Men rugby @ bard . edu Women wrugby @ bard . edu Seth Goldfine Memorial Field Learn to Play Rugby Rugby Gear Online For Players For Alumni Records & Awards Recruiting MEN Club History Schedule/Results Roster Gallery WOMEN Club History Schedule/Results Roster Gallery Bard College Annandale on Hudson, NY

History of the women’s club We’re fifty minutes into our game, and we’re losing by at least twenty points. There are thirty minutes left to go and we are three women down. I feel utterly defeated, but I wipe the sweat off my forehead and look back at my teammates. They are standing tall and they are all in position, ready to charge ahead despite the setback. As we begin the next play, I realize that my team is fighting just as hard and just as strong as though the score were even and we had just begun the game. My team does not let their frustration get the better of them. My team is not threatened by a setback. I have never been more proud to be a rugby player than when we were losing badly. At the beginning of my freshman year there was no women’s rugby team at Bard, but a few students were interested in forming a team. I attended their first interest meeting, even though I had never played a contact sport before, let alone a sport as rugged and dangerous as rugby. Many women attended the first meeting, but none of us had ever played rugby before and many of us had never seen a rugby game. Nonetheless, we were all interested in trying it. Subsequently, I went to the first few practices and fell in love with rugby immediately. I loved learning a new sport and I bonded with the women on the team. We were a club team, though, and were not recognized by the college as an official team. Some members of the men’s rugby team offered to coach us, and we organized scrimmages on Saturdays so that we could play practice games against ourselves. The coach of the men’s team, Jon Nandor, commonly known as Big Jon, also offered to help coach us. We continued to practice as a club sport all of the following year, since many of the women were extremely dedicated. After three semesters of dedication, we began the process of asking the athletic department at Bard to recognize us as an official team. We met with the athletic department coordinators numerous times and wrote personal testimonials about how much the team meant to us. In our third semester as a team, we were finally recognized. We are currently starting our sixth semester, and as members of USA Rugby’s collegiate third division we are playing games against schools such as Marist and Fairfield. Tim Moody, an alum who played for the men’s team, is our coach. Rugby has become a close-knit community. But besides providing a community for us, rugby also allows us to get in touch with our bodies. When I came to Bard, I had no intention of playing sports. Now that I am on the team and have played in many games, I find that I can express myself physically with the same passion that I used to express myself with in theater. This has been a very healthy way for us to balance our intellectual energy with our physical energy while at college. Nicole Lyn Pesce wrote an article for NYU livewire called Has "Elegant Violence" Gotten Too Elegant? Rugby Grows Up. In the article, Pesce captures my feelings about rugby. She writes: “I tackled a girl low – wrapping my arms around her knees and feeling the satisfying THWACK of the two of us hitting the ground – and it knocked some sense into me. I realized that I was Home. Just, Home has changed slightly. As have I.”