Photo courtesy of Thomas Reynolds.
High school students are exposed to the usual sports life: Friday night football and Saturday wrestling matches. However, most students do not know about the life of sports outside of Northwood.
Rugby
Junior Thomas Reynolds got his start with rugby through a friend from France who plays professionally. Reynolds started when he was 14 and currently plays for the Highlanders in Chapel Hill.
Reynolds compares rugby to football and wrestling, which are very popular sports at Northwood.
“In England, New Zealand and pretty much everywhere else in the world, rugby is like religion. But in the U.S., it’s pretty small because it got turned into American football,” Reynolds said.
Some rules are that you can’t tackle above the shoulders and you can only pass the ball backwards, never forwards.
“Rugby is supposed to be a gentleman’s game,” Reynolds said.
The term gentleman ties in with the origin of rugby. The game of rugby is expected to be mostly clean and fair with some violence.
In a game players score “tries” which are similar to touchdowns but have an equivalent of five points. After scoring, there is a two-point conversion kick.
Rugby has a lot of potential as a college sport and even as an ongoing hobby.
“You get a lot of friends and you meet a lot of people,” Reynolds said. “A lot of colleges have rugby teams, but they don’t hand out scholarships. Anyone who wants to play has to try out.”
When asked if rugby should be a sport at Northwood, Reynolds said yes.
Shooting Team
Senior John Adams and his sister, sophomore Madalene Adams, are both on the North Carolina Rifle Pistol Association Junior High Power Team. Recently their team has increased to 20 people, but the sport still isn’t widely known.
“Not many people know about it, but the people that know about it absolutely love it. It’s competitive and it takes a lot of work,” Madalene said.
There are three different lengths to shoot from. They shoot from 200, 300 and 600 yards. Sometimes they shoot “prone,” where the shooter lays on their stomach.
The objective of the sport is to hit the “x” on a target as many times as possible.
The point system works like this: the shooter can either get zero, five, six, seven, eight, nine or 10 points. Ten is the best score a shooter can get.
John believes that shooting should not be a sport at Northwood.
“You would need some sort of proficiency with the tool,” John said.
Equestrian/ Horseback Riding
Senior Michaela Johnson started riding when she was 14.
“Once I started I really got into working with an animal and being one with it,” Johnson said.
There are specific measures riders must take to ride to the best of their abilities.
“You had to center yourself on your horse and keep absolute control over it at all times like giving and yielding with the reins and making sure it turns precisely where it was supposed to turn,” Johnson said.
The main rule that Johnson describes is keeping in two-point when going over jumps. The two-point position is done by bending forward at the hips and taking most of the weight in your ankles and heels. Your back is straight with your seat just off of the saddle.
Johnson’s team practiced several drills. In one, three jumps were set up in a row and the goal was to get through all of the jumps without the horse tripping and they would also run laps with the horses.
A lot of what Johnson did with equestrian was just between her and her teammates.
“We did competitions just by ourselves, which was only four girls. So we would see who could canter (a three-beat gate of a horse or other quadruped between a trot and a gallop) and stay balanced,” Johnson said.
There are a lot of simple forms of practice a rider can do. Sitting and standing straight are helpful with posture, and doing regular workouts throughout the week strengthen the core and legs.
Johnson describes the benefits of equestrian.
“It’s definitely beneficial if you ever want to go sight seeing,” Johnson said. “They have all of these horse trails. It’s also beneficial for dancing or performing because of posture and balance, and it’s really a good work out.”
Johnson doesn’t think that equestrian should be an available sport at Northwood.
“I think it would be great if Northwood could publicize that it is available in Pittsboro, but I don’t think it’s realistic that it be offered here,” Johnson said.
— By Lauren Merrill