Why We Rugby

University of Michigan Women's Rugby Team

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Playing rugby has given me a new appreciation of my body and it's physical capacity, while also instilling in me a passion to improve and the mental drive and discipline to follow through. I see myself as a work in progress and endeavor to learn from each mistake I make. It has been hugely empowering to see how women of all body types can be badass and successful as athletes. By recognizing my teammates and our opponents as forces to be reckoned with, I am learning that I, too, can be a formidable athlete. This team has an amazing bold, inclusive, and positive spirit-- I wouldn't trade Michigan rugby for anything!

Emma Buis, UMWRFC Athlete

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“Throughout the years rugby has taught me an incredibly important lesson: that there can be beauty in brute force. In a society that often forces women to fit a strict mold of soft feminine virtue, I felt lost. It was difficult to find a world where strength and roughness were as equally praised as beauty and grace. Yet, in every tackle and every ruck, in each and every time I get hit hard and hit back even harder, I have found that I no longer have to choose. Rugby empowers me to create my own mold and to find my own balance. I am both a beauty and a beast.”

-Sam Cooley, UMWRFC Athlete

pc: sam weiser

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-Sam Weiser, UMWRFC Athlete

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“In the beginning of this year I was sexually assaulted. I felt really powerless and alone, like I hadn’t done enough to protect myself. I was really depressed for awhile, but then I saw a flyer for Women’s Rugby. I thought, “if there’s anything that could teach me to be badass, it’s this.” So I joined hoping I would gain that sense of strength that I needed.

Not only did I gain that strength, but I gained determination, power, discipline, and friendship. This sport changed my perspective of who I am, but the team, the women who play, changed my life. I play rugby because it’s empowering and because I can’t imagine my life without it.”

-Savannah Struble, UMWRFC Athlete

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-Jay Hash, UMRFC Athlete

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“I've played rugby on 1 team for 9 weeks but I've played soccer on 9 different teams for 15 years. I play rugby because in a short period of time I've learned that rugby includes all the aspects of soccer that I love - plus adds some incredible perks that I didn't know my life was lacking.

I have never felt more included for the entirety of who I am, than I have these past 9 weeks playing rugby. Through a body image perspective, being a soccer player is fairly exclusive to leaner athletes. Not only did the soccer teams I play on prefer thinner built athletes, but the mentality of the entire sport is grounded in believing that leaner women are better than different and diversified body types. Taking a step back and realizing that the professional female athletes I've idolized on the USWNT all look the same is discomforting, and this realization has changed the way I've defined my love for sports.

Rugby celebrates differences. And maybe it's like this because different athletic builds are necessary to the game, but I've truly never been apart of a team that has not only encouraged women from all walks of life to play, but has accepted those on the team as crucial elements of our successes.

I play sports to feed my love for competition, to feel fit on and off the field, court or trails, and to represent women across the globe as athletes that can do everything that a man is socially expected to. I'm excited to enrich my athletic drive through the sport of rugby, because rugby just feels right in my bones. As a new player but an old athlete, it's difficult to stay positive when so much of this sport is learned through failure, but nonetheless I will continue to show up with a smile because the game, team, and environment are worth it.”

-Dana Nathanson, UMWRFC Athlete

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“Joining the rugby team has without a doubt been the best decision I made since coming to Michigan. It has taught me so much about myself, helped me recognize my own strengths and weaknesses and feel empowered that I can do anything I set my mind too. Even more importantly it has given me a community whose core is camaraderie, trust and respect. I have learned so much about what it means to be a leader, a teammate and a friend both on and off the field and I am so thankful for the person it has help me become.” 

-Gaia Cicercia, UMWRFC Athlete

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“I rugby for a variety of reasons, but I mostly do it for the power and intensity it calls for--the absolute bad-assery. No pads, no helmets, full tackles. Yes, women play full tackle. There’s no greater feeling than being on the field, with the ball in your hand, knowing you have absolute control of what could happen next. An autonomy like no other—you are solely responsible for your tackle.

You will make mistakes, but know that as long as you made them out of aggression, that they were good mistakes. This sport takes everybody, no matter your height, your weight, your size, it takes every. body. Rugby isn’t society’s standard of feminine. No, it is not gentle or soft. Instead it is feminine in the way it radiates fierceness, power and resilience.”

-Janera Martinez, UMWRFC Athlete

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“Rugby empowers me because I'm allowed (no, encouraged) to be aggressive and get dirty and be loud. I don't have to make myself less. As women, we're expected to behave, or not behave, in certain ways, and I'm proud to play a sport that doesn't necessarily reinforce those norms. It encourages us to be strong, competitive, and to have grit. It's a sport with rules exactly the same as it's men's counterpart. (Finally, a sport that's actually equal to it's men's equivalent.) Overall, rugby is empowering because it's doesn't restrict who we are. In rugby I found a community of people who are unafraid to be themselves and they encourage me to be more myself, unapologetically.”

-Emily Carlson, UMWRFC Athlete

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For the first time in my life, I was told to be rough, more aggressive, and more commanding. Rugby is unique because we are all held to the same rules, expectations, and physical demands as men are, often being coached by the same staff and training side by side. Every person that wants to come out and try rugby is welcomed just as they are. We strive to inspire confidence in our teammates and make each other strong and accountable, which carries far beyond the rugby pitch and into our daily lives. Rugby has made me feel more confident about my body because I’m proud to be muscular, strong, and powerful. It empowers me because I can be myself and still work on improving my body, even if the ways I view improvement don’t fit society’s definition of femininity. Before rugby I was never comfortable to be me, but because of rugby, I am me: a strong and powerful woman.

Emily Sluiter, UMWRFC Athlete

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“Rugby empowers me by giving me strength both physically and mentally. Rugby makes me proud to be a short, muscular female and helps me realize how amazing the human body can be.”

-Ariana Castillo, UMWRFC Athlete

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“To rugby or not to rugby should not even be a question. Your rugby team becomes your second family. You will always be able to count on the support of your teammates, on and off the pitch. I love this sport, I love my teammates and I love fighting for them in return!”

-Sophie Dubey, UMWRFC Athlete

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“I could tell you all about how rugby has helped me accept my body and myself for who I am, but that wouldn't show how rugby also empowers me to push my limits and improve myself on and off the pitch. I'd write a poem about how getting hit, knocked down, and tackled only makes me want to get up and keep playing, but I don't know how to describe the strength and determination I feel during a game in words that rhyme with tackle. I could explain the lack of confidence I had before rugby and how now I know that I am capable of so much more than I ever thought could be possible. I can write pages upon pages about why I play rugby and still not have a complete answer because rugby is so much more than just a sport. It’s a part of my life now. Without it I’d feel incomplete.”

-Holli Page, UMWRFC Athlete

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“I love playing rugby. I love being part of a team of strong, powerful, intelligent, inspirational women that push me to better myself. I love that I can go from wearing a dress and makeup to wearing cleats and a mouthguard tackling someone on the pitch. I love the cuts and the bruises and the surprised look people give me when I tell them "I play rugby." For me, rugby is about showing everyone, myself included, that women can be gritty and tough and absolutely in control.“

-Kaitie Benedek, UMWRFC Athlete

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“There is something intensely liberating when you're standing on the pitch waiting for a rugby game to start. There’s no pads obstructing your movement, no facemask blocking your vision; you’re just you. For me, rugby instills the confidence to face life head on, without hiding behind anything or anyone else.”

-Leah Weingarten, UMWRFC Athlete

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-Vanessa Rojano, UMWRFC Athlete

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-Monica Chen, UMWRFC Athlete