Submitted by Kayla

Moving to the city was a big change for me, I’m a small town country girl who decided to move to Pittsburgh and pursue a career in nursing. Well needless to say 3 to 4 twelve hour shifts a week was not enough to keep me busy. So what in the world am I going to do with my time? The gym, learn how to crochet, work overtime? I didn’t know. So one of my friends jokingly said, “You should see if there is a rugby team”. I did play in a rugby club for about a year in college (which equaled out to about 4 games), but I knew just the basics and the basics ONLY.  Pass backwards, run forwards, ruck and kick the ball if you can. Ha. If you only knew how clueless I was to what real rugby was all about. We didn’t have a coach or barely ever practice, nor did we even have a full team! But it was something to do at the time. I liked it, but no one really seemed to have a heart for the sport, so needless to say it wasn’t as fun as it is now… And so I took his joke serious, I could be active and meet new people, sounded good to me. So I googled ‘Rugby in Pittsburgh ,’ and came across the Pittsburgh Angels, looked through their pictures and read some about them and figured what the hell, I’ll give it a go. But what I didn’t realize was that I was about to join the most fun sport ever with a team who has so much knowledge, desire and determination for rugby.

First day of practice… dun dun dunnn. Wow. Three words. Out of shape. I remember running these hard core sprints and doing pushups in between which seemed like an eternity, (let me mind you that I spent the past 2 years of my life, nose in book all day and night, learning how to properly wipe a bum, my life was nursing school and I bartended on the weekends, no physical activity whatsoever).  So I was last and completely winded, but everyone encouraged me on and gave me positive boosts throughout the whole night. We ran and rucked and tackled and passed and kicked. I was a bit overwhelmed by the end of night, but deep down I really enjoyed every minute of it (even though I thought I was going to pass out by the fence multiple times). But after I took my spikes off, got a couple high fives, walked towards my car, I remember coach stopping me and saying, “Hey Kayla, good job tonight, I’ll see you Thursday.” It doesn’t sound like much, but what he said and the way the team treated me that night, there was no way I could turn down this opportunity, no matter how out of shape I was and how little I knew about the sport. I was in.

Long story short and actually getting to my point. I’ve played for the Angels for about 2 months now, and I have had an absolute blast with them. I’ve played different sports throughout my whole life and have never played on a team with so much skill, love, drive and determination for a sport. They have taught me so much as to what ‘real’ rugby is all about, and I love it. I respect this team and my coach with all I have and I have more faith in them than you can imagine. Whether I’m wing or running water out to my teammates after a try, I’m so pumped to be apart of this team and going to the National championship. It’s been an awesome journey, and it’s no where near over yet. The Pittsburgh Angels are going to Nationals. See you Monday with the title. Peace.