Delmarva Rugby looking for members
Delmarva Rugby is looking to recruit new members in Sussex County and expand both its adult league and new high school league under 19 years old.
Rugby is a full-contact English sport that is a mix between soccer and football with less protection and no breaks unless penalties are called.
Tom Colucci, the president of Delmarva Rugby, started the non-profit organization in December 2011 in division four (which is the starting rank for new teams) and now currently in division three.
Colucci said he played high school and college rugby in 1989 in New York and later decided to start coaching. He moved with his family to Delaware 10 years ago and discovered the only rugby team was in Wilmington.
“My wife turned to me and said, ‘hey, why don’t you start a rugby club,’” Colucci said.
His wife wanted to be able to go watch a good rugby game so he said, OK. He said he started making phone calls and spreading the word around with friends and old players to get people to come out and join.
“I couldn’t [have] done it alone, I have not done it alone,” he said.
Joe Myers, head of recruiting for Delmarva Rugby, has been playing for Delmarva Rugby for a year and played football for 15 years prior to that. Myers wanted to still play a contact sport with a team and his friends were talking about Delmarva Rugby, persuading him to join, he said.
“I showed up the very first day in August last year, not knowing a thing about rugby,” he said.
“I showed up the first day and had to learn quick. It’s not a hard sport to pick up, there’s a lot of little things you learn as you go, but in general the game is pretty easy to pick up.”
Myers did give some pointers for people to be both mentally and physically in shape when joining rugby. He talked about how highly intense the sport is and even when you get tired, you have to keep going because there is no stopping.
“There’s no coming, once you come out you don’t go back in,” he said. “you need to be absolutely sure that you want to be out there and play all at one time.”
Joe Roberts, social chair of Delmarva Rugby, always wanted to play rugby like his brothers and finally had the chance at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania.
When Roberts moved to Delaware more than a year ago, his older brother played for Delmarva Rugby and asked for the club’s information for him to join.
Roberts sees the team as a bunch of men being a family.
“I feel unified when I play rugby,” he said.
Roberts described rugby as one of the most violent sports to play but the players themselves show otherwise.
“We get out on the field and we go at it and knocking into each other, but after all that, everyone’s buddy-buddy,” he said. “It’s not like in football how everything’s a rivalry; everything’s together.”
Delmarva Rugby practices every Tuesday and Thursday from 6-8 p.m. at the American Legion Post 28 in Millsboro. They will also be participating in the Son of a Beach Tournament on May 20, in Rehoboth Beach.
For more information, follow the club on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter at Delmarva Rugby or at Delmarvarugby.com. You can also email Roberts at robertswork108@gmail.com or Myers at jmyers3@dtcc.edu.
Delmarva Rugby is looking to recruit new members in Sussex County and expand both its adult league and new high school league. Photo by S. Gray.
Rugby, a full-contact English sport, is a mix between soccer and football with less protection and no breaks unless penalties are called. Photo by S. Gray.