Interview: An Exploration of Women's Rugby in the U.S. with Alycia Washington, Kat Aversano, and Kerri Heffernan
In this episode, Jessica Luther spoke with three women in US rugby: Kerri Heffernan, who has been a part of rugby in the US for many decades and is currently the Chair of the Women’s Rugby Coaches and Referees Association; Kat Aversano, the head coach of the Howard University women’s rugby team; and Alycia Washington, one of the top current players in the US.
They discuss the history of the sport, the incredible community among rugby athletes and the growing pains of the game in the U.S. Listen to get ready for the Rugby Union World Cup that starts Saturday, October 8, in New Zealand.
This episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg. Shelby Weldon is our social media and website specialist. Burn It All Down is part of the Blue Wire podcast network.
Transcript
Jessica: A note: this episode does not address World Rugby's discriminatory rules against trans athletes. Thank you to KP who brought this critique to my attention. We have discussed World Rugby’s anti-trans policies on Burn It All Down on previous episodes, including as far back as episode 27. More recently, you can hear my burns about it on episode 170 and episode 257. We have also talked about the harm of anti-trans policies more generally in episode 195 and episode 256, both of which mention World Rugby’s horrific policy as part of those discussions. I will also note that USA Rugby announced in September 2020, in response to World Rugby’s ban on transgender athletes, that “USA Rugby continues to recognize transgender athletes and every diverse member represented across the rugby community, where driving the value of inclusivity will remain paramount. Rugby is, and will continue to be, a sport for all in the United States.”
Jessica: Welcome to Burn It All Down, the feminist sports podcast you need. Jessica here. The 2021 Rugby World Cup was postponed due to COVID. It will be played this year in New Zealand, starting on October 8th, and lasting through November 12th. I am talking about women's rugby here, but World Rugby decided a while back to no longer distinguish between men's and women's World Cups, choosing instead to just call each the Rugby World Cup. This year also happens to be the 50th anniversary of US women's rugby. So I thought it would be fun to talk to a trio of women in the US who have played/are playing rugby and love the sport: Kerri Heffernan, Kat Aversano, and Alycia Washington. Kerri has been a part of rugby in the US for many decades, and is currently the chair of the Women's Rugby Coaches and Referees Association. Kat is the head coach of the Howard University women’s rugby team. And Alycia is a current rugby player and one of the top players in the US. First up is my interview with Kerri Heffernan, where we talk about how she got into the sport, the history of women's rugby in the US, and about the late great Kathy Flores.
So I am just gonna ask you my very first question, which is who are you, and what do you do?
Kerri: So, I'm Kerri Heffernan. I'm on the board of the US Women's Rugby Foundation, and I am the chair of the Women's Rugby Coaches and Referees Association, which is part of USWRF.
Jessica: Can I ask, how long have you been doing rugby?
Kerri: I started playing rugby in college in 1976-77. I played until 1990. Took a hiatus for a while – I was in a doctoral program – and then picked up coaching in the early 2000s and coached for many, many years. And then kind of just transitioned over to working with the foundation.
Jessica: Wow. That's an incredible history with the sport.
Kerri: Yeah.
Jessica: So, women's rugby in the US is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, which is also of course, anyone listening to Burn It All Down knows it’s the 50th anniversary of Title IX. You've told me that this is not a coincidence. So what is the story of women's rugby? How did it get its start in the United States?
Kerri: Women's rugby has a fascinating history. It really does. The first game was played in 1972 between Colorado and Colorado State. The same year Title IX was passed. A lot of women, once they were told, hey, Title IX is up, this means this explosion of sport. Rugby was very popular, because I think a lot of women felt like, hey, I'm not gonna play badminton. I'm gonna play the baddest thing I can get my hands on. They were also women…You know, many of us had grown up kind of really inspired by the feminist movements of the 60s and 70s. We were kids, but I remember in high school and college, you really passed around feminist books, and a lot of university towns like Tallahassee where I went to school and Madison, they were real hotbeds of feminist activity. And you couldn't help but be really influenced by that. You were young and you were looking for a fight, and rugby was just a perfect place to find community and kind of find that courageous, stand up self you were looking for.
Jessica: And so how does become a thing that women at different schools are playing and then they're playing each other, like, how does something like that happen?
Kerri: It's crazy, and a lot…So, I direct with Kat Aversano, and I direct the Women's Rugby History Project. So we've been for the past almost three years collecting, archiving, digitizing all this material. And it's really a fascinating story, and you can kind of map how it starts. It started in Colorado, but almost simultaneously teams were popping up in California and of all strange places Missouri. You just kind of saw these lights go on around the country in that first year, and they were almost all university programs. And for the first probably five or so years, college towns and universities kind of dominated rugby. And that made a lot of sense because men were playing rugby at universities. Women had to have some connection to rugby. Somebody had to coach them, where they had to be able to get their hands on a rugby ball. So they had a direct connection off often to the men's programs. That wasn't a friendly connection. Sometimes it was. Sometimes it was a really great connection. And sometimes it was an adversarial relationship.
But then as women graduated from college, they used those rugby connections, in a sense, to move around the country. And then more teams popped up. Because there weren't enough teams to create a schedule, early women's rugby relied on tournaments. So I'd go to a tournament and I'd meet you and you'd say, hey, you know, I'm thinking of moving into Pennsylvania – let's move there together and start a team. And so we'd kind of give each other information and move around. But you really saw it grow exponentially over the first 10 years, it just really took off. And then, you know, it slowed for a bit, and then there were these interesting historical moments where you'd see it kind of flash and grow.
Jessica: So I do, on a selfish level, want to ask about Tallahassee, because I went to Florida State. My parents went to Florida State. I met my husband at Florida State. But like, how did the FSU women's rugby, what was the start of that?
Kerri: FSU is one of the oldest teams in the country, 1974. And this is such a common story. So, a couple of women were dating the guys on the Tallahassee club team. So the women tended to date the guys on the club teams, not the university guys. [laughs] And so, often in the early years, there might only be a handful of undergraduates on the women's team. The rest were local community women, graduate students. And so Tallahassee was a perfect storm in terms of a really interesting feminist community, great outdoor space, a men's club team that were good guys, for the most part. The team also was really talented. The FSU team produced six World Cup players, two Hall of Fame players. They just revolutionized the game. They played it in a way people weren't playing. And people had to catch up to them. So they were really, really important in the first 20 years of the game.
Jessica: Well, wow, do I love that story.
Kerri: I went there to run track and, you know, early 70s was not a…I don't think it was really a fun time for a lot of women in sports, in Division I sports, because it was a time in which much was expected of you but little was given to you to do that. The resources were still so tiny. And I remember being miserable on the track team, and looking down at the rugby team who were all self coached and they were always laughing. And I thought, who laughs at a practice? [laughs] Like, practices are about misery. They're not about fun.
Jessica: Oh, I love that story of you finding rugby like that.
Kerri: So, I think the history of women's rugby though is a really good example of kind of feminism in action. And you know, a really interesting way to look at the stories of women from the 70s and 80s as models for women today. I mean, we took the pop-up museum on the road this summer, and telling young women that these women did it with nothing. They did it by forming community, even when they often didn't like each other. They formed community and they made this work for the better. I really feared that that model of taking it on your own shoulders is not as prevalent in women's sports these days. And a lot of it has to do with just, you know, the belief that NGBs are benevolent and they somehow have your best interest at heart, but they don’t. And you see it over and over in all these different sports, that the NGBs, they don't have your best interest at heart. They do what's best for the leadership, and that's often to sink the women's programs or to devalue the women's programs a great deal.
Jessica: Yeah, that's such a good point. So, last year the US women's rugby community lost an important person, another Florida State alum, Kathy Flores. From what I gather, Kathy had her fingerprints all over the last five decades of women's rugby, influencing it over and over again. Will you tell us more about your friend Kathy, and why her death was such a loss for the sport?
Kerri: Kath was a unique woman in any sporting context. I mean, I think we all were so grateful that rugby turned out to be her sport. She was deeply passionate about the game, but that passion didn't turn into a crazy competitiveness. Don't get me wrong, as a player, she was extremely competitive, but always in a sense that drove her teammates forward. Never berating, but always inspiring. She brought that into the coaching realm, and it was kind of paired with a really unique, creative mind. Kath had a wonderful way of seeing the game. I think it's hard to describe Kath, but I think one word that we all discussed really sums her up is generosity. Kath was incredibly generous in her knowledge, her willingness to pass that knowledge on to anybody. She could be playing you tomorrow for the national championship, and if you called her the night before and wanted to talk about what strategy she was gonna use in her defense, she'd tell you. And she'd be really warm and gracious about it. She wanted to make the game better.
The accolades from players, you know, I think is kind of unparalleled. It's really rare to find a coach on that level. You know, Kath coached two World Cup teams, ten national teams. She won an unprecedented amount of national championships as a club coach, I think 14 national championships as a player and a coach. So, her excellence was unparalleled. I don't think we'll ever see that level of excellence in the game. But you would be hard pressed to find anybody who'd say a bad word about Kath, even players who were cut. Every player wanted to do their best for her because she inspired you in that way. You know, part of the history project is we’re creating a library in her honor. I just got the final matching grant. So it's gonna be a digital library because Kath had this amazing trove, probably over a hundred films, really top quality films from women's rugby games starting in 1991, up til approximately 2014. But what's really fun is in some of those film clips, it's her giving a speech before or after a game, and everybody is just riveted on her, and you can't take your eyes off her when she's talking.
So I think her passing was a shock. She was a very private person, and even though she was kind of really showing signs of cancer, she did her best to kind of be Kath til the very, very end. I think people were really stricken by her passing. It just blew people away. And I think a lot of us still can't quite wrap our heads around she was here and now she's gone. You know, we all lost someone we love so dearly, but the game really lost the central figure. Even young women were coming into the museum this year and we're introducing them to her, everybody knew Kathy Flores. A lot of people didn't know the extent of her kind of greatness. And even when she passed, I had to tell Brown, you have no idea what you had there, because she was so quiet about it. But after she passed, I mean, she was on big trons in New Zealand and the UK like before men's games, they were doing tributes to her in massive stadiums. And you know, people in rugby loving countries knew who she was.
Jessica: From what I read about her, she was the captain of the US national team when they played their first international match. She was like a key player in ’91 when they upset England in the finals.
Kerri: Oh yeah.
Jessica: She's so interesting because she then shifted into coaching – first woman, first woman of color to serve as the head coach of the national team. Took them to two World Cups as coach.
Kerri: So that's the other story with Kath. She was ascending at a time when the NGB was still not having it. And this is true, I think, in a lot of women's sports, that the NGB really actively worked to undermine the women's success, because the women's success was a threat to the men's press. And so, you know, Kath was paid little to nothing. And whatever she was paid, she put right back into the team by giving the money to her assistant coach or giving the money to the players. So, her success is she did it on nothing. She did it on, you know, her charisma. Because she certainly didn't have the resources. The players were really flying in the day before and exhausted and having to play matches while they were sleeping…You know, not good times.
Jessica: And it was interesting, as you mentioned, she was the head coach of Brown at the time that she passed, which is an NCAA DI women's rugby team. And I was reading Becky Carlson, rugby coach at Quinnipiac, her writeup about Kathy, and she was saying how important it was to the legitimacy of the DI distinction for women's rugby that someone like Kathy went to coach at Brown. Can you just talk a little bit more about why that mattered so much?
Kerri: Yeah. I was the coach at Brown, and when they went varsity, I had a position at Brown that I couldn't do both. And it was always my dream, fought for eight years to get to varsity. And I always had in my mind, I'm gonna get Kath, I'm gonna get Kath. [laughs] You know, I called her three times and she said no twice. But the third time she's like, all right, you know, she had thought about it. She loved California. She had a hard time leaving California. Unfortunately, Brown didn't know exactly what they had and how fortunate they were to get a coach of her stature. I think it's telling that the woman who took Kath’s place is gonna be paid significantly more because Brown kind of woke up like, well, what we had there…She made it significantly better for the next person that came in. And she had no hard feelings about that. She was proud of that. But her own life, she lived paycheck to paycheck, I think, on rugby.
Jessica: Can I ask about your dog, who we've been hearing from?
Kerri: So, so sorry.
Jessica: No, it’s okay!
Kerri: I have two Boston terriers. One is older and she never leaves my side, and she was dead asleep when we started this, and I thought, yay! But then she started that snorting.
Jessica: [laughs] I love it. And so, maybe for those of us who don't know as much about rugby, certainly the history of US women's rugby, like, what do you want us to take from Kathy's story? Why is it so important to know her?
Kerri: In two contexts. One, kind of from recognizing women who played the game early on took the responsibility of moving the game forward themselves. They didn't wait for a man to step in and help them. They didn't wait for the NGB to do the right thing. They continued to kind of move the game forward in any way they could. I think for younger coaches, and this is something that I found poignant on Kath’s passing, to be Kathy Flores, you would have to ascribe to that level of generosity. You would have to say, I don't see you as a rival, I see you as a colleague, and everything we do together to move the game forward is what's best. That's difficult when you're a young coach trying to make your mark. I think that a lot of women see it and they don't quite know what to do with that example. Can I be that generous and win? And I think often when you're a young coach, you just don't have that level of self confidence yet to say, yes, I can. I would hope people would take a moment, young folks in rugby who wanna go into coaching or administration, to consider what it means to be a really good colleague and have that move the game forward, not rolling up the wins. Although nobody could roll up the wins like Kathy Flores. [laughter]
Jessica: Next up is Kat Aversano. Kat and I get into the state of women's rugby in the US, how she went from playing to coaching, and her current gig as head coach at Howard.
Kat: Well, I'm in the rugby world known as Kat Aversano, and professionally I am a legal historian for the Department of Justice, but, all of my extracurricular time is spent doing rugby in the United States, in youth and high school, in women's history, in DEI spaces. I coach college. I'm a board member. So, I have a wide spectrum of where my fingers reach.
Jessica: Okay. I wanna hear your story about like how did you get into rugby? What do you love about this sport that you clearly devote a lot of time to?
Kat: Ooh. Well, there's so much to be said and to love about the sport. But I got into it my freshman year of college. I went to college with the anticipation of playing volleyball, but volleyball didn't start til October, and I think it was maybe the first or second week of the beginning of freshman year, and there were people that came around to the dorms and just were like, hey, come play rugby. And nobody has any idea what they're talking about or could play. [laughs] And I just had a friend that was like, hey, I wanna go, come with me. And I went, and I did not step foot on the volleyball court after that. [laughs] Rugby had me hooked from the very beginning. I played all different sports in high school, didn't foul out a lot, but was aggressive and got penalized for that. So, when you tell me I can legally hit people and tackle people – and that's a major selling point of the sport – yeah, I just absolutely fell massively in love with it.
Jessica: I would guess that that's probably true for lots of women who come to rugby. They like the fact that there's actually a sanctioned space where they get to tackle other people.
Kat: Yeah, it is. It definitely is a very unique element of the game. As a sport, it's the only full contact team sport that women can play. Women can go out and do MMA, but it's a very solitary effort. Rugby is all 15 players on the field at the same time, having to work together and use all your physicality. It bonds you as a team when you literally lay your body on the line for your teammate. So I think that attracts people, but it's not the only thing. There's some acrobatic elements. If you're a speed demon, go be a speed demon. Like, if you wanna power tackle people into the ground, then we've got a space for you. Very high level skills are needed for the game too. So, there's a lot to love. I always tell a new players, give me three practices, and if we don't hit on something that brings you to the game or that you like, then maybe it's not for you, but don't come to one practice and leave. There's way too much to cover and you may not find the thing that you love about it yet.
Jessica: Hmm. That's so interesting. So, how would you describe the current state of rugby and maybe more specifically women's rugby in the US right now? Especially to people like me and probably a lot of our listeners who don't know a ton about rugby because we live in the US. [laughter]
Kat: So, women's rugby and rugby as a whole is very much in flux right now. And that's just not only in the US, it's kind of worldwide. There's kind of a constant flow to the game and evolution. The rules to the game, which we call the laws, are always actually being adjusted and tweaked. Every year they get updates. And so that's mainly to evolve the game. So, worldwide, you have a Northern Hemisphere versus a Southern Hemisphere. Two different approaches to play. In the US we're still trying to really define who we are, what US rugby is. We've found success in 7s, which is a speedier version of the game. It's the Olympic version. It's seven players on a field, seven minute halves, and it's more of a tournament style every day.
And then there's the traditional 15s, which is 15 a side. We're still working on that in the US. We're still working on developing who we are. There's a great deal of international influence in coaching, in organizing in the US, and I think we haven't gotten our footing or our confidence in those areas enough to define what US rugby is. In the 7s space, you know, we've defined ourselves as being strong and fast. And our skills definitely need some tweaking. And I think that's where in the 15s game, because it's been played for so much longer, our skill set just isn't there, and you need a broader field of players to have that skill element up.
And as far as women's rugby is concerned, I think we're in the same position as a lot of other sports. You know, when I talk to women in soccer, when I talk to women in basketball, in hockey, there's a lot of commonality, which is we gained so much from Title IX. Women's rugby has been played for 50 years competitively in the United States, and it lines up perfectly with Title IX. And we put a lot of investment early on in women playing sport, and we really haven't put that investment, money, influence, you know, pushing it forward in the public sphere. And we're just coasting on a lot of the work that tons of volunteer women do in organizing, in reffing, in management. And we need to get going on that, especially across the board in rugby because the US is gonna be hosting the men's Rugby World Cup and the women's Rugby World Cup – the men in 2031 and the women in 2033. So we need to get ourselves as organized and unified and all driving in the right direction. Or the same direction.
Jessica: That's exciting. And hearing you talk about like the volunteer driven and all these different people…You mentioned that obviously you came to it when you got to campus in college. How do people find this sport?
Kat: Well, in college and military used to be the main entry points. Our military men would go overseas and they would experience it on their bases and bring it back. Same with our, you know, Ivy League athletes, they would go spend a semester abroad and then bring it back. But now it's really been adopted by, you know, more rugby families. And so you see these adults who played in the 80s, 90s, aughts, in college as adults, and they now have kids, so they're getting their kids involved. So that's the kind of grassroots growth of it, but we still need to be pushing it out to people who don't know the sport at all. And that's hard to come by because rugby does have that grassroots ideology. Different unions, different states have been allowed to grow in a way that suits them, which doesn’t lend itself to a unified approach. [laughs]
I think everyone can probably imagine it's difficult to get rugby into schools just because schools, you know, they see the liability element of it, especially with everything coming out about football. They’re like, we already have one sport that's full tackle and it's in the news a lot. We don't need another one. So it takes some educating to get people to realize, hey, we do this without pads and we all…It’s a weird concept, but it's a communal effort towards safety, even with your opponents, because you have no pads, so you better tackle correctly just for the safety of everyone.
Jessica: Wow, that's fascinating. I hadn't even thought of it like that. So, in your journey, you went obviously from playing the sport into coaching the sport. You are now the head coach at Howard University. How did you go from playing and get into coaching?
Kat: So, I actually had a really big gap in the time where I was not a part of the rugby community. I figured when I graduated college that I would be done. I went to law school and I'm in DC, so starting my career is not something you get a lot of free time where you can commit to a team schedule, things like that. I had a catastrophic accident on my 30th birthday. I went skydiving for the first time and crashed, and my instructor landed on me. [laughs] It was like a whole…
Jessica: [gasps] Wow. It's like every…I mean, other than parachute not opening, it's like your worst nightmare!
Kat: Well, like it opened, but then it collapsed.
Jessica: [gasps] Oh, Kat!
Kat: So, yeah. [laughs] It's one of those things.
Jessica: Oh my gosh. Okay. You're laughing about it now, so–
Kat: Laughing about it now. It's over a decade ago at this point. So I'm able to laugh. Yeah. So, I ended up having a burst fracture in my spine, compound in my leg. But the whole point of that being…It was the impetus while I was laying a bed in a big like turtle shell brace, not knowing if I was gonna be running again. You know, I was gonna be structurally capable of biking, swimming, but I might not be able to run, and not that running was ever something I terribly enjoyed. [laughs] For anyone who's a rugby person, I'm a prop. So that means we do not like to run.
But anyway, in the process of recovering and getting my hutzpah back, I don't know what it was, but I started kind of thinking back to playing rugby, and everything the community gave me and my stubbornness and my drive and how it was really nurtured and encouraged in rugby as a whole. And so as soon as I was kind of up and able to go, I did a Google search to see what teams were in my area and reached out to a couple of different girls teams and said, hey, do you need help? And how do I get going in doing this? So, there's a lot of organizing, there's a lot of things to be streamlined. And so, that's kind of where we went from there.
Jessica: How long have you been coaching at Howard?
Kat: We just started last fall. Fall 2021. That's when the program started. So it's a brand new program since COVID. We have two incredible students, Daniel Davillier and Takunda Rusike, who are the co-founders of the men's and the women's teams, and the co-founders of the program. And they did so much work during COVID trying to create a rugby community, just virtually, reaching out to people, talking to them. And yet we got it rolling with the assistance of a lot of rugby community members, specifically another foundation that started during COVID too whose whole mission is to bring rugby into HBCUs, and we got up and running in the fall. Both the men's and women's teams had playing seasons, and we've been rolling since then.
Jessica: How many HBCUs have rugby teams at this point?
Kat: It's still really, really small. There's two HBCUs that have women's rugby teams, and I think we're sitting at five men’s. Howard I believe is the only HBCU that is able to play only other collegiate teams. That was intentional with where we started, because DC is a rugby heavy community, and when you have a new program, you can't really…You have to travel, and travel costs money, and new programs don't have a lot of money. So, you know, Morehouse has a team, Prairie View has a team. But for them to travel, they're just far away from a lot of colleges. So, the Robertson and Sullivan Rugby Foundation, they have a three year plan to get rugby into HBCUs. And they're starting with kind of the DC metro area so we can grow it here. But any other HBCUs that have shown interest, you know, there's an assistance to help them share information, kind of share an approach. North Carolina A&T, they've got a women's team that's up and going I think this fall that, you know, like a lot of rugby programs, they've just picked it up and wanted to do it, and hoped that there would be people to help 'em out, and there are, thankfully.
Jessica: Kat, this has been wonderful. I love talking to you about this. Like, you can just feel like even in the sound of your voice how much you love this sport. Is there anything else that you would want our listeners to know or what they should know about rugby that maybe they don't?
Kat: The thing I find so awesome about the game is that, you know, in the US we talk about lifelong health and lifelong fitness in that it's not something we finish at the end of high school or at the end of college and then you're just done. There are so many adults that go do triathlons. They go run. They we're looking for something. And the awesome thing about rugby is that people really don't peak in the game until you're mid to late twenties. The majority of our national teams, you know, the average age is like 27, 28. And there are competitive adult leagues in the US. So, if you don't pick up the sport til high school, if you don't pick up the sport til college, you're not done. There's so much more opportunity for you if you wanna keep playing.
And you know, instead of joining your company softball league for eight weeks, go find a rugby club. You will instantly have new friends. And if you're a high school athlete going into college, you know, I think it's less than 2.7% of high school athletes play a sport in college. So, no matter what you've played, even if you haven't played a physical sport, check out your college rugby team. It's a lot of different people with different athletic skills. Everybody carries the ball, everybody scores, everybody tackles. It's a very equitable game in its laws and how it's played. We just have to have the operation of it to be more equitable, inclusive. And we're working on that.
Jessica: So, if someone wants to play, watch, get into the sport, should they just start with Googling their local club?
Kat: Googling your local club works. Hopefully things will pop up. During COVID, of course, I think a lot of the web systems have been updated, and it's taken a little longer, but there is a search engine to find your local team with USA Rugby. If you're looking for a youth and high school program, USA Youth and High School Rugby usayhsrugby.org, usarugby.org. Also, I am a complete rugby ambassador, so email me directly, I will help point you to a club: katherine.aversano@gmail, and I throw it out there because it's what we need is to be completely wide open and help anybody find a place. And if you don't wanna play but you just find the people and the game really awesome, your local club needs scorekeepers. They need social organizers. There's plenty of ways to be a part of the community.
Jessica: Finally, my interview with Alycia Washington. I spoke to Alycia days after she found out that she did not make the US World Cup squad and instead will be on the injury reserve list. We talk about that, but also how she stays at the top of her game in a sport that does not have a lot of infrastructure in the US, and also about her experiences as a Black woman in what is a rather white sport.
Alycia: I am Alycia Washington. I play rugby for the USA women's rugby team, and I also play professionally in the premiership in England. And I've been playing rugby since I was 17.
Jessica: I wanna start there, like, how did you get into rugby? And tell me also what you love about playing this sport.
Alycia: I got into rugby…Well, okay, so I guess I started playing rugby when I was a 17 year old freshman at the University of Connecticut. But I got into rugby because I was originally supposed to go to UConn to throw shot put and discus on the track team. And I went to my state track meet as a senior, you know, any of one of my normal throws would've gotten me in the top three, and I fouled all three throws…Actually, I got four throws. Fouled three, and then hit way under my best, because at that point I was like, you know, so nervous that I way underperformed. And then I just fell out of love with track. And then I got to UConn. I will add, I still got the athlete housing, because I was meant to be on the team, [laughter] which was a good freshman year experience in a nice room, good area of campus. And then my friend from high school was like, hey, let's try rugby. And I was like, what's rugby? And then I showed up and I was, I'm hooked.
Yeah, I just absolutely loved it, because I was, you know, I'm a big person. Like, even going into college, I was like in the 190s, about six feet tall, and like my size was like finally celebrated because I was honestly a bit too small to be super competitive at the college level in track and field. But also in high school I had done…Well, leading into high school, I did gymnastics for seven years until my senior year of high school, and I was way too big. So it was like, you're too small for one thing, too big for the other. And then I found a sport that was like, okay, we'll keep you, and you're a good size for us, so let's hang out longer.
Jessica: I love that story. So, I am six feet tall, and I was gonna go with my friend who is reporting on a women's professional football league, so my professional football team, and he was like, if you go with me, they're gonna recruit you. [laughter] Like, they're gonna see you coming. And we never ended up going, so I didn't have to go through it. But like, there is really something when you're this size about fitting somewhere.
Alycia: Yes.
Jessica: So what do you love about the sport, about playing it?
Alycia: Oh goodness. I think the camaraderie is something that you don't find anywhere else. You know, also we interact with other athletes, and they all love their sport, but I don't know if you would find the same family camaraderie and atmosphere anywhere else. Like, within rugby, you just know that if you tell someone, oh, I've played rugby, or even like my brother or sister, dad, mother played rugby, you will have a connection there that you don't find anywhere else. And I can't even really compare it. It's not like, oh, you are an alum there and I'm an alum there, we're connected. It's a whole different level of camaraderie because you know that if, like, if someone else has put their body on the line for their teammates and has, you know, has a love of the game that you do, it's just a different level of love for a sport that I found. And like, in no other sport will you find people wearing other teams' colors but cheering for the other team when they do something well. It’s like, it's a weird thing where we're just there for good rugby and good competition and for the advancement of the sport. You know, it's truly hard to describe unless you're involved in it, but the camaraderie of it, it's unparalleled, in my opinion.
Jessica: That makes me want to be a part of it. I–
Alycia: Yes, got one! [laughter]
Jessica: I actually thought you were gonna say tackling. I just assumed. [laugh]
Alycia: Oh my goodness. No! [laughter] Well, now I enjoy tackling, but to be honest, when I was in college, I was never taught how to tackle. So when I got to like national team things, I had to be coached really heavily to start loving contact. And now I do love contact and I look forward to it, but for the first part of my career, like my coach was like, well, just go out there and hit her! And I'm just like, you know, there's more technique than that. Especially like for safety. And rugby's come a long way. So, yeah, I did not come into sport loving contact. Like I said, I came from track and gymnastics. And I also did field hockey, so I did not actually enjoy being touched. [laughter] And so I had to get coached into it. Even with my size and in college, I was usually the biggest one there, so I didn't really have to do that much contact because people wouldn't run into me. And I just was able to break through a lot of tackles early. So I never learned good technique, which was really unfortunate when you get to USA and people are smaller than you but have better technique than you. Then that's when the real work comes in.
Jessica: So like, I know that rugby is huge in other parts of the world. [Alycia laughs] I'm not ignorant to it. And I understand now from talking to both Kerri and Kat that like US rugby is still trying to find identity within international rugby. Like, how would you describe the current state of rugby, maybe specifically women's rugby in the US? Like, its space within the international rugby world?
Alycia: Well, shoot, you really get into it now. [Jessica laughs] I honestly think we are politely called like the sleeping giant within the rugby world, and I think that's a fair assessment. But also, that's a polite way of saying you all don't know what you're doing yet and you haven't woken up. You know, I think a lot of that resonates with me because it's true, like, America is such a sports heavy country, and we haven't quite figured out what we're doing with rugby. Like, the countries where rugby is big, it is their number one sport. Like, you're looking at like obviously England still has soccer, but like, you know, right under there is rugby, you know? Looking at like Wales, Scotland, South Africa, you know, Australia, New Zealand of course, like, rugby's sort of their number one thing. And I think rugby struggles in America because, especially on the men's side, if you're an amazing athlete, you're not gonna wanna go for what the rugby contract will give you.
It's a lot of wear and tear on your body. There's not a whole lot of money in it at the moment. You know, when you're looking at exemplary athletes, you're like, you know, you're gonna try for the NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL, you're going to try for these things, especially in the men's side. And if your men's side isn't meeting their potential, then your women's side is not gonna get the funding to do well. So, that's the hard part. So I know our men try very hard and they're very spirited, but right now they're at a point where they're struggling to qualify for the next World Cup. It's challenging. They're working their butts off. I give them all the credit in the world because it's not an easy road. But you know, if you're looking at just like the sort of logistics and what's gonna pull someone to a sport, especially on the men's side, it's, you know, where's the contract? Where can I supply for my family? And that's not quite where rugby is yet in America.
Jessica: Hmm. That's so interesting. Man, I was so…Like, one of my questions for you, you kind of answered this before, is like, how does someone like you at the elite, professional level of rugby maintain that level, like, keep training? It sounds like you play professionally in another country, but like, is that the normal path? Because there isn't infrastructure in this country like there would be say for basketball or soccer or something like that. So like, how do elite athletes keep it up?
Alycia: That's a great question. Yeah, so, it is a new normal for a lot of us. I believe 25-ish of us within the USA pool went to play premiership in England this year. Some were there last year, some were there the year before. And so, it's a new normal that we are going abroad just because you don't get the same resources here in America. There's very few full-time coaches, full-time staff, very few full-time medical resources, if any. It's just not the same. And you know, a lot of my teammates, and I give them the world of credit for it, but we looked at ourselves and said, like, this team can't advance if we are doing the same thing we've always done. So, yeah, a lot of us got signed, packed up our bags, moved to England for a year, or two or three for some.
And yeah. It's really hard because otherwise we're at home training by ourselves a lot of the time, because there are 10 premiership teams across the US, but the US is so large that you may only have two or three national team players on whatever team. And then…So, I live in Connecticut. My premiership team in America was in New York, and so that would be a 4+ hour round trip to get to training, on top of the full-time jobs we still had to have, because rugby in the US doesn't pay. And so if you're hoping that someone lives in your town or close enough to train with, that's a little bit unlikely, especially for me. You know, no one lives in Connecticut except me on the team. I was lucky enough to have a few teammates that were in the 7s programs or one of them qualified for Team Mexico, so she was with them. But a lot of times you are by yourself. And fitness by yourself is not the most fun, but you know that if you want the team to get better, then you have to do it.
Jessica: So, going into the Olympics last year, my co-host Dr. Amira Rose Davis, she spoke to Naya Tapper for a piece she did for Slate on Black female US Olympians. In that piece, Naya talked to Amira about the strides that US Rugby is taking to be more inclusive and supportive of the growing number of players of color. So I wanted to ask, what has your experience been as a Black woman in this sport? And like, what does the sport still need to do to be more welcoming and inclusive?
Alycia: Yeah. My experience as a Black woman in the sport has, I think, been varied. And by that, I think from my own experience it has to my face largely been positive. I can look around and see, when you realize that you are one of very few Black women around, you have to realize that this structure was not set up for you and it wasn’t specifically intended for me to be successful. I am Black. I will also acknowledge I am very privileged and I think I've always had a decent safety net behind me. So I took a leap of faith to go into rugby, you know, when I had other paths within other sports, my family thought I was kind of crazy, but they were largely there to support me. But you look around and you see that, you know, my first camp with U20s, I believe I was 18 years old, and this is a camp that actually Kerri put my name up for. So, Kerri Heffernan really like, you know, sparked my interest in being on the national teams. And U20s is sort of like the pathway. And you look at…I believe my camp fees were between like $200 and $300 plus a flight to get out to California from Connecticut. And you know, you're just happy to be there.
But in reflection, it's like, well, who did we miss out on? There's like 1000% that we missed out on someone, probably multiple someones, that deserved to be there, and they couldn't because they couldn't afford it. And I was only seen because I was at a university, but how many great athletes within rugby don't go to university? And I was at a public university. Like, UConn I believe generally marks itself between 5 and 10% Black. And that's at a large public institution. Say if you're at most 10% Black, and half of those are women, and how many of those Black women play rugby? It's like your pool of people is already shrunken because you don't have the feeder systems that you should have. So, I am lucky. I can look around. I've had very few Black coaches or coaches of color, very few Black women coaches, if any.
I also referee within the sport, and people are always shocked. You know, I've shown up to games and walked on the pitch and they're like, hey, no family on the field. And I'm like, I'm here to ref your game, actually. [laughs] They're obviously very apologetic. “Oh my mistake, my mistake.” But it's like, you know, that's a microaggression, like, you're telling me I didn't expect someone that looks like you to show up and do this job today. So, you just realize that every time someone's surprised, it means that they weren't expecting you. And that's sort of the hard part. So, yeah, I think the sport could do a lot better. I know I could personally do a lot better in speaking up and advocating for women of color, because there's very few of us, and then if so many of us don't have a great experience within it, then you can expect those people to turn into coaches or mentors or referees. And then your feeder system that even was a trickle system is now dried up because people didn't have a great experience, because people didn't advocate for them. So yeah, all that to say, I have been lucky, but it's not nearly good enough and it's not nearly close to being nearly good enough either.
Jessica: There's so much work to be done.
Alycia: Mm-hmm. They're like, “What are you doing here?” Well… [laughs]
Jessica: Yeah, exactly.
Alycia: I'm here because I'm qualified. I'll show you. Just wait.
Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. So, the 2021 World Cup was postponed due to COVID. It will be played this year in New Zealand, from October 8th to November 12th. You were on the 2017 US World Cup team. Can you give us a sense of like what it's like to compete in a Rugby World Cup?
Alycia: I wish I could have the words to describe it. It's, you know, an absolutely incredible experience. Especially being in Ireland last time, which was a rugby country. And people would stop you on the streets for autographs, which is, you know, as an American rugby player, that's not anything you experienced in the US. People would know your name, people would stay after the game to talk to you, to get pictures with their daughters. It was just like an absolutely incredible experience. It makes you feel so valuable. And, you know, the highs are high and the lows are low, but you just remember it as such an incredible experience. And you know, it's really hard for me to swallow the pill that, you know, I was named as an injury reserve for this coming World Cup, which was devastating, but I think it's motivation from the last World Cup that, you know, God forbid anything happens to my teammates, but if something does happen, that I still have the motivation to go and take their place if needed. And if I hadn't been in the last World Cup, I don't know if I would have that motivation. And let me tell you, you need a lot of motivation to be an injury reserve. So, I thank my experiences, because they keep propelling me forward.
Jessica: Do you go to New Zealand, or is it like they put you on a plane if they need you?
Alycia: Yeah, if they need me, they'll gimme a call.
Jessica: Okay. Okay. What else would you like our listeners to know, or what should they know about rugby that people like me, like, they know just the little edges of rugby. Like, what are some of the things about rugby we're missing?
Alycia: Well, number one, girls play rugby. Girls and women play rugby, and they tackle and hit as hard as anyone else. And it's such an exciting game to watch. It’s safe, I think, the coaching that is coming down the line now on tackling safety, scrum safety, all of that. And you see that the NFL is employing rugby coaches to teach their defense how to tackle.
Jessica: Oh, wow.
Alycia: Because rugby is such a safer way to tackle, and so much of it is spent in safe tackling. And so many laws in the game are now in place for safety. So, beyond that, it's a beautiful sport. It can be a bit confusing, but if you are watching a rugby game, just think whoever has the ball is supposed to either pass backwards or run or kick forwards. And then that team who doesn't have the ball then tackles who does have the ball. And there's no downs. There's very little equipment. You know, all you really need is like a mouth guard and some cleats, and you're ready to go. So, very low maintenance, I'll say that. [laughs]
Jessica: I think I was telling Kat this, like, what I need is someone like you or her to like sit next to me for one match and just like tell me what I'm watching. [laughs]
Alycia: Absolutely. I would be happy to. Call me up anytime.
Jessica: I find it…I absolutely will watch it during the Olympics or like whatever. I don't know what I'm watching, but like, I'm in it. [laughs] Like, I'm excited.
Alycia: Yeah, right? Just cheering along.
Jessica: My final question. If someone's listening and they want to play rugby or watch rugby, how does someone get into it? Like, where are the entry points?
Alycia: Entry points, I would say a quick Google search, like “rugby near me.” And I would say every major city in the US has a club for you or youth. If not that, then they could hit me up and I will find them the best club to go to.
Jessica: I love that. I feel like Kat said almost the exact same, like, “Email me and I will…” [laughter] Like, just have everyone email me. Which I just think really speaks, as you said, to sort of the community of rugby.
That's it for this episode of Burn It All Down. This episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg. Shelby Weldon is our web and social media wizard. Burn It All Down is part of the Blue Wire podcast network. Follow Burn It All Down on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Listen, subscribe and rate the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and TuneIn. For show links and transcripts, check out our website, burnitalldownpod.com. You'll also find a link to our merch at our Bonfire store. And thank you to our patrons. Your support means the world. If you wanna become a sustaining donor to our show, visit patreon.com/burnitalldown. As always, burn on, not out.