Rugby basics
-- Each team has 15 players — 8 forwards and 7 backs
-- A game has two 40 minute halves
-- The field (pitch) is typically 100 meters (110 yards) long and 70 meters (75 yards) wide
-- There are 4 ways to score the ball: A try, a conversion, a penalty kick and a drop goal. A try is like a touchdown, a conversion is like a point after kick, a penalty kick comes after a major law violation and a drop goal is like a field goal that comes in the normal flow of the game.
-- Visit the Ducks at gwrugby.com


They don’t play for the glory.

They don’t play for the girls.

And they most certainly don’t play for widespread recognition.

The Glen Ellyn Ducks rugby club plays the sport simply for the love.

The team — a collection of boys from Glenbard North, Glenbard South, Glenbard West and St. Francis (among other schools) — has been in existence since 2002 and is keeping the tradition of the original Glen Ellyn Ducks team, which was started in the 1970s, alive and well.

Or at least trying.

“It’s a fight every year to get kids,” said Ducks coach Dan Wiseheart, who has been the Ducks’ head coach since the reformation in 2002.

However, all it takes to gain lifelong devotees of the sport is one day.

“The kids I deal with love it. The parents I deal with love it,” Wiseheart said. “You go anywhere in the world and find a rugby player, and you have an instant friend.”

For most of the Ducks’ players, all it took was one practice, one scrimmage, a few moments in a game to find a deep passion for the sport.

“It’s the most fun sport I ever played,” Glenbard West junior David Weaver said. “I think I’ve tried every sport in America and this is way better than any of them.

“You look forward to practice. It’s like when you’re little playing soccer and just chasing the ball around and having fun playing.”

It didn’t take much for rugby to sink its spikes into Wiseheart, and it also took very little prodding when his former college coach Jack Cushing gauged his interest in re-starting the Ducks.

“He called me one day and said, ‘You’re out in the western suburbs. Why don’t you go do a presentation (about rugby),” Wiseheart said of his coach at UIC. “I said OK, and when I told him I had about 20 kids here he said, ‘OK, we’re going to get you on the schedule.’ ”

That’s all it took to get the Ducks off the ground.

Dan Herr, the captain, Glen Ellyn resident and St. Francis senior, is in his second season with the Ducks and came to the game after playing football.

“I played football my freshman year, but then I got out of contact sports,” Herr explained. “Freshman year I was small and after the football season I felt there really wasn’t a spot or position for me.

“I was gung-ho about (rugby). After the first practice scrimmage I came out (of the game) because I had a gash over my eye. After I got home and showered and saw how it looked, that was it. I loved it.”

In that respect, Herr is just like many of his teammates. Weaver picks rugby over the myriad of sports he has played. Mike Hale, a Glenbard West senior, played football his first two years at West. Quinn Lake, a Glenbard North junior in his first season, dropped baseball to play rugby.

“I get to play a lot more in rugby,” Lake said. “It’s a lot more fun. There’s more action than just standing around in the outfield. I just like to take the ball up the middle and slam into someone.”

Regardless of talent level every player on the Ducks is guaranteed to play in every game, so players like Lake and  Hale, also in his first year, aren’t relegated to the bench.

“I love it,” Hale said. “I definitely love the hitting and getting in the scrum.”

Alex Pulos is the only Glenbard South representative on the team, and the junior is applying his skills as an offensive lineman for the Raiders’ football team to rugby, and vice versa.

“It’s good cardio and good to practice hitting,” Pulos said of rugby. “It’s fun. Instead of just blocking I get to go out and hit people.”

“When he came out he had a football mentality,” Wiseheart said. “I can see him coming out of that a little bit. When you open your mind a little bit you can see how ruby skills — footwork, being fit physically — factor into football.”

Still, the Ducks are comprised more of converted football players than those who play both sports, but that could change next year as Weaver and Pulos plan to hit the recruiting trail.

“I’m going to put flyers around all over school,” Weaver said. “I have a huge propaganda campaign planned.”

“I’m going to try and recruit people at Glenbard South,” Pulos said. “Most of the football players play baseball or lift in the offseason, but next year they won’t have to lift so they can come play.”

As for the future plans for some of the Ducks? Herr is going to play at Marquette next year and Hale is going to try out for the team there as well.

Lake plans to be back next season, and Pulos and Weaver don’t plan on abandoning the sport any time soon.

“It’s fun,” Pulos said. “I think everyone should get out and play.”

“The first time I stepped in I was so into it. It was so much fun,” Weaver said. “This is a sport I’m going to play the rest of my life.”