Rutgers' rugged 'Ruggers' brings possession down to the essentials

There are your average club teams. And then there’s the “Black Death” Rugby Football Club. A fraternity on and off the pitch, this group of students has embraced a game that isn’t extremely popular in the U.S.A.

The team is directed by captain Eric Daneman (known as D’animal) and vice-captain Sean “Kiwi” Taylor (you guessed it—he’s a New Zealander). Senior team member (and former Match Secretary) Tom Cotton talked about the task of helping Rugby get popular in the region.

“Do a lot of people not understand the rules? Yes,” Cotton said. “But, that’s something if they don’t know a lot of Rugby players; it’s a good conversation starter. It’s an interesting sport that people have seen, but they really want to learn about it.”

Established in 1965 and consisting of about 70 members at any given time, this year’s squad is predominantly sophomores and juniors. RU competes in the Mid-Atlantic Rugby Football Union (MARFU).

After the hard-hitting games are over on Busch Campus, the group is extremely tight-knit due to the common interest.

“We have a lot of different backgrounds,” Cotton said. “We’ve got guys who never played a contact sport in their lives. But at some point, we all made the same decision to come out and play Rugby. And that says enough, that in the end, we’re all a similar kind of guy.”

Unlike varsity sports, other college life obligations and class-work can take precedence over participation over club sports at RU. “Sometimes, guys will come out for two weeks and decide it’s not for them,” Cotton said. “Some guys may only be able to put in one or two practices a week due to school and work commitments.”

Regional Rankings and tournaments up and down the east coast highlight the fall season; in the spring, competitive scrimmages with local schools, men’s club teams and alums provide a learning ground for “Black Death.”

Cotton was also quick to plug the Rutgers Women’s Rugby team, which grabbed a No. 3 national ranking at Division II in the Metropolitan New York Rugby Football Union.

With Rugby not readily available for broadcast consumption in the U.S., the players find creative ways to watch professional matches, on BBC America and satellite networks. Rugby Sevens (a variant of the more mainstream sport, fielding 15 per side) is scheduled to be added to the 2012 Olympics in London.

Rutgers’ Rugby team is certainly a cast of characters, so it’s appropriate that they have a complicated nickname scheme spanning their entire roster. From Kiwi and D’Animal to Wiggles and Lurch, these monikers carry over into everyday life.

“A lot of clubs, when you interact with them, you see they have nicknames for pretty much everyone,” Cotton said. “It makes it easy because every semester, there’s going to be 20 new guys and we can find distinct ways to associate each of them.”

Cotton summed up what it’s like to be a member of the Rugby community.

“You can definitely tell once you start to play, there’s this bond among Rugby players,” Cotton said. “It doesn’t matter what level you played at or where, there’s a connection. There aren’t many Rugby players in the United States and I don’t think you get that kind of instant relationship with other sports.”

At Rutgers, the club also allows its members to cultivate the focused, hard-nosed mindset associated with the rough sport—one that helps in post-college life.

 

“There are guys on the team who will graduate early and are very set on what they’re going to do career-wise or graduate school-wise,” Cotton said. “They have a very clear picture and are going to be successful in that just like their work on the pitch. You draw from the intense nature of the sport and apply it to academic areas as well.”

For more information about Rutgers Rugby visit http://www.rutgersrugby.org/ru