"Whoso would be a man, must be a non-conformist, and preferably play in the pack." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

 Is rugby a safe sport for American youth?
by Lyle J. Micheli, MD*
Commentary by a past president of the American College of Sports Medicine

I support efforts to establish rugby teams in American high schools and colleges and communities for men, women, boys and girls, and wish to alleviate any possible concerns about the sport’s relative safety.A popular sport worldwide Rugby is a dynamic contact sport that is played all over the world by men and women of all different classes, creeds, and races. It fosters friendship and camaraderie between players. To celebrate one recent Christmas, men from the American and New Zealand research stations in Antarctica played a game of rugby against each other on those southernmost frozen wastelands. Most rugby players have played with and against people from other nations. Rugby is played in over 100 countries and is the most popular team sport in nations such as Japan, Fiji, and Wales. This sport could not be as popular as it is among the peoples of so many different cultures if it were dangerous! In fact, the risk of injury in rugby is relatively low compared to sports Americans embrace – such as football, ice hockey, and lacrosse - a fact borne-out by numerous studies to ascertain the risk of sports injury in differentactivities. The reasons for this are quite straightforward to those of us who study sports medicine.
   Why rugby is a safe sport – paradoxically The main reason rugby players have a relatively low risk of injury compared to football players is paradoxical – rugby players don’t wear protective equipment. Thus the rugby player doesn’t have the same disregard for the safety of his or her head, neck, and shoulders when tackling or trying to break through a tackle. The other reason is that unlike football, rugby is a game of possession, not yardage. Consequently rugby players don’t tackle by “driving through the numbers,” as football players are taught to do with their heads when tackling a player. In rugby, players are taught to use their arms to wrap a player’s legs and let the momentum of that player cause him to go to ground. Furthermore, in rugby there is no blocking, and so players who don’t have the ball don’t get hit when they’re not expecting it-I performed one of the first studies of rugby injuries in the United States, which showed that compared to football, the incidence of injury in rugby is quite low (10 percent in American club rugby compared to 52 percent in NCAA college football). My study was published in the peer-reviewed American Journal of Sports Medicine.

 

"For all the reasons outlined above, I have no hesitation based on my personal and professional experience to declare that rugby is worthy of a place in American colleges and high schools"
 

*Dr. Lyle Micheli is director of the Division of Sports Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital and an Associate Clinical Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at Harvard Medical School. He is a past president of the American College of Sports Medicine and currently serves as chairman of the Massachusetts Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. Dr. Micheli is chairman of USA Rugby’s Medical & Risk Management Committee

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Thank you to Dr. Jon Masorti, a BaBa, for providing the Sports Medicine Coverage for the State College High School Rugby Games and for creating and maintaining the State College Rugby domain.

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Contact us below if you want to learn more or register to play for the State College High School boys or girls teams, or the BaBas, the Happy Valley Mens or Womens Club teams.