrators, particularly those who hail from the recreation side or who once oversaw club sports on their campuses, remember rugby as a sport with lots of issues -- all negative.

And some college presidents, perhaps those who once served as vice-president of student life or in some other capacity where they were responsible for overseeing the student judiciary system, can tell stories of entire teams that were expelled for drinking kegs on school property or of arrests for indecent exposure or public drunkenness.

Perhaps one reason for the "wild child" image of rugby is a tradition unlike that in most other sports. At the conclusion of the contest, both teams participate in what some call the "third half," where the two teams get together and socialize. Depending upon local traditions, they may eat, sing songs or drink alcoholic beverages. The social chairs of each team coordinate the third half, and there are stories of kegs actually showing up on the field before the game is over.

It doesn't have to be that way, though, points out Kate Greenthal, a junior economics major at Harvard University and president of the Radcliffe Rugby Football Club (which is affiliated with Harvard but retains its traditional Radcliffe moniker).

Greenthal notes that the Radcliffe Club's postgame celebration is strictly a no-alcohol affair.

"Rugby is such a physical game, and there's a tradition of diffusing that emotion after the game," she said, noting that the tradition comes from the days when the game was played by entire villages in England and Ireland. "That's not a bad thing, and the camaraderie is nice. What we did not retain in the way of tradition is the drinking."

Radcliffe has a barbecue with the other team, and they all sing songs. Clothing stays on, and the strongest beverage available is a sports drink or a cola. The club plays on Harvard's property, and the members are careful not to jeopardize their ability to play on the fields.

"Not a single person on our team joined in order to party," said Greenthal. "We don't have alcohol after games. We're not going to risk having our team suspended. We want to be respected by the university, and we're not going to do anything to diminish that."

Greenthal's club, which competes in Division I of the New England Rugby Football Union, takes the sport very seriously. They practice and lift weights in the off-season, and they have a formal season in the fall that lasts about six weekends. They compete again in the spring for six weekends. In the winter, they have two conditioning practices a week and one more "rugby-style" practice indoors (that involves no tackling).

"The mindset here is very much like what you'd find in a varsity sport," Greenthal said. "We watch videos of the other teams and we have team meetings. We lift on our own and practice three times a week. We already have our own self-imposed rules, and most clubs do."

The Radcliffe club won the national USA Rugby championship in their class in 1998, and their slogan for fund-raising the next year was: "We're the poorest national champions in America." The financial support of a university would mean less begging for funds and more time to devote to the sport itself, which Greenthal notes is gaining in popularity.

"Rugby has grown so much over a short period of time and has tremendous grass-roots interest. It's really something women want to be involved in," she said.

That interest likely will translate into more dedication and less misbehavior, she said.

"I think people need to remember that, given a chance, women will act responsibly and do what they can to preserve or expand an opportunity," Greenthal said. "I love the men's team, but the culture here is different."

The team's head coach is a registered nurse, so the club does benefit from her medical expertise, but the students practically salivate at the thought of the medical resources that would be available if they had varsity status.

"We've been very fortunate to have the expertise of our coach," Greenthal said. "But rugby is a full-contact sport. We don't get huge injuries really, though the small things like broken noses or fingers are a problem if you can't treat them."

Greenthal discussed the pros and cons of varsity status with members of her club team, and everyone agreed that access to athletic trainers and training facilities, access to certified coaches, and also the respect and financial backing of the university would be well worth any trade-offs of assimilating into the athletics department and abiding by NCAA and institutional regulations.

"It's a small price to pay for the huge benefits that would come," she said. "We're lucky in that we have high-level coaches, but the higher the level of play is, the safer the sport is and the better coaches female student-athletes can have."

A varsity model

At Eastern Illinois University, the women's rugby team has had varsity status since 1998. Eastern Illinois is believed to be the first (and perhaps only) women's intercollegiate varsity rugby team in the NCAA.

The administration at Eastern Illinois credits the team's head coach, Frank Graziano, with a plan to create a varsity program that would fit into the athletics department.

"He brought in a plan for what varsity rugby should be," said Deborah M. Polca, senior woman administrator and senior associate athletics director at Eastern Illinois. Polca said that the rugby student-athletes follow the same rules at Eastern Illinois as all other varsity athletes, from meeting NCAA continuing-eligibility requirements to attending academic counseling and observing limits on practices.

"We've pretty much put the whole (athletics department) structure on it, and everything has worked well," Polca said. "The student-athletes are a part of our student-athlete board, and they have risen to the top as some of our leaders. All of what has been accomplished here is because of Frank.

"He's been successful in (doing away with) the atmosphere of drinking as a part of the sport, and he has been able to do a magnificent job in turning that culture around. The young women who play here know what to expect, and they are expected to be like all the other teams."

Eastern Illinois does not permit its opponents (all of whom are club teams) to have alcohol on the sidelines during the contest. Certified athletic trainers are present at all contests, and the student-athletes participate in an extensive strength and conditioning program to help minimize injury.

Graziano just recruited his first class last year. Before that, he made sure women interested in rugby at Eastern Illinois had a good idea about the commitment required for varsity intercollegiate athletics.

"The hardest challenge we overcame I think is getting the women to understand what it would take to be an intercollegiate athlete," he said.

To do that, Graziano required each rugby student-athlete to interview an in-season male and an in-season female and see what their lives were like.

"Most of the women came back from that exercise and realized what level of commitment was involved. And, most of them thought it was worth it," he said.

"Now, when they come on the team, we go through the team rules and say, 'This is the intercollegiate way.' They understand how the system works and they agree to become a part of that. Our student-athletes understand the responsibilities they have to bear in order to wear an intercollegiate jersey and to earn the respect due a varsity student-athlete."

A former assistant national coach for the United States' under-23 team, Graziano played rugby overseas and also coached a club team on the intercollegiate level. Graziano approached Eastern Illinois around the time the institution was surveying the interests of its female students. And, the women's club team had requested funding.

It seemed like a good time to consider rugby, Polca said. The university administration was supportive, so supportive in fact that women's rugby is now slated to get a new field when the softball team does in the athletics department's next facilities improvement project.

"The addition of women's rugby was a natural for us," said Louis V. Hencken, interim president at Eastern Illinois. "It met the needs of our female students who wanted to become student-athletes. It's definitely a sport with tremendous growth potential in intercollegiate athletics. We're proud to be the pace setters in this particular area, and even more pleased that we could provide another competitive sport for our female student-athletes."

A need for qualified coaches

A coach with Graziano's experience and credentials was a tremendous boost for the Eastern Illinois women's rugby program.

But not everyone who coaches club rugby is as qualified as Graziano, and that concerns many athletics administrators, including Les J. Poolman, athletics director at Dickinson College and a member of the Division III Management Council.

"In essence, I have no problem with rugby being an emerging sport for women as long as there are a significant number of qualified coaches available," he said. "Too many people think they're qualified to coach this game."

A native of England, Poolman played rugby and later focused on soccer. He also coached rugby at an English boarding school.

"In this country, there are too many ex-football players who think they can coach the game of rugby and treat it in a similar fashion," he said.

During Poolman's first year at Dickinson, there was a terrible accident, and a men's club participant was left a quadriplegic. Though the institution only provided "advisors" to club teams, the student -- who had been coached by a former football player and was participating in only his third game -- won a lawsuit against Dickinson.

Poolman notes that the differences between American football and rugby are enormous, particularly in areas such as tackling.

"When you tackle in rugby, you're supposed to have your head up," Poolman said. "That might result in a broken nose or a broken collarbone. But as soon as the person lowers their head, then you roll over and people fall all over you and you end up with a broken vertebrae. Coaches must have a complete understanding of the game and an understanding of tackling."

Another key difference: the person being tackled is supposed to let go of the ball immediately, not hold onto it as in football.

"I have concerns that, if it becomes a varsity sport, are there a sufficient number of certified coaches to go around?" Poolman asked. "In soccer, we've made tremendous progress in this area. But I seldom hear much about rugby coaching certifications.

"I'd love to see rugby as an emerging sport and an opportunity for women, but I'd hate to see it at the expense of a few people with quadriplegic accidents."

Anne Barry, the volunteer president of USA Rugby, is a former rugby coach herself and a current rugby referee. She agrees that emphasis on qualified coaching is essential.

"We do now have a certification process that mimics the international process," she said, noting that it has three levels and more than 1,000 people have gone through the program, now in its fourth year.

"We've upgraded the standards in that program, and now it's a very well-developed coaching curriculum that includes safety, body mechanics and tackling."

Barry says that USA Rugby has responded to increasing interest in the sport, offering the level-one program eight to 10 times a year, the level-two program five or six times per year and the level-three program three times per year.

"One good thing about teaching women to coach rugby is that they don't generally have to unlearn football," Barry said. "And as participants, they don't have to unlearn spearing with the head because they were never taught to do that."

A deputy commissioner of finance for the state of Minnesota , Barry also is a senior fellow in the school of health at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. As such, she understands that qualified coaches help prevent injuries.

"I think NCAA recognition can only help in terms of encouraging people to seek certification," she said. "And it's also beneficial to be able to engage athletic trainers."

And as president of the Minnesota Rugby Union, which consists of 42 college clubs in the state, Barry says she hasn't seen behavior issues in women's rugby.

"The issues that concern so many about the culture of rugby are really not a problem in women's rugby," she said. "We never have issues with the women. They tend to be the ones with savvy, who are the better students and who are well-organized. It's really much more of an issue on the men's side, where people are more into the drinking and the whole culture. There is a tradition of greeting the opposite team and engaging in a social event, but it doesn't have to be drunken debauchery."

Barry points to the opportunities in rugby, which she says transcend the culture.

"The addition of rugby as an emerging sport supports the athletics desires of many women who want to participate in a dynamic and challenging contact sport and are willing to prepare and test themselves in that manner," she said. "I've always attributed a great deal of my professional and academic success to the game of rugby."

All about opportunities

Those who support adding rugby as an emerging sport agree with Barry and are sure the other issues can be worked out.

"Any sport has health and safety issues," said Marcia Saneholtz, senior associate athletics director and senior woman administrator at Washington State University and a member of the NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics. "That shouldn't keep the NCAA from adding it (as an emerging sport). There's a critical mass of interest out there, and I think we should accommodate that. As far as the culture issue is concerned, I think you address that with any club sport you elevate."

Saneholtz also said that many of the cultural issues will go away with the club athletes as many of them choose not to be affiliated with the varsity program. She said she saw that when Washington State added women's soccer in 1989 and again when it added women's rowing in 1990.

"Some of the women didn't have the skill level or commitment and preferred club sports, while others didn't want to take on the culture of intercollegiate athletics and adhere to the standards the institution has set for athletes," she said. The cultural aspects of a varsity program include formal training and practices as well as academic and behavior standards as specific as the need to declare a major by a certain time.

Saneholtz also believes that institutions should decide for themselves if a sport is a good fit and that they should hire coaches who impart the administration's expectations about behavior.

"Adding rugby as an emerging sport broadens the options for schools," she said. "We need more options for schools that may need to readjust their numbers. Even though rowing accommodates many schools, it's not a sport that everybody has a facility for, and I think we need to be sensitive to that. There's not a female counterpart to wrestling, and there's not a female counterpart to football, so we need to offer a broader array of women's sports."

Rugby also has some benefits when it comes to diversity, say those who have competed.

"It's a very diverse group of women who are interested in rugby," said Bevin Hartnett, compliance assistant for the Ivy Group, former rugby club player and former softball varsity student-athlete at Williams College. "The ethnic diversity on the rugby field was two to three times what I saw on varsity teams."

Hartnett also said that rugby accommodates women of many different sizes and shapes, something that is not necessarily true of many varsity sports.

"You might have a 200-pound, 6-foot prop who holds up a tiny player called a 'hooker,' and both are great athletes," she said.

The other element of rugby that many find intriguing is the contact, something that women have not always had as an option.

Stephen W. Marshall, assistant professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and a researcher of rugby injuries, is a New Zealand native who has seen women in his country flock toward the sport.

"Rugby gives female student-athletes the opportunity to participate in a type of full-contact sport that has been culturally off limits," he said. "Not very many women in this country get the opportunity to participate in American football. Here, the opportunity exists to fill a niche and offer women the opportunity to compete against other women and run and pass the ball, tackle and be tackled and participate in a style of sport that is currently unavailable to them."

Clubs on rise

Number of women's rugby collegiate club teams in the United States:

Division I: 196 clubs, 4,233
participants

Division II: 94 clubs, 2,539
participants

Division III: 28 clubs, 583
participants

Source: USA Rugby

Sponsor requests

NCAA member institutions that have formally asked the NCAA to elevate rugby as an emerging sport for women:

Bucknell University

University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Santa Barbara

University of Central Florida

Eastern Illinois University

Pennsylvania State University

St. Mary's College of Maryland

University of South Dakota

South Dakota State University

State University of New York at Stony Brook

University of Wisconsin, Whitewater

Vassar College

Rugby progresses toward emerging-sport status

For a sport to be declared an NCAA "emerging sport for women," it first must be recommended by the NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics (CWA). That recommendation comes when the committee evaluates the viability of a sport as an emerging sport and considers a number of factors, including:

There must be at least 20 competitive club or varsity teams participating in the sport at NCAA member institutions.

Additional data demonstrating support for the sport (such as support from coaches organizations, national governing bodies, etc.).

A demonstrated understanding that all NCAA members sponsoring the sport at the varsity level will, once the sport has been identified as an emerging sport, abide by all NCAA regulations, including limits on playing and practice seasons, recruiting and eligibility.

Proposed general championship rules and format.

Then, for the CWA to consider recommending a new sport, 10 NCAA member institutions must send letters signed by the athletics director and president.

The CWA evaluated those criteria for rugby and received the required 10 letters last fall. The CWA then forwarded recommendations to the Management Councils in all three divisions, asking that they support legislation identifying rugby as an emerging sport.

There is no requirement that an emerging sport must be designated in all three divisions. In fact, equestrian currently is an emerging sport in Division I but not in Divisions II or III.

In October, all three Management Councils reviewed the issue of rugby and essentially made three different decisions.

The Division I Management Council agreed to recommend legislation making rugby an emerging sport for women in the division, and it sent out legislative Proposal No. 01-127 for membership comment. The Council is expected to review the issue again at its meeting in April. At that time, it may recommend legislation to the Board of Directors, which also meets in April.

The Division II Management Council agreed to approve the concept of rugby as an emerging sport and see draft legislation at its next meeting that it might forward to the Division II Presidents Council and then the Division II membership at the 2003 NCAA Convention in January. However, the Division II Management Council also expressed concerns about health and safety issues in the sport, as did the Division II Presidents Council. Both groups asked that more information on this topic be reviewed before the division considers the legislation at the 2003 Convention.

The Division III Management Council declined to recommend rugby to the Division III Presidents Council for consideration of legislation. Instead, the Management Council asked that the CWA add a health and safety review to their criteria for forwarding potential emerging sports. The Division III Management Council and Presidents Council are concerned about health and safety issues in rugby in particular, and members of both groups thought it would be prudent to add a review of health and safety to the process.

At a recent meeting, the CWA declined to add a health and safety review to its examination of potential emerging sports. (For more information, see an article about the CWA on page 6.) The CWA again has referred the matter to the Division II and III Presidents Councils, asking that they reconsider their concerns about health and safety in rugby. The Management Councils likely will consider the issue again when they meet in April.

-- Kay Hawes

NCAA umbrella could provide beneficial cover for rugby injury concerns

Even if varsity rugby teams could overcome the culture that concerns many athletics administrators, what about the question of injuries? Rugby is played with little padding, but there is tackling and a variety of other full-contact play.

Randall W. Dick, NCAA senior program coordinator and a liaison to the NCAA Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspect of Sports, has reported to the Committee on Women's Athletics that the NCAA staff does not have information on injury statistics for the sport.

"We don't have any hard numbers," he said. "But based upon the fact that we know it is a collision sport, we would assume an injury rate at least as high as other collision sports, such as women's soccer, men's and women's ice hockey and possibly men's lacrosse. We also would assume that the need for medical resources would be comparable to that of other collision sports."

USA Rugby plans to send the NCAA additional information from its Safety and Risk Management Committee, including an overview of what USA Rugby is doing to enhance safety in the sport.

In the meantime, Richard A. McDuffie, athletics director at Eastern Illinois University, said Eastern Illinois treats rugby as any other high-risk sport.

"It's a contact sport, and as such, you just do what you have to do for the student-athletes' welfare. It's not been a major obstacle," he said, noting that the university has a number of full-time athletic trainers and graduate assistants on staff.

"I don't think you're going to need to hire another full-time athletic trainer because of (adding) rugby, but if it requires it, then so be it. I think you do what you need to do for your student-athletes."

Stephen W. Marshall, assistant professor in the departments of epidemiology and orthopedics at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and co-chief of the Injury Prevention Research Center, is a native of New Zealand who has studied rugby. Among other topics, he has analyzed American football and rugby looking toward lowering the injury rate in men's rugby, perhaps by using some of the equipment used in football.

"You couldn't remove the padding for football, because then it wouldn't be football anymore," he said. "Similarly, you couldn't fully pad in rugby because then it wouldn't be rugby. But is there something between those extremes that would help reduce injury? That's what we're looking at."

Marshall notes that he saw a higher rate of injury in rugby than in football, but he also did a study in New Zealand showing that the rate of injury in women's rugby in that country is half the rate of men's rugby.

"Health and safety in these sports is a complicated issue that involves everyone from the administrator to the athlete," he said.

Marshall also pointed out that differences between men's and women's rugby might explain the injury rates.

"The guys are larger and hit harder; they're going faster and they have more mass, but there also are different techniques at work," he said. "The women's game tends to be more open and flowing, while in the men's game mass plays a bigger role and it's more important to be a large player."

One of the equipment additions that's being used more in the United States is a soft helmet that resembles early American football helmets.

"The jury is still out on that to some extent," Marshall said. "It has potential in preventing minor damage to the scalp and ears, and that's important. Ears have a tendency to take a beating, resulting in what's long been known as 'cauliflower ear.' That has been something of a badge of honor over the years, but for a woman in the 21st century, that's not an attractive feature of the game."

Marshall has seen no evidence that the helmet prevents concussions, though he notes that the football helmet hasn't been able to prevent concussions, either.

Marshall does believe that making rugby a varsity sport will make it safer.

"Most of the rugby played in this country is played without benefit of any certified athletic trainer," he said. "Football players have access to athletic trainers and that access is rare for rugby players, but their needs are similar. Also, from a preventive standpoint, athletic trainers can do a great deal. I think we can actually advance health and safety in this sport by bringing it under the NCAA umbrella."

Marshall also notes that in New Zealand, the drinking culture has not kept pace with the growth of women's rugby.

"That mentality has dissipated in New Zealand," Marshall said. "It has a PR aspect as well as a performance aspect. It's not good for public relations to have people drinking to excess, and from a performance aspect, you need to prevent injuries and also win games. You cannot be a party animal and be liquored up and perform well. Those things are incompatible.

"I think making rugby into a collegiate sport is a step toward U.S. rugby moving along the same path as New Zealand, past the outdated and destructive party-animal mentality and toward serious recognition as a serious athletics endeavor."

-- Kay Hawes