In 1874, Harvard hosted, and defeated, McGill University in the first known rugby match in the United States.
Now, 133 years later, English football could some day be returning to the Ivy League -- as a women's varsity sport.
While developments are in the extreme preliminary stages, the Penn women's club rugby team is one of many following the lead of USA Rugby - the sport's governing body - by looking into NCAA varsity status.
USAR has been trying to increase the number of varsity programs ever since the NCAA declared rugby an "emerging sport" in 2002. Emerging sports are "intended to provide additional athletics opportunities to female student-athletes," according to the NCAA.
Each emerging sport has up to 10 years to field 40 varsity programs, in which case the NCAA will make it a championship sport. If not, it is removed from the emerging sports list. So far, it's been almost five years, and there are only four varsity rugby teams in the country.
Last year, however, USAR greatly increased its efforts, allocating a full budget and a full-time staff for the first time.
The toughest part is convincing some of the 350 club teams that they should go varsity.
Ginger Stringer, Penn's volunteer head coach, said that after the fall season, she began discussing the possibility with her club. She provided the players with the available information, but wanted to leave the final decision up to them.
The main benefit would be monetary. In addition to individual member dues, the club program currently receives between $4,000 and $8,000 annually from the Student Activities Council, according to Dr. Mike Diorka, Director of Recreation.
"It's a struggle for them to compete with really good teams because of expensive travel," Stringer said. "Their jerseys are old and ratty, they don't have good practice space, they don't have a playing field. A lot of things like that would be addressed by being a varsity sport."
The NCAA estimates that a varsity program would cost a school $90,000-$100,000. The funding, however, comes with tighter rules and regulations.
"It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me personally, but people think that going varsity takes the fun out of the sport," said Becky Carlson, Director of USAR's Emerging Sports Initiative. "You're no longer a recreational athlete; practice is no longer optional."
One of Penn's assistant coaches has dealt with this debate before. Two years into Kirsten Leitner's career at Division III Bowdoin, her club team opted for varsity.
"It was a pretty smooth transition," she said.
She attributes much of that success to coach Marybeth Matthews, whose relationship with the athletic administration enabled the team to receive guarantees alleviating some of their qualms. In the end, almost 90 percent of the players supported the move.
At Bowdoin, however, the athletic department brought the proposal to the team, hoping to increase its number of female athletes for Title IX purposes, according to Leitner.
There will be no such advocacy here in Philadelphia. Penn has 16 men's and 15 women's teams, and has added just one program in the last decade. The athletic department has had no conversations about adding rugby, or any other sport, and does not plan to have such discussions any time soon.
"I think we're looking at years down the road," said athletic department spokesman Mike Mahoney. "Penn is in no hurry, and I'd be surprised if many other schools were in a hurry."
"We will take a wait-and-see attitude on how USA Rugby proceeds, how the NCAA proceeds," he added.
Even so, Stringer thinks that it is inevitable that Penn will have a varsity program sometime down the line.
"It's the trend in women's college rugby," Stringer said.
She and Leitner both agree that pushing for a program now, rather then later, has advantages. Most notably, they believe that "doing it on their own terms" will lead to fewer changes that the players oppose.
Club teams across the country are currently undergoing this internal debate of if, when and how they should become a varsity sport. Most interest comes from the Northeast, according to Carlson. While Penn has not contacted her yet, she has spoken with at least one Ivy League school, which she would not identify.
USAR is still a long way away from the requisite 40 schools. And many potential ones, including Penn, are even further away from even being considered for varsity status. Yet as Leitner said, the movement just "started bubbling in the whole athletic rugby community." In several years, the situation might look vastly different.
