When she's on the pitch, Shiyan Koh has a mantra: make the next tackle and remember to breathe.
“You can’t worry about school, or relationships, or getting a job,” says the senior double major in economics and biomechanical engineering. “You can only concentrate on staying upright and knocking other people over.”
In the rough-and-tumble world of rugby, a field is known as a pitch. A huddle is a scrum. Front-line players are props, locks and hookers. And rucks and mauls are, well, as threatening as they sound. “Yes, it’s a pretty vicious sport,” says senior Katie Hill. “It can seem like a mess out there, but it’s a game that really makes you think on your feet. And skill can get you out of situations where you have to hit hard.”
Drawing inspiration from football, soccer, basketball—even ice hockey, some would argue—rugby is a maniacal drive down a 110-yard pitch, interrupted by frequent pileups. From time to time, the ball is funneled into the middle of a scrum, then shot back into play with furious kicking and heeling. The only protective gear most players wear is a mouthguard. Scrum caps are reserved for the locks, so that their ears don’t get torn when they’re smashed between their teammates’ hips.
The game has a certain mud-caked, stress-relieving appeal. On a recent rainy afternoon, after a week of studying for mechanical engineering midterms, master’s student Kelsey Lynn, ’04, burst off her bike onto Steuber Field with a screeching, “I’m going crazy! And I’m ready to play rugby!”
Stanford women joined the fray in 1976, fielding a team that included future astronaut Sally Ride, ’73, MS ’75, PhD ’78. The club team won the national championship in 1999 and has qualified for the finals five other times. “They have a very good reputation as a strong, well-run club,” says Kristin Richeimer, manager of collegiate development for USA Rugby.
Although the NCAA has recognized only four squads, women’s rugby is on its list of emerging sports and more than 300 teams nationwide are seeking varsity status. The number of female players has climbed by almost 20 percent annually since 1999; women now comprise 43 percent of all collegiate players.
Dozens of rookies turn out for the first practice on the Farm each autumn, and this year some 30 stuck with it. “Most of them had never seen a game, so we hung out at Toyon and watched old World Cup games on the big-screen TV there,” says senior Cristin Carey.
Like most players, Carey participated in high school sports—“I played water polo and swam, so land sports were new to me”—and she missed being part of a team when she got to Stanford. Rugby offers a position for every body type, from the lithe 5-foot wings who score points to the muscular 5-foot-11 props who shove the ball steadily forward in the scrum.
At a preseason tournament in November, junior Victoria Folayan pulled on a pair of New Zealand-made boots she’d just bought at Kumar’s Island Boutique in Redwood City. As she fingered her metal cleats, the former long jumper on Stanford’s track and field team bounced to Snoop Dogg’s “Drop It Like It’s Hot” and visualized scoring her first “try,” or goal.
And score she did, with two 50-yard runs across the goal line. “She’ll be shooting the boot tonight,” Carey said, referring to a tradition the squad has established. Translation: team members will pour a drink into Folayan’s newly christened footwear, so she can take a long celebratory swig.
