These hookers don’t walk the streets

Tuesday, March 3, 1998

These hookers don’t walk the streets

FEATURE Hard-hitting game has finesse; UCLA shoots for national
title

By Avi Lidgi

Daily Bruin Contributor

Jill Fenske, a fourth-year graduate student in UCLA’s chemical
engineering department, is a part-time hooker.

And she is quite good at what she does.

"I play forward, which is called a hooker, which many people
find amusing," Fenske said with a laugh. "Hookers are the ones that
will usually muscle it out for the ball during the scrum."

Scrum?

"Kind of like in football," she explained. "Three people in the
front row, with the hooker in the middle and everybody packed
together real tight."

And?

"And you hit the other team," she said, another laugh
escaping.

Women hitting each other, battling viciously for a ball,
muscling it out until they’re sore, weary and bruised, and all this
with no padding?

"We play like this," Fenske said, displaying windbreakers and a
long-sleeved shirt.

Coming off a very successful season that saw the team go to the
national championships, the women’s rugby team is setting its
sights even higher this season.

Seven new players, combined with the experience of returning
veterans, have given the rugby team (3-0 so far this season) the
confidence needed to shoot for the nationals.

"Team chemistry is great this year," UCLA coach Tam Breckenridge
said. "We have a lot of new players and everything is clicking.

"Our goal is to get to nationals and do well."

The team finished third in its division last year and spirits
are high, buoyed by the very likely prospect of an undefeated
season and a chance at nationals. (The top two teams out of 16
division programs are invited to attend.)

The team, however, has had to contend with more than just their
opponents this season. Storms have forced the team to postpone
three games, a frustrating part of playing on outdoor fields with
inclement weather.

Because so few high schools have rugby programs, most of the
women on the team – which includes four graduate students and a
faculty member – had never played rugby before joining the
team.

The high level of physical contact was not something that was
lost on Breckenridge the first time she saw a game.

"It is one of the most demanding sports, as far as focus,
endurance, heart and soul," Breckenridge said. "The first time I
saw (a rugby match), I said, ‘No way, I would never play this game.
It’s like, ‘I’m gonna bash your head in and run all over you.’"

But the game is addictive, according to Breckenridge, who
graduated from UCLA 20 years ago and now works for the university:
"Once you get out and play, it’s a lot of fun."

In a society in which half of America reserves its Monday nights
to watching men smash their heads against each other and
reconfigure limbs in ways even contortionists would have trouble
duplicating, Fenske says that the brutality of her sport is
something that you just have to get used to – and not just because
it’s women doing the smashing and reconfiguring.

"I’m sure that people think that women’s rugby is totally
brutal, but we have a little more finesse about the game," she
said. "Some people react like, ‘It’s just wrong, having women
hitting each other out there like that.’"

The game, according to both Breckenridge and Fenske, is a little
different for the women than it is for the men.

Vicious scowls, merciless hits, gory injuries and trash-talking
are all hallmarks of the men’s game. Oh, but you’ll find all that
watching a women’s rugby match, too. It is, as is so often the
case, the elegance and grace that women bring to the sport that
distinguishes them from their male counterparts.

"We’re still at the finesse stage," Breckenridge said. "We use
skills more instead of brute strength."

Winning is something these women have grown accustomed to. Yet,
oddly enough, it is after, not during, the game that the real
personal contact begins.

"Rugby etiquette, I guess you could call it," Fenske said.
"After the game, after you’re done beating each other up, it’s
considered just wrong if you don’t go out and share a pizza with
the other team."

Excuse me?

Fenske laughs, adding: "It would be totally offensive to either
team if it didn’t happen. Either go out for some beer, or sit
around and talk over some food."

Have we stumbled upon yet another difference between the men’s
and women’s game?

She laughs.

Though turnout for the games has never made fans pressed for
space, these women don’t mind, Fenske says.

"Some people who react negatively to (a hard-hitting women’s
sport) have other issues; they have some couch work to do."

To find out more about women’s rugby, call Jill Fenske at (310)
371-0016.

JAMIE SCANLON-JACOBS/Daily Bruin

The action is intense as players from the women’s rugby team
scramble for the ball during the "scrum."

JAMIE SCANLON-JACOBS/Daily Bruin

Bruin rugby players often have to use force to escape from
defenders while still keeping possession of the ball.