By Mark Ambrogi
A simple question by a fellow student in fourth grade led Will O’Connor to a pleasant discovery.
“He basically said are you fast,” Will said. “I said yeah and he said come play rugby. I explored it and it looked fun so I joined. Ever since I’ve had the time of my life playing it.”
Will, a Carmel Middle School eighth-grader, played on Indiana Select seventh- and eighth-grade team which won the Challenge Cup All-Star Tournament in Pittsburgh, Pa., in June.
“What is attractive to me about it is everybody fits in,” Will said. “Everybody has a place, no matter what body type you are, whether you are tall or lean like me or short and fat. Everybody gets to touch the ball. It’s fun for everybody.”
Will is set to play Carmel Dads’ Club rugby again this spring. The league goes from third grade through eighth grade for boys and girls. Jeff O’Connor, Will’s father, is the assistant commissioner. O’Connor’s younger son Collin, a Carmel Middle School sixth grader, plays on the fifth- and sixth-grade rugby team.
“In the lower level, it’s co-ed teams,” O’Connor said.
It is touch rugby for third- and fourth-grade teams and tackle for fifth- and sixth-grade teams. The seventh- and eighth- grade tackle teams are separate for boys and girls.
All the teams are travel teams, playing teams such as Broad Ripple, Hamilton Southeastern, Brownsburg, Westfield and Noblesville.
Although it is not a Indiana High School Athletic Association sport, Carmel High School has boys and girls club teams.
The club teams are part of Rugby Indiana. Carmel senior Peyton Barr, an all-state player in 2014, signed to play with Eastern Illinois women’s rugby next season.
Will was selected for a Indiana tournament in Elkhart along with Alex Douglas, whose father Bruce is the CDC Rugby Commissioner. From there Will was selected by Rugby Indiana to play for that Indiana Select team that went to the Challenge Cup. Indiana beat Virginia in the championship in June.
“We literally won in the last second,” Will said. “We scored as time expired to win the game.”
The call-out meeting for players from grades 3-8 is at the high school cafeteria on Feb. 4 at 6:30 p.m. for anyone interested in finding out more about rugby. Additional contact can be made by emailing Douglas at [email protected].
Practice will likely begin shortly after the call-out meeting with games beginning in March/April and extending through May.
“The surrounding teams like Broad Ripple and Hamilton Southeastern are ahead of us in the number of players and development,” Will said. “I know Carmel doesn’t like to come in second in anything. We like to finish first. If we are going to do that, we are going to need help. I’m going to challenge who might be mildly interested or might have played football to come out and try it. I think they’ll find it’s an amazing sport.”
O’Connor said most league teams have more players and support.
“We’re trying to get a buzz about it so we get some better players and compete with these other programs,” he said.
