Rugby family is something that this sport offers that I’ve never found in any other sport I’ve played. Rugby is a newer part of my life, as I only joined my college club team a year and a half ago, but it’s already become something I treasure and rely on everyday. From the very first practice I showed up to, nervous and shy and unsure if I would be able to find a place on the team, the thing that stood out most to me in rugby were the people. I was welcomed onto the team even having no idea what the rules of the game were, and quickly grew to anticipate practice every week since I loved all of my teammates so much. The sport provided me with a challenge, something new to learn and get better at, but the people surrounding the sport provided my life with something I wasn’t even aware I was missing: a community. It’s funny to look back on my freshman year of college, before I found rugby, and realize just how lonely I was and how much I craved to be a part of a team again. Once I joined rugby, I remembered how much I loved grueling practices and long conditioning and early-morning lifts, because you’re doing those things alongside your teammates, pushing each other to be the best you can. To me, that’s the essence of what rugby family is: the motivation to show up and work hard, because you know you’re doing it alongside people you love. Being a part of the rugby family has made me grow so much as an individual, even in the short time I’ve been in it. From my first practice, where I was shy and quiet and scared of what people would think of, I’ve changed so much. I’ve been so incredibly fortunate to get to play on many different teams already, and with each new experience I’ve come out of my shell a little bit more, found myself getting a bit more comfortable around new people, people who are already new friends, just by nature of being on the same team. This past summer I had the opportunity of a lifetime to go to England for two weeks and play rugby with the NCR All-American team. It was everything I could have hoped for, and the thing that made the trip so amazing were the people I was with. I knew no one beforehand, but by the end I had made 24 new friends, people who I still text regularly and anticipate seeing when our school teams play each other. My hope for the rest of my college rugby career is to continue to be able to take advantage of opportunities like that one. A week from now I’ll be headed down to Atlanta to play in the NCR All-Star weekend, which I hope only introduces me to more new friends in the rugby community. But, with these incredible opportunities, there are some fairly high costs. Getting this scholarship would mean I’m able to more comfortably say yes to these chances if I get more in the future, since right now I’ve spent a lot of my saved money to go on these trips. But no matter what my future with this sport looks like, I know that I’ve already made friends for life.