The first USA Women's Rugby 15s residency program started in September of 2016, and I, along with Hope Rogers, Jordan Gray, Molly Kinsella, and Jamila Reinhardt (Jam would arrive in October and live in her own apartment) were all a part of the first residency class. First, I am proud that I was a part of the first USA Rugby
Women’s 15s residency program. I am proud to have been selected for it. I am
proud that I made the move to San Diego to train full time, and I am proud to
have stuck it out. I am also grateful for the opportunity.
With that said, the USAR Women’s 15s residency program
wasn’t exactly smooth sailing. Of course, with anything in its maiden voyage,
there are bound to be a few bumps in the road and a hitch here and there. With
the residency program, it seemed like we started that voyage in the middle of a
forest, with only a compass in hand.
We had issues from the start, namely that we couldn’t actually start training full time,
because we couldn’t get into the Olympic Training Center (now the Chula Vista
Elite Athlete Training Center) to train. The 7s program wouldn’t start training again until October,
and it didn’t make logistical sense to have only four players on site training
with no coach (we didn’t have a coach right away either). USAR had set us up,
to kick off residency program, with Atavus Academy and Les Spelman, who was
working with them at the time, so for the first month of 15s residency, we had
four two-hour sessions a week with Atavus and two sessions with the San Diego
Surfers (we’d be playing the 2016 WPL season with the Surfers).
Here’s where that journey cliché really gets revved up.
Though training with Atavus wasn’t what we had originally signed up for, it
certainly had its benefits. For one, Les has a background in speed and agility,
and while I hesitate to speak for my teammates (though, I’m sure I could in
this instance), I saw a marked improvement in my running form—something that
keeps improving as I continue to implement techniques I learned with Les.
Along with our improvements in running mechanics, we also
worked on rugby skills and strength and conditioning with Atavus. Perhaps one of
the greatest benefits was that training with Atavus eased us into a full-time
training schedule without throwing at us eight hours of training, film, and
meetings all at once.
That month of “training in limbo,” as I like to think of it,
also gave us a bit more free time to look for jobs. Heading into residency,
we’d been told that USAR would help us to find jobs. Let’s go on a little
tangent here, because some of my rugby-novice readers may be wondering why we
would need jobs if we were part of a full-time athletic program. Yes, we needed
jobs. While part of a full-time residency program, we were only provided with
an apartment and access to the training center, which included meals and
medical. Therefore, anything else we wanted or needed was an out-of-pocket
cost, and we needed paper in the pocket to afford those costs—like bills,
transportation, entertainment, food that wasn’t from the cafeteria, clothes,
the internet, etc.
Let’s stop and recap for a second, so that I’m sure that I
haven’t derailed us completely. In mid-September of 2016, I was two weeks into
living 3,000 miles away from my point of origin, my family, most of my friends,
and my support system, living on the edge of broke, without a full-time job,
and not even living the “dream” of being a full-time athlete yet. But I was
loving it.
Needless to say, USAR hadn’t come through, right away, on
all of the promises of a pro-athlete training environment, all expenses paid,
with only the responsibility of some minimal part-time work to keep ahead of
bills. But there I was, waking up at 4:30am during the week to train two hours
and then spend the rest of my sunny day lounging by the pool, working on extra
skills, hanging with my teammates, reading, exploring, or whatever my little
heart could find to fill itself.
I worked some on Wednesdays, testing a ride
share app (a gig procured through a west-coast friend, and not by anything USAR
put in motion), and did some leg work and odd jobs here and there for other
friends. I played rugby with the Surfers or went to the beach on the weekends, the farmer’s market on Sundays,
took naps by the pool in the evenings, and for the most part enjoyed my days
without getting too stressed about the meager flow of my income or the fact
that the four of us were on a bit of an island and didn’t really know what our
rugby futures held in store.
October rolled around, the four of us still looking for jobs
and trying to figure out how to make our lives work out financially, and we
weren’t able to get into the center when the 7s girls came back. Looking back now,
it seemed like every time we had a “supposed to” date, whatever that thing was,
which was supposed to happen, never happened when it was supposed to—like
starting at the center or when our meals would kick in, or when we’d get a
Strength and Conditioning coach or a forwards coach.
Here’s where I’ll digress again, before I get on a roll with
the “supposed to” stuff. With any project, you can almost certainly expect
delays, and I don’t think anything is as smooth or as efficient as it could
possibly be when it first starts up. I could go into all of our set-backs with
the program, and I’ve already given a few examples. I could detail the
shortcomings we experienced with our organization. I could vent all of the
frustrations we had. But I won’t. Of course we had frustrations aplenty, and
USAR has plenty of shortcomings, and the residency program could’ve been better
planned and executed, but I don’t want to turn this into a bash session.
However, I do feel it necessary, in the context of my blog recounting my
experiences with USAR, that there are a lot of things our organization needs to
do better. USAR needs to be better for its players. Too often we (especially
the women) get a very, very short stick. In the same breath, I offer thanks to
the people at USAR who try to make things better. With all of their flaws and
good intentions, we have some great people working for the program.
Now, back to October. We finally got into the center and
started training with the 7s program. We trained four days from about 7am until
around 3pm. Now, we didn’t spend all that time running around or throwing
around weights. We had meetings, meals, film, and other team activities (check
out my article on The Rugby Breakdown for more on our day-to-day-rugby lives).
We trained at the center during the day, practiced with the
Surfers two nights a week, and played on the weekends. We would win a WPL
National Championship with the Surfers (see my blog) and travel to France for
a tour over the Thanksgiving holiday. We visited the infamous Tigertown over the week of New Years. From October
through the first part of January, we were engulfed in rugby from all sides,
and had gotten into that full-time environment we’d been expecting, and it was
amazingly busy, hard, rewarding, and stifling all at once.
Over the winter, Jordan eventually decided to move a little
further north and play the spring season with Life West. Molly decided to pick
up with her real life in Steamboat, CO, and Hope and I got two new
housemates—Megan Foster and Nicole Strasko. Foster and Strasko had been
training at the center, since October, so it wasn’t a big shock to the system
to change around our living situation. I also started a new job in January, at
the UFC Gym, as a personal trainer (something I love to do). With my new job,
life got busier and harder, but ultimately more rewarding. While it was
certainly rewarding, it was difficult to balance, and I don’t think I could
keep up with the pace at which I was living permanently. However, I did it for
seven months and I had a hectic blast while at it.
What made balancing work and training the hardest was the
travel for rugby. I got the job in December, but waiting until after the
Tigertown camp to start. Then there was the Falcons tour to Japan in February, the
Vegas stop in March (check out the Rugby Breakdown article), the CanAm series
in April (though I didn’t play in the series due to injury, I was at every team
event), and another camp in June, before long camp started at the end of June.
Needless to say, I was out of town or not available to work for a week at a
time, nearly every month from January to July. Personal training, makes that
kind of schedule more manageable, but it’s not ideal for clients. Fortunately,
my clients were very supportive of my rugby journey, and though it was tough, I
managed.
My injury also made life just a wee bit harder. I have a
herniated disc in my c-spine, and though I’m not symptomatic daily, it makes
for some nasty stingers when I get hit or hit someone awkwardly. Because of the
disc, I had to take some time and give those nerves a break (after a stinger at
nationals, one in France, one in Tigertown, and a couple others in training),
and I got a couple of cortisone shots for good measure. I’d be back in action
in June, but I took April and May to have myself checked out and get the shots.
So here we are in June, on the verge of long camp. The above
paragraphs essentially sum up our first 15s residency program. There were other
challenges we faced that I could get into, as well as other changes, and other
rewards. There was the day-to-day struggle with keeping our apartment clean
after six rugby players crashed following a day of practice. There were the
trips to the farmers market, the dinner outings, the shopping trips, and all of
the normal things roommates do. We did all of the things everyone else does,
only we trotted the globe playing rugby as well. Take all of the difficulties I
mentioned above, and they disappear when you’re traipsing around the world with
a rugby ball in your hands. They melt away as soon as you step foot on the pitch.
Stay tuned for Part 3 of my World Cup Musings, in which I’ll
get into our long camp.
