Why a high school coach thinks rugby enhances the lives of young women

Lindsay Melanson is a high school rugby coach for Sir John A. Macdonald high school in Halifax, N.S. She started playing the sport for Halifax West High School and went on to play for Mount Allison University and on provincial and club teams.

On Friday, Nova Scotia Education Minister Zach Churchill ordered high school rugby to be reinstated across the province after it was briefly cancelled by the Nova Scotia School Athletic Federation because of safety concerns.

Melanson shared her thoughts with the CBC's Mairin Prentiss on the sport's risks, its importance to girls and how it changed the trajectory of her life. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Inclusiveness of the sport 

I honestly think my life is basically completely different because of the decision to play rugby or it's at least shaped my life completely.

All of the relationships and experiences that I've had since then have completely shaped who I am as a person. It's led to lasting friendships and it's how I met my husband. All of my friends now or are basically tied to rugby.

I was not planning on playing rugby. It wasn't something that was completely on my radar. I was probably interested in it, but just didn't think it was necessarily a sport for me.

I was sitting in a classroom at Halifax West High School waiting to write an exam and the coach of the rugby team at that time was Lindsay Willow. She happened to be the person invigilating my exam that day.

We were just sitting there waiting for the exam to happen and she was talking to one of my friends who was sitting next to me who was on the team and they were talking about rugby and then she just looked at me and said, "You should come play. Why don't you come try it this year?" And I was kind of like, "Oh, I don't really know. Are you sure? I don't know if that's for me."

And she was like, "Yeah definitely. Just come out. What's the harm? Why don't you just come try?" And I was like, "You know what. Sure. Why not."

And it's crazy to me now to think that incident basically has put me on a different life path. Because I don't think I would have done it on my own. I think I probably needed a little bit of encouragement and the fact that she'd even say that to me is the best gift she could have ever given to me.

I often think back to that moment and think what if she wasn't the one invigilating that exam? Or what if I had sat in a different spot that day? And how different would my life now be.

What kept me interested in rugby, even on that first day, was the community. Rugby has a community like no other sport that I've ever been involved in. It seems like a rugby team anywhere in the world has a very strong sense of community and they are always very open and accepting and welcoming of anybody at any time to come join.

I just love that. I love inclusiveness of the sport.

A game for every body

Rugby is for every body. Every body type, every size, every shape. It is one of the few sports, or at least one of the few women's sports, that really celebrates all different types of people.

There truly is a position for everyone. It's not like some other sports where you look at the team and all the players look exactly the same. In rugby there really is a spot for every type of athlete, every type of person.

Rugby offers a level playing field for girls

What I think is so important about rugby, especially for girls, is that it's a late-entry sport for us here in Nova Scotia. Most people's first introduction to rugby happens at the high school level. This is a pivotal time, because we know that so many girls drop out of sports right around this time.

They stop playing sports by the time they're 15 or 16 just when they're getting into high school. A lot of that comes from the competitiveness around high school sports right now. There are only a few sports that are available for girls to play and when you get to the high school level it's hard to make those teams.

If you're somebody that didn't play a sport your whole life, didn't play basketball your whole life, you're probably not just going to randomly try out for the school's basketball team.

Rugby is kind of unique in that way because everybody's on a level playing field. That first practice no one has ever played before. So it encourages girls that maybe aren't these kind of superstar athletes or professional athletes to come out and try. So you get players that you maybe wouldn't get in some of the more traditional sports which is wonderful.

I think it's very important to keep rugby in school and to promote rugby as a great opportunity for girls that maybe aren't going to make other high school teams or maybe weren't athletes growing up and it's a way to get them physically active in those teen years which is so important.

When I heard about the ban, honestly, I was just heartbroken for these girls. I was getting all these messages from my players. They were so sad. I just I really felt for them and I really felt heartbroken and so disappointed that the players were cut short in this season and for future players that they would never get this experience this sport and playing for their high school.

I just was so, so, so sad.

Shocked that the ban has been lifted

It's been like a roller-coaster of emotions. We saw the community of rugby and rugby players just kind of banded around this. We knew the benefits far outweighed the risk of the sport. We knew that as players who have experienced it.

I'm so proud of the community that we've rallied around and said this is not OK and this needs to be re-evaluated and be reversed. Honestly, I'm shocked. I don't normally see decisions like that get reversed so quickly. It was such a relief to see that. I'm very, very happy and very excited for my players.

'Anytime you're playing sports, there's risk'

I think the risks involved in rugby are very much the same as the risks involved in a lot of sports. Rugby is the only full-contact sport available in high school for females. So obviously there are risks there. There's also full-contact sports right now available for boys. Hockey and football would be two of them.

I mean with any contact sport obviously the risk is a bit heightened. But there are risks associated with every sport. Soccer and basketball are non-contact sports. And there are still opportunities for injuries in those sports.

It doesn't mean that they are safe and contact sports are dangerous. I think anytime you're playing sports, there's risk. Anytime you're doing any sort of activity there's risk and that doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't do it.

Rugby on a world level has worked very hard, especially over the last five-to-10 years, of making the sport a safer environment and working on the laws of the game to ensure safe space for all participants. We here in Nova Scotia have worked really hard to educate our players, coaches and fans on the rules of safe play, suspected head injury, concussion management and return to play.

Yes, there are risks involved. There are risks involved in everything. But I think that the rugby community has really taken really big strides to help reduce those risks as much as possible.

I'm hopeful that a thorough review will come out with the fact that there is risk involved in every sport and that rugby is safe sport.