Growing interest in women's rugby is helping make push from club status to NCAA championship sport

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Jara Emtage-Cave started playing rugby as a 13-year-old in Barbados, never really imagining how the sport might shape her world.

She graduated from the flag program to full contact at age 16, continued her career as an undergrad on Stanford's club team and this weekend played on one of more than two dozen teams competing in Indianapolis at the College Rugby Association of America championship. But for Emtage-Cave and the others, there's a potentially bigger prize in Indy than merely winning a title. They could help turn women's rugby into a full-fledged NCAA championship sport.

“I like the physicality because I think it's one of the few contact sports and full contact sports for women,” said Emtage-Cave, now a 24-year-old grad student at Stanford. “So the physicality is something I find you just don't get anywhere else."

Certainly, things are changing rapidly in the sport with the addition of an American professional league and the Olympic-level success. And having a popular personality like Ilona Maher, an Olympic bronze medalist, “Dancing with the Stars” runner-up and social media celebrity, helps give rugby a larger platform, too.

But at the grassroots level, those tracking interest in rugby such as NCAA executive Gretchen Miron and USA Rugby CEO Bill Goren readily acknowledge that more youth and prep programs have helped fuel a surging interest that has veteran players and even relative newcomers expressing similar sentiments to those of Emtage-Cave.

“People are intrigued by that (physicality) and want to play that way at the college level,” said Miron, director of education and external engagement in the NCAA's Office of Inclusion. “We do see some recruits who have played rugby in high school or the youth space, but we also have a lot of interest from people who are on campus and try rugby for the first time. Rugby has a history of having people that are newer to the game compete in college and really fall in love with it.”

American rugby

Rugby, like soccer, has been popular internationally for centuries. But in the U.S., it struggled to gain a foothold over more popular sports. That seems to be changing quickly.

Rugby was reinstituted as an Olympic sport in 2016, and the U.S. is set to host the 2031 and 2033 men's and women's Rugby World Cups, though neither the dates nor host sites has been announced.

Organizers believe those events can serve as a launching pad to build momentum, much like the boost that American soccer received from hosting the 1994 FIFA Men's World Cup and 1999 and 2003 FIFA Women's World Cups.

“It took about 25 to 30 years for soccer to get where it's at today, in the U.S.,” Goren said, pointing to the impact of those World Cups. “Back then, I knew a small handful of people that played soccer, but I didn't. It was kind of a niche sport. Today every kid across the country seems to play soccer as an entry-level sport. We're behind that (curve), but, obviously, that's the path we want to be on.”

The indications that rugby is following a similar course do exist, though.

While Maher has emerged as the sport's top female star, recent NFL draft picks such as Indianapolis Colts defensive end Laiatu Latu and Chicago Bears tight end Sam Roush both played rugby in high school. The Colts even gave Daniel Adongo, a Kenyan rugby player who had not played American football, a three-year chance to show he could become an NFL linebacker.

Today, 30 women's college teams have varsity-sanctioned programs, leaving them 10 short of potentially moving from an emerging sport to a championship sport like women's wrestling and perhaps soon women's flag football.

But safety still seems to be a concern for parents.

While many believe soccer is less injury-prone than American football, that opinion doesn't necessarily translate to rugby.

Supporters insist the lack of helmets and shoulder pads likely reduces injuries because of fewer players launching themselves to make tackles, and a rule lowering the tackle zone has eliminated some once-prevalent injuries such as broken noses.

“It used to be you would tackle at the shoulders, but they moved that to now where it's sternum height,” Emtage-Cave said. “So it's very unlikely your face is going to be involved in a tackle.”

The future

Emtage-Cave first entered the sport through Barbados' national program.

Bryce Campbell, the general manager of Kuntz Stadium, switched from football to rugby at the urging of his friends in middle school because he was too big to run the football in the youth league. At Indianapolis Cathedral High School, he became fully committed to rugby and at Indiana University he won the Rudy Scholz Award winner as the nation's top college men's player.

That sent him on a globe-trotting career, which included playing on America's 2019 World Cup team, competing on four different continents and now managing this weekend's two-day women's sevens tournament, featuring fast-paced 14-minute games, and next weekend's men's final four.

Goren will attend both events, perhaps with an eye toward making Indianapolis a regular stop for rugby tourneys, something that sounds like music to Campbell's ears.

“It's got deep roots and deep traditions in colleges across the country and it's kind of professionalized over the past few years,” he said. “It's taken some of the same steps soccer did, and with the World Cup coming, that's kind of the North Star of all this. There's a lot more investment coming into the game, not only at the professional level, but at the youth level and more people are getting involved.”

Organizers hope several thousand fans meander these two weekends through Kuntz Stadium's two fields, just a few miles down the road from Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a venue where automotive innovations became prominent features on passenger cars, and across the street from Bush Stadium, a minor league baseball stadium that helped launch the careers of Hall of Famers such as Hank Aaron and Randy Johnson before being converted into an apartment complex.

And here, players such as Emtage-Cave are embarking on their own trail-blazing journey to help a wildly popular international sport gain traction in America.

“I think it's a great opportunity to become a championship sport, and I definitely feel like more teams should push to elevate to varsity status,” she said. “I do think there are demands that come with being a varsity team that a lot of clubs just don't have the capacity for, but I think that's just a matter of funding and expertise in women's rugby and I think that should be our goal.”

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