So far, Pennsylvania legislators have kept gays off the altar, but the Philadelphia Gryphons Rugby Football Club is showing that you can't keep them off the pitch.
As members of the International Gay Rugby Association and Board (IGRAB), the Gryphons are the first gay-friendly team in Philadelphia, and have only one straight player on the roster.
Last Saturday, the pitch was G.W. Pepper Middle School on 84th St. and Lyons Ave., the Gryphons' home field, where the grass is brown and the fans are often drowned out by the jets that fly overhead.
But the venue wasn't of much importance, especially when the opening whistle blew and Penn's Wharton Wharthogs RFC lined up on the other side of the field.
But before I get to the result, let's answer a few questions.
First off, who the heck are these guys?
"We have lawyers and nurses; the age range and professional range is pretty broad because we're just a men's team in the city," said Mark Quagliarello, the Gryphons captain who is a server by day. "We're open to anyone pretty much over 18."
The youngest Gryphon is just 19 years old, while there is another whose beard is running gray.
The team may not be composed of elite athletes - the Gryphons come in a variety of shapes, and "ripped" probably wouldn't describe a majority of the players - but rugby certainly provides an outlet for
an often overlooked demographic.
"In the professional world you can't punch people," said Joe Cruz, who moonlights as an IT specialist. "You can kind of do that on the field, and as long as the ref doesn't see it you're OK."
And then there's the "C"-word, a fixture in rugby at any level.
"The camaraderie would be number one," Quagliarello said.
Every Gryphons home match, like most rugby matches, is followed by a "third half" in which the teams share beers and rugby commentary at a local bar.
While the post-game drink has almost as strong a tie to this game as a scrum or a ruck (consult your local rugby dictionary), the Gryphons seem at times to be more a social club than a football club.
The fact that a couple of benchwarmers were lighting up cigarettes before time expired suggests that not a whole lot of sleep is lost over the outcome of any given game.
And who's coaching this cobbled-together group of gay Philadelphians?
Meet John McMullen.
McMullen, who now works at a pharmaceutical company, has played and coached the sport in America and in Europe for years, and now gets his fix by coaching the Gryphons on the side.
While Quagliarello called the team's four-and-a-half year journey an "uphill battle," due to the team's inexperience and lack of manpower, McMullen has gotten the Gryphons going.
McMullen said that several players are just trying to look for a new social group, but it seems as if he is instilling some competitive instinct into his players - the Gryphons might be a gay rugby team, but as McMullen said, "I think some of them want to just be a rugby team."
The Gryphons may not be on par with a lot of other amateur clubs, but the team has certainly gained something of a niche within a niche in Philadelphia.
The players, for the most part, seem perfectly content with that.
Oh, and I almost forgot.
They fell 48-5 on Saturday to the Wharthogs.
But as the Gryphons know, sometimes the victory isn't the most important thing.
Comments
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I am proud to be a Gryphon and a Penn Alumni C'06.
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Hello David, I think it's wonderful that you decided to cover rugby (the world's second most popular sport) in your article. However, I cannot help but be utterly baffled as to why you chose the Gryphons instead of Penn's own intercollegiate men's rugby team. It is because of things such as your ignorance that leads to our team receiving little to no recognition around campus. It is not well known that we were ranked within the nation's top 25 teams a few years ago, and that we will be playing in the Eastern Pennsylvania championship next weekend. You and your colleagues have failed to seize the opportunity to let the Penn community know about it. We are an incredibly diverse team, with players from all corners of the globe, several of which have played for their respective countries. They are College, Wharton, SEAS, and M&T students who maintain excellent GPA's and participate in many other campus activities. We are the oldest collegiate rugby team in the nation (and probably Philadelphia). Yet no one knows this because of individuals like yourself who turn their backs to their fellow students and decide to publish a (particularly poorly researched) "wow" or "who-would've-thought" article about an organization that, comparatively, significantly less people on campus care about. I believe it is safe to assume that countless students, professors, parents, alumni, and alumnae who are supporters of Penn Rugby (men's, women's, and the Wharthogs) read the Daily Pennsylvanian quite frequently. And I also believe it would be safe to assume that they would appreciate an article that covers the team that dons the red and the blue week in and week out, not some obscure local team with no tie to the University of Pennsylvania whatsoever. Hopefully you can use your short article space to do so in the future. Best, Lenny
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Hi David- I have to agree with Lenny here. Whilst the Gryphons piece is interesting to a certain extent, I really fail to understand how the DP can continuously ignore covering the men and women of Penn who devote substantial amounts of time and effort (training for Men's Rugby is thrice weekly for 2 hours plus Saturdays for games) to club sports, especially seeing as Penn is having some success in those areas. As Lenny has mentioned, the Men's Rugby team will be fighting for the division championship in a few weekends from now. I also believe that the Club Men's soccer team recently won the Ivy League Championship. Surely these teams, consisting as they do of talented, hard-working and enthusiastic Penn students, should get more coverage than a local Philly team with extremely tenuous links to the University? In the 'About Us' section of this website, the following description of the DP is given: 'The Daily Pennsylvanian is the University of Pennsylvania's independent student newspaper. We cover news and sports from around the Philadelphia metro area and from the University of Pennsylvania.' It's about time this paper started living up to this description - reporting about successful, well-run and well-attended sports programs can only be a good thing for the University to know about, and more importantly these club sports deserve to be covered. Cheers, Karl
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Aside from UPenn and the lack of coverage given to the greatest sport in the world, I'm very pleased to see the Gryphons get this deserved coverage. Teams like the Gryphons have expanded rugby to people who were never aware of the game, and that is good for Penn and every other club in America. They also have helped forge important bonds in the communities where they play, and, by playing against predominantly straight teams, they have demonstrated the unique ability of sport to bring together very different types of people. Oh, and demonstrated by similar teams across the country, they play pretty good rugby. The Gryphons are in a prime rugby area, and I expect them to be at that level very soon. Alex-Gotham Knights RFC, New York