What’s the difference between a collegiate varsity team and a collegiate club team? The answer is simple: funding.

Varsity teams are the ones that are publicized by their universities, receive funding from said institutions, and allow their players to earn money through scholarships, and name, image, and likeness — or NIL — opportunities.

On the flip side, club teams receive little funding from the university, can’t offer scholarships for their players, don’t have any NIL opportunities, and tend to go unnoticed due to a lack of publicity.

Compared to varsity teams, club teams are tucked under the rug.

But the one thing club teams offer is the opportunity for people who have never played a certain sport a day in their life to play competitively.

For the Iowa women’s club rugby team, the players and coaches are more than grateful for what they have.

“Having the opportunity to play rugby is everything,” team captain Alia Springer said. “It’s a huge reason that I’m the player and person I am today. These are some of my best friends on this team, and just having this group of women — it’s just so accepting.”

The team practices at the Hawkeye Recreation Fields on Mondays and Wednesdays, with gamedays taking place on the weekends.

On off days, head coach Kathleen O’Neill and assistant coaches Gabbie Spenler and Kessa Kuyper design workouts for the players to do on their own time to stay in shape.

“We have [Kuyper] put in place a program for the girls to do lifting — any sort of training that they can do,” Spenler said. “We do a lot of conditioning at the beginning of practice as well, and that’s something they can do outside [of practice].”

The coaches don’t get paid, though. They work with the team voluntarily during their free time. That is not to mention the team doesn’t have trainers or doctors to care for injuries during practices or games, despite the rugged nature of the sport. The coaches care for the players themselves.

Luckily for the team, Kuyper is also a certified doctor of physical therapy.

Captain Kiana Shevling-Major was involved in a car accident at the age of 15, and the injuries she sustained from the car accident still linger today. She puts her body on the line every time she plays the sport.

And if any injury, minor or major, were to occur that requires attention from doctors, the players are forced to pay for it themselves.

“We’re very grateful to have [Kuyper],” Shevling-Major said. “I know a lot of us are hindered by our injuries … Especially in that financial sense too. Like, OK, this could be something small — I don’t really have to pay $50 to $100 to go get this checked out at urgent care.”

Marissa Vernon and Haidyn Lilly went to the same high school, and their rugby coach recommended they play in college.

Now in their first year with the Iowa club team, they fully understood the risks of playing when they signed up.

“It definitely sucks,” Vernon said of the lack of financial security surrounding injuries. “I guess [Lilly and I] just want to play the sport so badly that we’re willing to take that risk. But it would definitely be nice if we had the funding and the support from other people around us.”

Lilly shared similar sentiments.

“As someone who’s very injury prone… It would be great to have that support and funding,” Lilly said. “But we love the sport, so it doesn’t really matter what we have to do to play it.”

In a way to help players avoid worsening their lingering injuries, those who are in the process of healing will wear a red penny jersey during practice, meaning they go down on touch instead of getting tackled.

Iowa used to play its home matches at the Hawkeye Rugby Fields, but games are now played on the recreation fields, as the rugby fields are being removed. The school offered to put uprights at the rec fields for the rugby teams, but that doesn’t remedy the blow.

To team president Miranda Basart, having the rugby fields removed isn’t a great feeling, but the support from recreation services — including adding the uprights — makes the situation easier.

“We’re a specific example of where we work directly with rec services so we can reserve the field without having to pay,” Basart said. “There are specific [club] examples, like hockey and ice skating — they have to pay because they can’t use university facilities.”

Regardless of where the team plays, Iowa is home to one of the better women’s club rugby teams in the country.

Currently, the club is ranked 12th in the country, according to National Collegiate Rugby, and rosters two all-stars from last year in Springer and Elizabeth Langlois.

The two traveled to Texas to compete in the 2023 all-star competition. Because the club receives little-to-no funding from the university, the trip was only possible with donations from the Iowa community.

Nonetheless, the two are happy the community came through.

“We had some expenses covered by [National Collegiate Rugby] and stuff like that, but for the most part, it was about $400 to $500 just completely on our own,” Springer said. “I’m just not in a financial situation where I could have done that.”

Like many on the team, Springer began playing rugby late into her childhood. Starting out as a junior in high school, she decided to give the sport a try during her time in college and turned into an all-star-caliber player.

Had it been a varsity sport, she would’ve never been able to just sign up and play, and instead would’ve had to earn a private invite.

That unique element is the beauty of club teams in college.

“I would describe [club rugby] as a sport that’s literally perfect for anybody who’s looking to just be athletic and find something fun,” team member Gillian McRae said. “Find a team and a group of people that care about you … it really just combines the best aspects of all sports.”

It doesn’t matter if you’ve never played rugby before college. The opportunity to play will be there at Iowa.

The team has a saying encapsulating that idea: “Every body is a rugby body.”