Family, this has always been a loose term for me. I biologically didn't get dealt a good one. which caused me to go into government custody. Sophomore year of highschool I joined rugby. Every week we practiced, competed, and went out for team dinners. We were not a competitive team in the Wisconsin high school girls' league by any means. Our team once won the Wisconsin Girls' Rugby (WGR) Team Sportsmanship Award, AKA the friendliest team award. We didn't mind, we loved being the team that girls loved to play with and against. I had found a home. Regularly, we were there for hours after practice, hanging out, going to town for ice cream, or taking over a family basement to play board games and watch movies. I lived over forty minutes away from all the practices, but didn't regret all the gas money traveling there over three times a week when it came to our team. To me, that is irreplaceable. Till this day, we still regularly meet for lunch on school breaks and plan a whole weekend at someone's parents' house, and hold an alumni practice with the current team during the summer. I don't know about you, but after leaving high school, I often told the lie that it would never change. But things did, friends I used to talk to every day, I maybe call once a year, and no other club I was in gathers like my rugby family. Things changed, but not our love for rugby, because we were always more than a club; we are a family. Nowadays, my rugby ambitions look different but still hold all the same heart. I attend the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. If you Google our team, you will see we haven't had one for the last 5-6 years. I knew I wanted to play rugby in college, though, so I have actively reconstituted the team with our first competitive season being this spring. It has been a lot of work with no coach and no idea of how to start a rugby team. Everything is not as smooth as one would hope, but the girls I've been teaching to play and the returning players who thought they were done have the same heart that I did way back in high school. I'll admit we are going to get our butts handed to us, but that's the fun, not caring whether we win or lose, but knowing we are playing together and are building something greater than a well-oiled machine, though I do hope we get that far one day. I will most likely graduate before it happens, but I couldn't be prouder to be the first president of the reorganized UW- River Falls Women's Club Rugby team. A team of big hearts, open minds, and family that goes beyond the pitch.