Turns out they did.
Ballcarriers and language barriers
At first, I dispensed football clichés: “Get low!” “Drive through ‘em!” “Bite the ball!” Before long, I had the players partner up with a teammate their size and line up 10 yards across from them. Time to tackle.
We began half-speed to be sure everyone had the technique. The tackler would jog toward her partner, wrap up her legs, lift her off the ground and carry her a few steps.
Soon, we took off the training wheels. The ladies asked few questions, preferring instead to drop their friends on their butts. No timid souls on this team. No mercy, either.
I loved it. So did Bubba. It was so much fun that it lasted 15 more minutes than we planned.
And as 15 grunting collisions went on around us, Bubba and I took turns yelling at the players about technique. “You gotta wrap ‘em up!” we shouted.
At one point, we had what Bubba called a “cultural difference.” I had been instructing the tacklers to get their heads across the ballcarriers’ bodies, a technique used in football to make surer tackles and eliminate cutback lanes. This approach also helps get more of the tackler’s body in the runner’s path, increasing the odds of bringing him down.
The physics of this dictate that the ballcarrier often knees the head of/lands on the tackler. In football, with helmets and pads, this isn’t a worry.
In rugby, it is. So, Bubba untaught my flawed pedagogy. She said to tackle “cheek-to-cheek” on the inside, rather than go across the body.
I apologized. They understood. Everyone resumed hitting.
Fit them for shoulder pads
I left practice that morning thoroughly impressed with Radcliffe rugby.
These ladies are athletic and tough. They’re also dedicated, even though when they’re done getting and giving bruises each day, they won’t read about their team on the pages of this publication or the Harvard athletics website.
This is a club sport, which means no funding and little recognition. Everyone’s reason for playing is the same: love of the game.
And, from what I could tell Wednesday morning, they’re pretty good at it. They can run, they can hit and they can be enthusiastic at 7 a.m.
I only wish they were blocking for me four years ago.
—Staff writer Jon Paul Morosi can be reached at morosi@fas.harvard.edu.