I was never a very "athletic" girl. When I was ten, I wanted desperately to be a gymnast, despite my chunky physique. My parents bowed to my fantasy and hoped for the best, but I was soon crushed to discover that I was a cement brick amongst tree sprites. I could have picked up and tossed some of those tiny girls, but I could not lithely spring myself up onto the bars to save my life. The leotard was a nightmare (although I loved to look at it when it wasn't on me) and I never did manage a handspring. I never even got close. I was too big. Too solid. That I was also strong and powerful and determined never crossed my mind. In my world, you had to be thin to play sports.

So the chunky girl went back to the couch and back to her books, and gave up on being an athlete.

That isn't to say that I gave up on fitness. I rode my bike, went for walks, and climbed a lot of trees. I just didn't bother trying out for anything. By the time I was in junior high, the idea of trying out for a sports team made me laugh. Not necessarily because I found sports to be a joke, but because I thought that the idea of me playing them was one.

First, I was still sure that big girls couldn't play. Big girls are slow, right? Second, I was behind. People who tried out for school teams knew what they were doing. They'd been on city leagues since they were four years old. They knew the rules. I didn't. And if there's one thing an insecure fat girl won't do, it's try out for a sport she knows virtually nothing about.

At some point in high school, I caught a bit of a men's rugby game as I was flipping through the television channels. Now keep in mind, I lived in the heart of the Midwestern USA... rugby was more foreign to me than a hard frost in the Sahara. Some beefy man with a buzz cut and a bloody leg was tearing across a field in a mad fury with no padding, and when he was clobbered to the ground, they grabbed the ball, jumped over him, and kept going. Wow. Now that's a sport.

In my total write-off of all team sports, the highest on the list of shunned activities (apart from basketball, which I still loath due to trauma inflicted by a volunteer gym teacher at St. Mary's Visitation Catholic School in New Salem, Michigan, you know who you are) was American football. What was the point? They slammed into people, and then everyone stopped and stood around. Why bother? Rugby, on the other hand...

The next time the subject came around to football, I put in that if I was ever going to play a sport, I'd go all out and play rugby. Rugby?!? Yeah, I said coolly. Rugby. If you're going to get aggressive and wear yourself out and all that, you may as well do it thoroughly.

So the big girl had the ultimate out... she thought.

It never occurred to me that women's rugby actually existed.

Flash forward several years. I'm out of college, and I've got my first serious job. I've quit smoking, I'm working out, I'm eating healthy, and I finally have health insurance of my own. There's a rugby expo one day when I happen to be at the park with some friends. I make the standard "I'd play rugby" joke. The next thing I know, some woman runs up and says "I have to give you this" and pushes a flier into my hand. Rugby 101 Rookie Clinic. Woah. My mind flashed back to the fierce guy on the TV. I could do that. No experience necessary. Hey, no one plays rugby in school. Heck, no one I knew had ever played rugby, period!

One week later, I was out at the field. ("Pitch," I kept telling myself. "Don't forget to call it a pitch.")

I was a nervous wreck. I wore a t-shirt and my pajama bottoms, which were the only shorts I owned that weren't denim or swimming trunks. I had my Walgreens water bottle with me, and noticed with pride that my shoes looked more well-worn than many of the other rookies. It didn't occur to me until later that they were the only pair I'd had for the past seven years.

The nervousness didn't last long once we were out on the pitch. I was not the only rookie. I was not the biggest girl out there. Thanks to the internet, I knew a bit of how the game was played. Best of all, we got to tackle. Cloud nine, that was me. I grinned the whole way home, and joyfully filled in my calendar with every practice and match for the rest of the season. That night before bed, I grinned at myself in the mirror, admiring my powerful limbs.

And the rookie told herself, "I play rugby."

Paula Rewa is a rookie with the Nashville Women's Rugby team and the founder of Tackle Girls! Women's Rugby.