HECTOR HERNANDEZ | staff writer

The student-started rugby club is eager to represent APU, but faces the diffi culties of gaining on-campus recognition and support. Many on campus do not know there is a rugby team.

The club was started eight years ago when APU students who were playing rugby with a Pasadena men’s club wanted to play for APU. They began the club (almost all rugby teams are a club), with six players and Roche Sanchez as head coach. That fi rst season, the team grew to just enough players to play a game. Since then, it has grown to approximately 20 players, but has had diffi culty growing since then. “We have about 20 kids come out but we know we can grow the team bigger and better with more players,” Sanchez said. “I think that’s the overall thing that drives us. We, as a club, and each one of us personally take it hard that we cannot get more bodies out there.”

Of the APU students who have been involved with the club, two have made the national team and represented the U.S. and six have played in the Super League, a semipro national league. The club is part of U.S.A. Rugby and plays in the Southern California Rugby Union where it faces teams from Cal State Fullerton, Pepperdine,

UC Riverside, UCLA, USC and many others. Many of these teams have up to 40 players, which allows them to substitute while APU players remain in the game for the whole 80 minutes.

As a team with small numbers going against bigger and better teams, the club has proven itself to be a physical and athletic team. “Our team’s known for being very physical. Last year we played a match where we had 15 and the other team had 22 guys total. By the end of the match, we had 14 and the other team was barely putting 15 out because we had sent so many guys off the fi eld,” senior physical education major Christian Ernst. “That’s one thing we take pride in, that we’re not scared to be physical. Our smallest guy will go up against their biggest guy and be fearless at it.”

The rugby club is also characterized by camaraderie and fellowship with several of the players coming to the team with that in mind. “Everybody loves everybody on their team,” Simpson said. “Once you’re on the team they love you no matter what.”

Coach Sanchez also spoke highly of the team. “If it was any other situation I probably would have stopped doing this and walked away but the gentleman that play with us have such good character,” Sanchez said. “I’ve never had a hard [time] to coach a player. I’ve never had somebody we’ve had to discipline. It’s the character of the players that keeps me coming and will always keep me out here.” The students love the game and desire to share it with others. “I’d rather represent the school with rugby than any other sport,” Ernst said. Most of their recruiting has been by word of mouth as friends invite each other and talk each other into trying it. They have some out on the Cougar Walk club fair and now have a rugby fan club on Facebook where students can get information of the team and its games.

Senior theology and biblical studies double major Wes Ellis fi rst became involved when he lost a bet to a friend. His friend was playing and had been trying to get Ellis to come to a practice. Then in the middle of an intense Halo game, they made the bet that if Ellis lost, he had to come to one practice and if he did not enjoy it did not have to return.

Ellis lost and he loved it. For Ellis and many others, his fi rst practice with the team was his fi rst experience of the game. Sanchez estimated that for 80 percent of those involved with the club over the years, his teaching them to play was the fi rst time they have seen the sport. “In American rugby, everybody’s new at it,” Ellis said.