The club aspect of the team also provides a great atmosphere for the players socially.

"We make life-long friends," Baker says. "We have great road trips, and it's a great social experience."

And no doubt one of the greatest social experiences was when the team went to the Bahamas over spring break to play three games in the warm Caribbean sun.

The Game Itself

Rugby is a complex game which combines the non-stop action of soccer, the sheer force of footbal, and the speed of basketball. While this description might seem a bit too broad (or, alternately, too imaginative), it nonetheless is accurate.

Consider 15 men on a side, playing without padding. Throw in a ball shaped like a football but bigger and rounder, play on a long horizontal field and put up goal posts. Add no substitution except for injuries. Finally, toss in strategy, a lot of running and a bit of kicking, and you have a sketch of what rugby is.

The rugby ball can be advanced down the field through running, kicking, or passing laterally or backwards. Five points are scored when a player runs the ball over the other team's end line and touches the ball down. The conversion kick through the goal posts is then worth two points, but the kick must be made from the angle at which the five points were scored. Thus, scoring near the middle of the field is much preferred. At any time, three points can be scored by kicking the ball through the goal posts, but because of the intense pressure constantly applied to the ball, scoring like this is relatively rare.

One of the most distinctive features of the game is the "scrum." A scrum looks like a giant, violent, amalgamated huddle. During a scrum, both teams form semi-circles and surround the ball on opposite sides. The ball is then rolled into the middle of the teams, and each side tries to push the other side off the ball and gain possession of the ball.

Scrums are called, for instance, when a penalty is called on one team for say, hitting the ball forward with a player's hand. The other team can then put the ball in the scrum, and that team is more likely to gain possession.

Rugby, like all sports, has many other peculiar rules and features. And if many of these might seem odd to the uninitiated, just remember that a study was once done on people who knew little or nothing about sports, and it found that baseball was the least attractive and most complicated to these sports novices.

Sometimes, it seems, the most nuanced sports are the ones with the most charm. (Or, in the case of baseball, at least used to be.)

Men at Work

Don't let the rough stuff fool you--rugby is very much a thinking man's game. Although tackling without pads might make you think that the brute force of a Cortez Kennedy rules the sport, the smarts and athleticism of the Joe Montanas are really more dominant.

"Rugby is a great strategic game," Baker said. "You're always learning. The game has the capabilities to always make you think. That's one reason why the Ivies are stronger at the sport. Bright kids do better. There is more thinking than you think."

Baker also stressed that the game put more of a premium on athleticism than strength.