Navajo Rugby players overcome threats and intimidation

GALLUP

With little access to the sport of rugby on the Navajo Nation, a group of Native youths formed a local team so that they can compete in it.

The Indigenous Warriors Rugby Team is comprised of nine Navajo players and several other players from different tribes around the U.S.
“Rugby is an aggressive sport, I’d say more violent than (American) football,” said Jerrett Pearl, 24, of Gallup. Pearl has been playing rugby for around five years and started while he was a sophomore at Gallup High School. Pearl went to one rugby practice and since then he has been hooked on the sport.

“It becomes an addiction,” said Pearl, who added that he played football and wrestled for Gallup High, but was not as good as his teammates were.

Rugby is played with two teams of 15 players, with both teams allowed to pass, run or kick to their end zones to score points. The team with the most points wins. Rugby is played with minimal pads and no helmets.

With the sport of rugby relatively new to the Four Corners area, there are only a handful of teams in rural areas and around the Navajo Nation.

Timaris Montano started the Gallup Rugby Football Club nine years ago as a volunteer coach for what she calls the “first generation” rugby team in Gallup.

“The players on the Indigenous Warriors were the first players to play rugby in the Gallup area when they were in high school,” said Montano, adding that when she started the rugby club, there were plenty of problems that she and her club faced in the beginning, especially from school officials.

Montano said she had players who were forced to quit as their coaches in other sports threatened them if they played rugby and they were threatened to be detained if they sold candy for fundraising around their schools.

“They were written up as gang members, the boys and the girls who were involved,” said Montano. She added that her rugby players in the past had gotten minimal support from the public and that most of the fundraising and support came only from the parents of the players.

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