Giselle Long is a junior at Avon High School and grew up playing sports and supporting her brother in his athletic pursuits. Think of it as a friendly sibling rivalry.
“Whatever he did, I wanted to do,” Long said. “I look up to him. He was playing for the Westside Black Swarm rugby team and I really enjoyed watching. It seemed like a great experience.”
A few decades ago there wasn’t a lot of girls rugby, but in 2024, Long said that’s nonsense.
“The club was interested in starting a girls team,” she said. “I was the first girl to show up and I did my practices with all the guys. I started my freshman year of high school and I’m on an all-girls team now.”
Long has a history of defying athletic gender norms. She played tackle football in the second grade.
“I’ve always had the mentality that girls can do it too,” Long said. “When they opened it up for a girls team I definitely wanted to try it out.”
Rugby was extremely popular for centuries in England but much of the world has caught on over time. Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and others can boast a long history of the game. In the U.S. however, it seems to just now be gaining momentum.
“I usually tell people it’s similar to football but there are no pads,” Long said. “You only play with a mouthguard and you pass backwards. There are positions in rugby, but what I love about it is, everyone can do everything. There’s not one position running the ball or one position scoring all of the time. We don’t specialize.”
The Westside Revenge team, consisting of female players in Hendricks County, plays against others in the area including Zionsville, Westfield, Carmel and Noblesville to name a few – but many of those teams are new.
“This is our third year but I think a couple of them just put their first team in this spring,” Long said. “It’s definitely growing in this area.”
They’ve been successful too. With two seasons each year, Revenge brought home the state championship in both the fall and spring of Long’s sophomore year, and again this fall in Long’s junior year. She was awarded player of the match by the other team after the 36-0 win.
In the two and a half years she’s been playing, recruiters have had their eye on her. Long was invited to play on the Midwest Thunderbirds team and compete at a match in Tampa, Florida. It was there, for the first time, where she encountered girls from across the globe who love rugby too.
“I really hit it off with one of the girls who had been playing a lot longer and had more experience than I had,” Long said. “She suggested I look into Eagle Impact Rugby Academy (EIRA). They take the best around the country, bring them together for a camp and get a feel for their skills.”
After connecting with an EIRA representative, her opportunities continued to expand.
“I sent him my highlight reel and he asked if I would be available to play in Spain and Ireland over the summer,” Long said. “My jaw was literally on the floor. I couldn’t believe it.”
Her trip overseas isn’t something she’ll likely forget, and though she had some small windows of time to sightsee and enjoy the area, it was mostly focused on rugby.
“There was a social side and a rugby side, and both were an 11 out of 10,” Long said. “Playing at that high of a level and being surrounded by so much talent, knowledge and skill is insane. You can’t find it anywhere else. These girls have been playing since they were 5.”
She called it “humbling” to work with coaches who could quickly identify changes she needed to make. Even with her current talent and skill level, Long could see there was more to be done.
“This was my first rugby event at that level,” she said. “For a lot of people, EIRA is a steppingstone for U.S. junior National or U.S. national teams. I went from my home club to playing with a Midwest team and traveling to another state and then to another country. It was insane.”
One of the aspects Long loves about the game is the connections made with teammates. It doesn’t matter who is the slowest, fastest, smallest or biggest. They all have to work together to get the job done.
In Spain and Ireland, she was able to make those connections too.
“On the social side, I met some of the most kind, hard-working and amazing people I’ve ever met in my life,” she said. “I feel like the rugby culture is like no other. Just being around girls from around the world, where they appreciate rugby – everyone there wants to get better. Everyone has a great attitude. I learned as much from them off the pitch than on.”
The young women went into Dublin, Ireland, shopped, ate and snapped pictures. With a shared passion and love for the game, Long said some of those ladies are now her best friends.
Long is excited for the future of rugby and for her own athletic career.
“We invite people to games all the time,” she said. “When someone sits down and watches it, they often love it. The Westside club has a men’s division and a kids’ division too. It’s not too late to learn a new sport.”
As more high schools and colleges launch club rugby teams, scholarships are available, and as the interest in the sport continues to grow, the opportunities will also.
“I would love to play in college,” Long said. “I’ve been visiting campuses and talking to coaches. I don’t know what I want to study yet but I do know I would like to play rugby. If I had the opportunity to play for a U.S. team, I’d take it in a heartbeat. I want to play and represent my country in the sport I’m most passionate about.”
For Long, the sky is the limit, and she’s not taking “no” for an answer.
