PARIS — There’s no real equivalent of Little League for rugby in America.
A version of “Hoosiers” or “Friday Night Lights” hasn’t been made — not yet, at least — to romanticize the popular English-rooted sport to U.S. audiences.
Yet somehow, a dozen 20- and 30-something American women tripped into this sport and then went toe-to-toe against elite athletes from countries where rugby is sacred.
“Yeah, it’s a little crazy, huh?” U.S. player Kristi Kirshe told NBC News on Wednesday, less than 24 hours after the Eagles stunned the rugby sevens world with a miraculous 14-12 victory over Australia to bring home the first medal in the sport for U.S. women.
Salt Lake City native Alex “Spiff” Sedrick furiously ran the length of the field as time expired and then hit a bronze-clinching conversion for the dramatic win.
“It’s kind of still surreal,” Kirshe said. “I don’t think it’s really fully sunk in yet. We’re all excited and kind of just feeling the gravity of it all.”
The rosters of world powers like the gold medal Black Ferns of New Zealand and 2016 Olympic champs Australia are littered with players who were rugby prodigies in high school and younger.
U.S. captain Naya Tapper was a freshman at the University of North Carolina looking forward to the classroom and meeting new friends when she learned about a Tar Heels rugby club team.
That was a dozen years ago, and now the former high school track standout is wearing an Olympic medal.
Tapper, who turns 30 this weekend, said she considers herself lucky to have found the sport in 2012 because the bar has been rising so quickly.
“If I would have found it now, with how much the sport has grown, I wouldn’t have gotten onto the team,” Tapper said. “I’m very grateful for the way the timing worked out.”
The U.S. roster is filled with athletes who previously excelled at other sports before giving rugby a chance.
Alev Kelter, a 33-year-old Eagle River, Alaska, native who scored against Australia, played hockey at powerhouse University of Wisconsin.
Reno, Nevada, native Stephanie Rovetti was an elite high school sprinter and a rotation guard for a Brigham Young University basketball squad that went to the Sweet 16 in 2014.
Kirshe, from Franklin, Massachusetts, was a former Division III soccer standout at Williams College and didn’t come to rugby until she was 23.
The 29-year-old missed playing high-level sports, and when a high school friend suggested rugby, her life would never be the same.
“So one of my friends from high school was, like, ‘Why don’t you give rugby a shot?'” Kirshe said. “She had played club when she was in college, so she suggested that I give it a try and it’s changed my life.”
The state of Massachusetts plays rugby as a spring sport, for both boys and girls. But it’s not clear how many more states, if any, sanction the rough-and-tumble sport.
But even if rugby never gains a football-, baseball-, basketball- or soccer-like following in the United States, Tapper still believes the United States could be a world player.
“The great thing about America and the athletes from America is that we’re so, so talented and we’re also very smart,” she said. “With that combination, if we can teach somebody how to play a certain sport and give them a year or two to figure out the skills aspect, as you can see from our team of crossover athletes, you can get the success you want, at the same level with teams that can start when they’re very young.”
Kirshe said she hopes little girls across America know a little more about rugby today than they did before Tuesday.
“That’s something we talk about all the time,” she said. “It’s just like, bringing such an amazing sport to little girls around the country. Look at our team of all shapes and sizes, and everyone has their role on the field. So I hope that little girls at home see all of us and say, ‘Hey, I want to be a powerful woman like that someday.'”
