It was cold and muddy out when I went to practice with the Whitman women’s rugby team, the Motherruckers. After arriving a little late to the Harper Joy field, I was immediately told by Erin Winsper, the coach and ’07 alumna, to run a lap and stretch. The team was busy conditioning as if they were training for the Navy Seals.

“We seem to a bit a little out of shape,” yelled Winsper as she rallied them team in for stretches. I couldn’t imagine what these women would be like if they were in better shape, but then again that’s coming from a person who considers walking up the Reid stairs to be a workout.

The team started off with passing drills, which included a lot of yelling, the focus being on communicating who’s doing the passing. Anytime the ball was dropped, Winsper would count up from one to let the team know how many push-ups we would be doing for those mistakes.

“Yeah ball! Yeah ball!” said sophomore Hannah Johnson, who clearly was one of the most vocal players on the team, demonstrating the significance of communication in the game. Johnson is the only one on the team with prior rugby experience and stands as co-captain with junior Emily Lorente.

By the end of the run, whoever had the ball last had to slide on the ground. Surprisingly enough, my favorite part of the practice was sliding into the mud and getting dirty.

Then, the team went through rucking drills. This required three people to run and protect the person with the ball. My job was to form a sort of battering ram by grabbing on to one other person and body slam the other team without stepping on my teammate who was on the ground with the ball. This was also good practice for “scrumming” which is basically a cluster of both teams rucking into each other over the ball.

“Sorry! Did I step on your face?” said junior Teresa Hughes, as she rucked over a fellow Motherrucker.

The types of injuries that occur in rugby can be pretty serious. Besides a mangled face from cleats, rucking head-to-head against another team can result in concussions.

“It’s actually not funny at all, which is why you have to remember to duck down really low, but still watch where you’re charging,” said Lorente after witnessing a head-bump between two teammates.

My try at rucking resulted in me getting lifted off the ground and wondering where my left lung went.

Although a majority of the team members are new to the sport this year, it seemed to me that a lot of them knew how to break out their tough side and take out their aggression in tackling drills.

“It’s hard, but it’s been so much fun from the start of the year,” said first-year Carrie Beckman, who plays the position of hooker.

Beckman demonstrated to me what she does as a hooker by throwing the ball up to her teammate, junior Emily Doyle, who is a lock. Doyle is hoisted up into the air by two of her teammates, called props, receiving a massive wedgie in the process of catching the ball before the opposing lock can intercept it.

Rugby is one of the most underrated sports at Whitman and is one formality short of being a varsity sport. The men’s team, the Reapers, travels with the Motherruckers around the Northwest to compete against other schools and clubs. Both teams practice three times a week, year round. They have even gone abroad to Canada and Europe in recent years to play and broaden their cultural understanding of the sport.

Junior Paloma Sutton-Barnes is a veteran member who has been playing rugby since her first year at Whitman.

“There’s a lot of kinship in this sport. I didn’t join a sorority so this is the closest thing I have to sisterhood,” said Sutton-Barnes. After almost transferring out of Whitman, her love of the sport and team kept her from leaving.

Most of the women I knew from the team and eventually met through the practice are quite possibly the sweetest people I’ve ever met . . . but you wouldn’t know it on the field as they transform in to tough, rough, downright feisty fighters who could gobble up wimps like me for breakfast.

“I want you to find something that makes you so mad and bring that aggression to the game tomorrow. Take it out on the other team and let them know you’re angry,” said Lorente.

Unfortunately, after all the mental preparation and productive practice, the other team failed to show up to Saturday’s game. If you ask me, I think they were afraid of the Motherruckers tearing them up.