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A friend once told me that State College and the Altoona area are like the North and the South from the Civil War days. Different in so many ways.
When my son played football against State College, we knew what a challenge it was to beat them on the field. When your dad is a Penn State football coach, inevitably you are pretty good athlete as well.
Luckily for us in the Rugby world, we view State College as our cousins. Without State College's help, our program (Blair United) would never exist. They supported us in organizing our teams, helped provide referees, coaching assistance and encouraged us to move forward.
When our numbers are low and we needed to borrow players, we have done that for both the boys and girls. Our middle school boys' program has several State College boys who play for us, as they don't have the numbers to support a full team. We call it "Statesburg" as our origins were as a club sport for Hollidaysburg.
Every Thursday before Easter, we play in the Easter Bowl at our respective home pitches. This year, our high school boys were a much better team than State … so we adjusted our playing time to ensure it was a safe and competitive game. But we still won.
Both clubs are well represented on the national and international level. Gabby Cantorna and Hope Rogers are State College-based USA Eagle players, with both playing professionally in England. Blair United has several alumni playing or have played, for Penn State, Ohio State, Kutztown, Frostburg, Robert Morris University and Bowling Green.
This coming Sunday, Statesburg is hosting a Fall 7's tournament for our girls' team. Equally split, the team consists of girls from State College and Blair United. Girls from Altoona, Hollidaysburg, Williamsburg will field with girls from State College. Teams from Lancaster, Philadelphia and West Virginia will converge at Tiger Stadium in Hollidaysburg for a full day of rugby with kickoff at 11 am. Admission is free and we encourage you to come check our beautiful sport.
Look for Heaven Taylor from State College -- she is a top high school player who has some fast wheels.
Alex Giansante and Alivia Barto Taylor of Blair United play tremendous defense. Evvie Sipes from Blair has some massive runs in which it takes multiple girls to slow her down, effectively creating a massive overload on offense (or we call it attack).
Lilly "Bird" Ferchalk is a multi-year player from State College, who directs the team with her knowledge.
In rugby, we like to say we don't play against our opponents, we play with them on the field. After the game, we forget the bumps, the hard tackles, the mistakes and the win or loss. We socialize with the teams, sharing post-game meals. It is a tradition unique to our sport. Combining teams when necessary is also very common, and allows us to make new friends for life
See you on the pitch!
Andy Haines is the coach of the Blair United boys rugby team and helps run the local league.