I was hit backwards, frontward and upside down. Often. Eventually, Mom stopped trying to get the grass stains off the back of my jersey.

I was tackled a lot. But you know what? I was damn good at it. You know how they name All-American tackles? I was All-American tackled.

I can tell you 10 different ways to pick yourself off the turf, readjust your shoulder pads, pluck grass from your facemask, and say into the huddle, “Heyyya guys I’m stardin ta get dizzy so maybe ya shud start blockin, OK? Prety pleas?”

Learning on the fly

All this made me both an expert and a novice in tackling. I was often the hittee, rarely the hitter. I knew a good tackle when I felt one, but didn’t produce them myself. (When people ran back interceptions, I was always too slow to catch up.)

So when my friend asked for my help, I was more than a little concerned. But I recalled enough of the basic tackle tenets—bend with the knees, ‘club’ the person’s thighs, drive forward with the shoulder and legs—that things went well. Before long, she knocked the wind out of me. Felt like old times.

A day or so after the impromptu practice, my friend sent me an email—cc’d to coach Darlene “Bubba” Connors—asking if the “Tackle Savior” could come to practice and impart the same wisdom to the whole team.

Unreal. I had gone from Lifetime Tackling Dummy to Radcliffe Rugby Tackle Savior.

Of course, I agreed to come to a practice. Problem was, I had no idea what exactly the team needed to work on.

Not to worry. Bubba did.

“Do you want me to take them through full-speed hitting drills, like in football?” I asked Wednesday morning.

“Oh yeah,” she said. “We’re trying to get these girls tougher.”

“And do you tackle people the same way you would in football, even though you don’t have a helmet and pads?”

She nodded. “They have to go right after each other.”

OK, then. The only question that remained was whether or not the Radcliffe rugby team was going to listen to the instructions of a 5’9, out-of-shape sportswriter with no experience in the sport.