Olds High School student Tatum Olsen is a lot of things: guitarist, singer, and painter. But she's no athlete.
"I'm an artsy person," Olsen says. "I create anything I can."
And so it's surprising that when a girl of Olsen's profile does decide to get into sports, she chooses rugby, the roughest, toughest, most bruising one out there.
The sport mostly goes like this: player sprints downfield carrying the ball. Few make it more than a few strides before getting wrapped up and thrown to the ground. Bodies are everywhere. A battle for possession ensues. Either a teammate retains the ball and keeps going or the other team starts its counterattack. On and on it goes.
The Grade 11 student explains her choice.
"Go hard or go home, I guess," she says, laughing.
"I've never been into sports before and I really wanted to get more involved with the school. I was just getting into the gym a lot, and a lot of my friends were playing and I thought it would be a really great way to bond with the school and bond with the girls and have a really fun time and get fit."
Olsen isn't a unique case. Over the years, rugby has attracted many girls who don't normally play sports. Head coach George Grant believes they join for the bragging rights of belonging to the "toughest team in town."
"The girls will go up to any football player and go, yeah well you've got a helmet on, shoulder pads, you're being a wuss," Grant says.
"We have the scrum caps on but that's only to keep our ears attached ... we've got metal spikes, the football players don't. The perception that it is the tougher sport, I think is what a lot of the girls like to hang their hat on."
Playing rugby and possibly getting injured intimidated Olsen at first. But she says having supportive teammates helped her overcome those fears.
Still, getting hurt in rugby is a given and girls on the team take pride in their black eyes, cleat marks and bruises. Olsen rolls up the sleeve of her jersey to reveal a big one on her left shoulder.
"I go to family get-togethers and I'm like, 'look how athletic I am now'," she says. "Because they're all like, 'why are you into sports?' And I'm like, 'I'm having fun now'. Yeah, it's cool."
The inclusiveness of the sport is another part of the appeal. The team takes girls from grades 9 through 12. And whether big or small, slow or fast, there's a job for everyone.
"I like how there's so many aspects to rugby. There's lifting, and scrums and rucks. It's not just, get the ball and run. There's so many things that the pack covers that really supports the team," Olsen says.
"It's like football," Grant says. "You've got guys that can catch, those that can't. Rugby is very similar in that aspect in that you can find a spot for every kid if they're willing to work and improve themselves."
Olsen, who plans to play again next year, never considered herself an athlete. She can add that to the list now. She's earned it.
"The girls will go up to any football player and go, yeah well you've got a helmet on, shoulder pads, you're being a wuss." GEORGE GRANT, rugby coach
