Fourth-year art student Ann Leese attempts to tackle fourth-year sociology student Janice Andrade along the sideline during the UCLA women’s rugby club team’s Prom Dress Rugby event at the Intramural Field on Wednesday.
Rugby is for big, rough men, and dresses are for delicate, nice girls.
Those two stereotypes were shattered Wednesday on the Intramural Field in what is fast becoming a tradition for the UCLA women’s rugby team ““ Prom Dress Rugby.
Members of the Bruin Rangers took to the pitch for the event, which was a sight quite unlike any other: rugby in prom dresses.
“It’s really fun to play in dresses and get torn up ““ being girls wearing their silly ’80s prom dresses and doing a hypermasculine thing like tackling each other,” said second-year psychobiology student Nora Randall.
If it seems like a strange activity, the women of the Bruin Rangers don’t disagree.
“It’s just ridiculous,” said fourth-year economics student and team captain Cassie Tong. “Who runs around playing and tackling, ramming into each other in prom dresses?”
Only the UCLA women’s rugby team.
For the fourth time in five years, the club put on this event, hoping to draw attention to the team and the sport of rugby.
As the dirt flew and the dresses ripped, a continuous stream of people couldn’t help but stop at the fence and watch. The sizable crowd on hand cheered, drawn in by the dresses and staying to learn a new game.
After the game, fans and sweaty, exhausted players stood smiling at the absurdity of what had just happened.
Wednesday’s event featured a faster paced version of rugby, called sevens, in which each side plays only seven players for two seven-minute halves, as opposed to 15-a-side for 40-minute halves. Sevens is the version of rugby that will be added to the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Regardless of the format, coach John Wooler says rugby is a game that new audiences will find exciting and entertaining.
“When people pay attention to it, they realize it’s a skillful game and a physical game. It’s very demanding, and those are real athletes out there that work really hard to compete at that level,” Wooler said in a strong Scottish accent.
As for notions that the women’s game might be different than the men’s game, Wooler was unequivocal in putting those assumptions to bed.
“I see it exactly the same as men. I don’t see any difference, being the rules are the same, the game’s the same,” said Wooler, a former Scottish rugby player with more than 20 years each of playing and coaching experience, and current coach of both the UCLA women and a local men’s club.
“My coaching strategy is exactly the same whether I’m coaching men or women, so to me it’s all the same,” Wooler said. “I don’t vary it, I don’t change the philosophy or the physicality of the training at all.”
That philosophy is one that has paid off for Wooler and the Bruin Rangers, as they have quickly staked a claim as Southern California’s elite team.
Founded in 2005, the UCLA women’s rugby team soon rose to the top of the Southern California Women’s Rugby Union, placing first in the division and earning bids to nationals for several years running.
UCLA’s legacy of success keeps morale high on the squad and provides motivation going forward.
“It’s an indication that you’re building a program. … It’s a sign that we’re doing something good,” said Tong, who hopes the growth of programs like UCLA’s helps to push women’s rugby into the designation of an NCAA sport.
But as the sport is currently not part of the NCAA, teams across the nation receive little to no funding from schools. All the money for travel, registration fees, equipment and coaching comes either from fundraising or directly out of the players’ pockets.
So, when the Bruin Rangers ““ 5-1 in league play this season ““ head to Minnesota for the national championships April 29-30, players will have to find a way to pay for the trip.
“It’s something that we accept because we love the sport so much, and we’re not going to limit ourselves just because we don’t receive funding,” Randall said.
Down to every detail, women’s college rugby is identical to men’s college rugby. It follows, then, that a game with a rabid male following around the world is also developing such a passion in women.
“I really do love playing. I don’t know how else to put it. I’ve never had so much fun in sports all my life,” Tong said.
As for the game Wednesday, it was a perfect opportunity to show people that the Bruin Rangers don’t conform to simple definitions.
“It gives us an opportunity … to embrace our masculinity, but also balance it with femininity. … We’re able to still be girls who can kick guys’ asses,” Randall said.