Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, October 30, 1995 TAG: 9510300104
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Light beer at a rugby tournament?
Little kids on the sidelines? Women in the scrums?
Has the sport of mammoth manly beasts gone politically correct?
If it gives you any comfort, today's players also sing ditties about feminine hygiene products and body parts, and they also plaster their cars with bumper stickers boasting that "Rugby players have leather balls."
Only now, rugby women have their own leather balls and sing their own bawdy ballads - almost as unpublishable as the men's, if a sample sing-along by Virginia Tech women's players is any indication. (Yeast infections figure in one of them.)
The most irreverent, macho, sexist game in the world may be falling prey to equality, health and at least a little concern for decency, now that there are women in the collegiate mix. Rugby clubs are still all-male.
All the trends were visible Sunday at the Virginia Rugby Union state championships in Roanoke County's Green Hill Park.
Beer bellies are losing out to abdominals of steel in this all-amateur sport.
"Rugby used to be an excuse to drink," said Mike "Crazy Legs" Toney, a player for Richmond's James River Rugby Club. "It's gotten to be more of a family thing."
Virginia Tech parents braced 22-mile-an-hour wind gusts to cheer their kids on. Tech women won their second state championship in only four years of play (36-26 over James Madison University), and Tech men beat Mary Washington College, 44-3.
In the club division, Norfolk defeated Roanoke, 24-6, but Western Virginia fans were heartened anyway: It was the first time Roanoke had made it to the state finals since 1971, said Leslie Strachan of Bedford County, a member of the tournament committee.
Women's collegiate rugby is growing faster than edema on a sprained ankle. A few years ago, there were five women's teams in Virginia, said Tech coach Bob Urban; now there are 10.
It's an aggressive contact sport - women push and tackle and growl with the ferocity of pro football players. They aren't permitted to wear hard protective gear. Only soft knee braces and caps are allowed. Some players wrap duct tape around their heads to ward off cauliflower ear.
The American Red Cross ran an ad in the tournament booklet urging people to "give blood, play rugby." And an organ procurement agency's ad urged players to "donate your kidneys. There's no beer in heaven."
Their mothers might have dismissed rugby as unsafe and unladylike, but today's college women embrace it with gusto. They say it gives them confidence in the rest of their lives.
Freshman and sophomore women inquire every week about joining Tech's team, said senior Kim Higgins, 21, of Lynchburg, the team's president. "It's so much fun, and nobody's known much about it before."
There's still plenty of heavy-duty drinking and eating going on in the world of rugby.
The Tech women joshed Sunday afternoon about their "fitness" program. "Every week, they talk about getting together to run. They never do," said one of their fans.
What else do they do to stay in shape?
"Potluck suppers," said one of the players. The rest roared laughing.
by CNB