Do "Initiations" the RIGHT Way.

Rugby community - we have FAILED our rookies time and time again. I'm sure there are plenty of other sports teams that are guilty of this, but rugby in particular has a reputation of community and respect that is put on the line with cruddy rookie initiations. DO BETTER.

I've heard the horror stories from other rugby teams about different things they made their young or new players do for an initiation to their team - being locked in dog crates, eating or drinking weird things or in insanely excessive amounts, doing legit dangerous things...it's seriously like a cycle of abuse. Many of these people who have made rookies do these kinds of things also had to do it themselves. It's horrible 😢. STOP IT!

These types of teams are looking at rookie initiations completely backwards. It shouldn't be a stupid exertion of power and dominance, that's literally ass backwards to the philosophy of rugby play in general - 15 as 1, everyone has power and importance. Why are we PUNISHING our beautiful newbies for taking the leap and joining an already tough sport?!

Rookie initiations should be a CELEBRATION.

I am immensely lucky that my college team introduced the rookie tradition to me in this way, and some of the things I've even tried to carry on to my current club team because they were so much fun and made the team bond in such a special way.

Here's a group of rookies from my home club team singing the rugby song they created to "If You Wanna Be My Lover" by the Spice Girls 🤣

At my rookie initiation, I felt like a QUEEN. 👑

I think these were the qualities that made my rookie night so enjoyable:

• nothing was dangerous or scary
  

• nothing was really MANDATORY, some things were strongly encouraged but if it didn't happen then it was a shrug and MAYBE a sip of your drink. There were definitely people that didn't participate at all, and still went on to live happy rugby careers on my team.
  

• anything that we were able to do, our older rugby teammates were absolutely ECSTATIC about 🤣 - they were OBSESSED with us and every silly little thing we did that night
  

• honestly...there weren't even that many "tasks" that involved actual drinking. The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is maybe a boat race, which happens across rugby culture everywhere and sometimes people participate without alcohol at all
  

• the "tasks" we were given were not only fun and silly, but lots of them NEEDED us rookies to do them together. we even had some rookie craft nights ahead of time to get some of the tasks done...so adorable 🥹

My College "Rookie Night"

My rookie night started on the bus ride home from our last fall season game. Our seniors would choose whatever song in the history of music that they wanted, and us rookies would create lyrics that incorporated rugby, the team, and each senior individually. Depending on how long the bus ride was, we would have a limited amount of time to come up with the song AND perform it before we got home.

Our seniors chose CAROL OF THE BELLS for our freakin' song 🎄🔔

At first thought, Carol of the Bells is obviously a pretty obscure and tough song to create rugby lyrics from. However, it is actually a song that has some repetitive choruses and that worked in our favor 🤣

Here are the lyrics we came up with in case you're curious:

R-U-G-B-Y (x8)

Scrumming as one

Firing as one

Playing as one

Winning as one

Hannah, Hannah, Hannah, Hannah (x2)

Colleen B------ [last name, leaving it out for confidentiality lmao]

She is so fast

She kicks the ball

Right through the goal

Hannah, Hannah, Hannah, Hannah (x2)

Jo is the best

Better than the rest

She is a hooker

Also quite a looker

Hannah, Hannah, Hannah, Hannah (x2)

Dies is a back

Ready to attack

Fucks up the bitches

Makes them get stitches

Hannah, Hannah, Hannah, Hannah (x2)

Guess whose our flank

She is a tank

She is a beast

It’s KTZ!

Hannah, Hannah, Hannah, Hannah (x2)

Jen is a prop

She can’t be stopped

She’ll run all day

She came to play

Hannah, Hannah, Hannah, Hannah (x2)

Mad Dog got it all

Dominates the ball

Out of control

She is a major role

Fupa, Fupa, Fupa, Fupa (x2)

These girls kick ass

But the torch will pass

Vets will take there place

Lead us to states

Connie Shots, Connie Shots, Connie Shots

CANISIUS!!!

Our team gave us a list of "tasks" to complete ahead of time [I can't remember how far in advance, but probably at least a week?] then a list of tasks to complete the day of rookie night. We had to complete the "day of" tasks before 7pm which were usually things that could be done around campus like taking silly photos.

An example of a pretty much impossible task that we never did but had a laugh trying to complete was pumping $0.01 of gas at a gas station 🤣 I wish I could remember what the smallest amount was that we got, but it was nowhere near a penny of gas. The vets cracked up at the attempts and that was that.

Here's an example list of tasks we had rookies do ahead of time from my college scrapbook lol:

Some other tasks I remember us doing:

• sand art

• making a pop up storybook of our team

• making a guess who game with all of our teammates

• 50 white gummy bear heads

• silly music videos filmed across campus with different song requests

• write an educational essay about Peter Pan

• I remember there was a year where vets hid different clues in books in the library that rookies had to find...that was a studious vet group hahaha

• somehow obtaining a soccer jersey of the local community college that had the same jersey colors as us [I believe there was ONE group that actually did this by going to a party at the school but majority of us just made a fake one lol]

This is actually from an alumni weekend, not a rookie night, but I love it anyway because I think we're separated into boat race teams by rookie classes [although I don't think KTZ and MJ were in the same class?]. Also, the front of those shirts say "See that rugger in blue?" but I CAN'T REMEMBER WHAT THE BACK OF THE SHIRT SAYS! Maybe it was blank?! What about that rugger in blue?! I don't know!!

The vets basically threw a house party for themselves until the rookies arrived with their completed tasks ready to present and perform. I think this definitely riled up the vets and made them even more enthusiastic in their cheering for all the things the rookies did.

Ironically, I never had a kangaroo court in college. Kangaroo court wasn't introduced to me until my first elite rugby tournament, and that tradition is a story for a wholeeeeeeee other blog post 😅

TL;DR: CELEBRATE YOUR ROOKIES. TREAT THEM WITH ALL THE LOVE AND RESPECT IN THE WORLD. THEY'RE OUR SPORT'S FUTURE AND VITAL TO YOUR TEAM'S SUCCESS. ✌️