Rugby Anyone? It’s a Sunset Tradition Played By Today’s Teens
From left: Daniel Sweeney, Patrick Connolly, Mairtin McCusker, Gavin Maguire, John Maguire, Brendan Maguire
It's a Saturday morning at West Sunset Playground, and a dozen high school students are warming up, tossing a ball, doing wind sprints, and practicing their footwork.
At first glance, it looks like they’re playing football. But their ball is egg-shaped and puffy. And they are not throwing forward passes but lateraling the ball to the side. And running and punting at the same time.
The game they are playing is rugby, a sport wildly popular internationally and also big in the U.S. — and returning to popularity in San Francisco and throughout Northern California. Rugby has especially deep roots in the Sunset.
The reason for the popularity is simple.
“There's so much action,” says Sunset resident Gavin Maguire, 15, a Riordan High School sophomore. “Non-stop hitting, kicking, running, tackling, passing. There’s just too much to like.”
Another Sunset player, teammate Mairtin McCusker, 15, a sophomore at Sacred Heart Cathedral High School, agrees. “It’s different from other sports.”
The attraction of rugby
“Rugby requires speed, skill, and toughness,” says local electrician Tony Wells, the club’s longtime coach. “But you don’t have to be big. A boy that plays for us weighs 100 pounds, and he’s one of the best.”
Wells says the game’s appeal goes well beyond the non-stop action.
“We promote good sportsmanship, as well as respect for the coaches and the referees,” he says. “We go out in the community and try to do good, like supporting a local food bank, and the underserved Pacific Island community. There’s tremendous camaraderie. Kids love to play.”
Rugby’s history
Rugby’s roots dig deep in U.S. sports history. The legendary first Harvard-Yale “football” game in 1875 wasn’t a football game at all. As all rugby players know, it was actually a rugby match. American football evolved from rugby rules a few years later.
High school rugby got started in San Francisco in 1980 through the support of the Police Athletic League (PAL), which put up signs for youth rugby, recalls John Maguire, a retired San Francisco firefighter.
Today many Sunset boys play for the San Francisco Golden Gate Rugby Club, which resulted from the merger of the Barbary Coast and the Castaways Rugby Clubs. Many of the boys playing today are following in the footsteps of their fathers and grandfathers, many from Ireland.
The club practices in the fall at the Minnie and Lovey Ward Rec Center. Games begin in January at their field on Treasure Island.
Post-pandemic future
Rugby was a popular club sport in San Francisco high schools until the pandemic hit in 2020 and many high school club teams shut down. Now, St. Ignatius is the only high school in San Francisco restarting its club team.
A number of schools in other parts of the Bay Area have reinstated their rugby teams along with the San Francisco Golden Gate Rugby Club Rugby Club.
“Our hope is to get rugby into more high schools,” says Wells, the club’s coach. “Girls as well as boys love it.”
In fact, Wells’ daughter plays rugby at Chico State, and his son played at Riordan.
Nearly 50 U.S. colleges and universities have men’s and women’s rugby teams. Wells says he gets a lot of calls from college rugby coaches around the country looking for players.
“I’m definitely going to check out rugby when I get to college,” says Brendan Maguire, 17, a Riordan senior.
Reported and written by volunteer community journalist Tom Colin. We encourage residents with journalism experience, retired journalists, and student journalists in high school and college to volunteer as writers for Supervisor Engardio’s newsletter. Interested? Apply here. Do you know a story you would like to see featured in the newsletter? Tell us about it here.