I am not a rugby player. I am not a morning person. And, just to clarify, I am not a woman.

So why did I rise at 7 a.m. on Wednesday, toast a breakfast bagel, and trudge across Weeks Footbridge to attend Radcliffe rugby practice?

To coach, naturally.

Yep. Hand me a whistle and pit-stained T-shirt and call me Coach Jonnie. For 35 minutes, I ran a women’s rugby practice.

Not an easy task, considering I’ve never played in, or even watched, a rugby match. All my knowledge on the subject came from a Google search. But there I was, with the undivided attention of 30 women for the first and probably only time in my life, and they expected me to help them with their sport.

Talk about pressure.

My job was simple: teach them the finer points of tackling. For lack of a better plan, I thought back to 1996 and one of the key lessons I learned as a freshman football player at Garber High School in Essexville, Mich.

“The first thing you have to do,” I told them, “is aim your head right at the other person’s crotch.”

None of them gave me a weird look. Right then, I knew they meant business.

All-American Tackled

My career as a rugby coach began accidentally. I was attending a study break in the Dunster JCR a couple weeks ago when a friend of mine on the rugby team asked me for tips to improve her tackling.

I laughed. She knew I played football in high school, but I don’t think she knew the details.

See, I was the starting quarterback in all 18 games my junior and senior seasons. We won two of them.

We were bad. Comically bad. Our running game was inconsistent and defense nonexistent. But we did have a few “triple threats” on the offensive line—you know, guys who were weak, slow and dumb.

I spent every Friday night running and throwing for my life. And, despite our record, I was actually OK at it. I threw for 2,151 yards. Unfortunately, I also recall losing about that many on sacks.