Cape Rugby Play Begins

The local rugby season opens on Saturday in Edgewater and the Cape Cougar Rugby Club is ready to play.

Local rugby in Anne Arundel County includes both youth and adult teams and is administered by the Potomac Rugby Union Youth League. The league runs play in June and July when the football fields are available.

Currently there are 30 kids (ages 7-15) involved in the Cape St. Claire program, with over 200 passing through the program since it started.

Although it might seem new to the outsider, rugby is the precurser to American football, and was wildly popular at the turn of the 20th century. There are similar rules and scoring, and the game is played on a football field. Youth rugby is also co-ed, with the "tackle" being replaced by a two-hand tag, decreasing the injury factor.

“The skills learned in rugby are similar to those of other active sports, namely soccer, lacrosse and basketball,” explained the Cape Rugby Commissioner Ric Kempton. “Rugby is an excellent developmental sport for kids as there is constant movement (running) the entire game, with no timeouts or substitutions for the entire period.”

Kempton said that every player handles the ball many times during the game allowing them to contribute to scoring and increasing the satisfaction factor in playing.

Kempton started playing rugby while attending the United States Air Force Academy in 1972. After he moved to the Annapolis area in 1982, he started playing for the Severn River Rugby Football Club, just a couple of years after their inception, and has been a member ever since.

During the '90s, Kempton was nationally certified as an active referee. In 2002, at the request of the Severn River RFC, he became a certified coach and petitioned the Cape St. Claire Recreation Council to form a youth rugby club.

Though rugby play has a reputation for being rough, the Cape Cougar Rugby Club and the entire Potomac Rugby Union Youth League are members of the "Positive Coaching Alliance."

With this league, there is a level of respect and civility in rugby between players, coaches, parents, and the league’s officials that is not often found in other sports. In fact, the game is so polite that the host team hosts a social for both sides after a match is played.

The PRUYL started out with six teams in 1999 and has currently grown to over 50 clubs in the Baltimore-Washington area, with well over 250 teams.

At Saturday's event, teams from Cape St. Claire (Cougars), Patuxent River (Lions), Edgewater (Seahawks) and Sykesville (Freedom Fighters) will meet at from 9 to 11 a.m. They will have 150 youth players in various age groups competing on three fields.

For more information on Cape Rugby, contact Kempton at cscrugby@hotmail.com.