After a perfect season in the Pacific Coast league, the Stanford Women’s Rugby team participated in their annual Spring Break Training Camp to prepare for the post-season. The tradition of spring break camp began 3 years ago when Coach Jonathan Griffin wanted the team to refocus on the skills and teamwork necessary to win a championship. Instead of relying on the players to train on their own during their time off, Griffin thought better to bring the team together and work on team building, conditioning, and skill-building at lovely Californian destinations. Since the tradition began, Stanford has won the last 4 out of 5 national championships and look to win again this year. The following is a recap of the rugby, conditioning, fun, and competition that is Spring Break Camp.
Day 0:
Camp began with night game against Dartmouth at Steuber Stadium. Although the Cardinal won, the game left the team thinking about the skills they needed to work on over the 5-day camp. In order to encourage competitiveness and teamwork, the team was split up into five color teams: Yellow, Green, Blue, Pink, and Purple. The team with the most points at the end of Camp would win the grand prize. Team members could also earn their team points from class-level challenges. The first class-level challenge was arm wrestling, and in a surprise twist, teams had to pick their opponents instead of the best arm-wrestler from their team. In a shocking upset, Clementine Stip won the contest for the freshmen.
Day 1: This year, Camp took place in the Russian River Valley in Guerneville, California. After the long drive from campus, the team had an afternoon practice consisting of mostly contact work: tackling, leaching, driving, clearing out, and decision making. The team quickly realized Camp was going to be all fun and games, and everyone needed to step up their intensity and physicality to make the camp a worthwhile rugby experience. After practice, the team began their daily regimen of recovery in the Russian River. Lucky for the team, the frigid river was accessible from the backyard of their lodging, and whether at 7:00am or 5:00pm, the river served as nature’s version of the ice-bath. The team then enjoyed a wonderful dinner cooked by loving Team Mom, Nancy Smit. The day ended with an ‘Amazing Race,’ team challenge. The scavenger hunt involved various activities such as blowing bubblegum bubbles, flinging a shoe, and finding hidden personalized water bottles. Team purple 'cleaned up' on this challenge.
Day 2:
After breakfast cooked by Team Mom and Assistant Coach Tina Nesberg, the team left for practice. Although the daily drives to practice included a beautiful scenic tour of redwood forests and open fields of farmland of Guerneville, the team anxiously sat through the ride knowing a brutally fun physical test awaited them at the practice field each day. During morning practice, Coach Griffin revisited the fundamentals decision making in contact. In the afternoon the team ran their patterns of play, working on strategic decision making the back 3, who left with Becky Unruh and Coach Griffin to work on their catching skills. While the Stanford wingers and fullbacks are fast-ish, catching high balls can be challenging for them at times. Unruh, an Assistant Softball Coach at Santa Clara and a former walk-on for the Stanford Softball team, took the girls through footwork and catching technique drills. The rest of the team arrived at the field and practiced patterns, line outs, and back play moves. Team Building was a ‘Top Chef’ challenge where teams were judged on taste, presentation, and adherence to the ‘Spring Break’ theme. The teams sent their youngest members to the store for ingredients, and had 90 minutes to prepare entrées and desserts. While a surprising amount of artistic and creative abilities were displayed across all groups, the judge panel quickly learned most college students have great culinary ability. Every team put forth a great effort, but in the end it was the back 3’s pasta salad and berry smoothie that won. It was simple enough to win over Coach Griffin's unsophisticated palette. After team challenges, the team enjoyed mandatory fun the rest of the night. Before departing for Stanford, the team made the most of their Guerneville trip by enjoying Armstrong State Park and running the East Ridge Trail – an intense vertical climb up and down the ridge surrounding the redwood forest valley. Nothing like an uphill and downhill trail run through a beautiful redwood forest at 8:00am to completely ruin your knees after five days of physical and mental exhaustion to cap off Spring Break Camp. Everyone made it out of the woods, and after breakfast, team sapphire was announced as winners of Camp challenges, though purple was a close second. Everyone cleaned, packed up, and headed back to campus ready to face post-season with a renewed vivacity and desire to win a national championship.
