The Rugby Schedule

The first mention of the sport of rugby in the Daily Princetonian was back in 1876. 

At the time, Princeton had three varsity teams: baseball, football and rowing. Shortly after that, track and field would make its debut.

Football back then, of course, bore little resemblance to the game of today, or even the game of only a few years later. Back then, the issue was what form the sport would take, whether it be the soccer version or rugby version.

When Harvard challenged Princeton to a football game in 1876 (seven years after the first football game between Princeton and Rutgers, a game that was a combination of rugby and soccer), it sparked a discussion of what to do next. The Daily Princetonian said this:

It is well known that Harvard's rules are essentially different from the rules which govern the game as played here. The President of the P. F. B. S. in reply proposed that an association be formed of the various Colleges, which should adopt a uniform set of rules, according to which the games played between members of the association should be governed. This seems to be the only way by which a satisfactory series of games can be played between Colleges who use almost entirely different rules

As an aside, that same issue referred to an intramural athletics meet this way:

The weather was fine, the attendance poor, and the games miserable.

Now that is writing.

Eventually, the rules for football were standardized, and scoring no longer involved kicking the ball into a goal. The new game wasn't quite rugby either.

The sport of rugby itself dates back to the early 1800s in England, where it first was played at a prep school called, appropriately enough, "Rugby." As the different schools on the prep and then university level began to play, the rules for the game also varied from venue to venue, only to be formalized by the middle of the century.

Fast-forwarding to this week, women's rugby officially joined goprincetontigers.com as the 38th Princeton varsity sport. 

It's been 24 years since Princeton added a varsity sport, when lightweight women's rowing joined on in 1998. That program has been overwhelmingly successful, including the last two IRA national championships.

Only once has Princeton gone more than 24 years between adding sports, and that was a 40-year gap between men's squash in 1931 and the first women's varsity team in 1971 (women's tennis). 

The new women's rugby page on GPT now features a roster, program history, the coaches and, of course, the 2022 fall schedule.

As for the history, this is pretty good stuff:

Princeton University Women’s Rugby Football Club was established in 1979 by Catherine Chute. The new team aspired to compete in the young world of U.S. women’s rugby, which was established only eight years earlier when four women’s teams emerged in 1972. Since then, the sport has grown quickly across America and Princeton women have continually played at the top levels of Division I competition. Princeton Women’s rugby won back-to-back national championships in 1995 and 1996 and advanced to the Final Four in 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2004 and 2005.  More than 35 Princeton women have been named All-Americans in rugby. In 2011, 2012, and 2018, the women placed 3rd in the USA Rugby Sevens Collegiate National Championships.

The first official match for the new varsity team will be Saturday, Sept. 3, when the Tigers travel to take on Sacred Heart (it's always good to get the Pioneers a mention). The first home varsity match will be the following Saturday, Sept. 10, when Princeton hosts Army.

In all Princeton's first varsity schedule consists of eight matches, with home games against Army, Brown, Quinnipiac and LIU and road trips to Sacred Heart, Harvard, Mount St. Mary's and Dartmouth.

The full schedule with dates is HERE.

As for the roster, the first varsity team has 24 players. You can see the list HERE.

These are exciting times for Princeton women's rugby. Head coach Josie Ziluca has guided the program since 2019, which means she's led it as a club program and then through the pandemic.

Now she leads her team out as a varsity. 

Sept. 3 can't get here fast enough for the women's rugby team.