In Belleisle, rugby is more than a sport, it's about a culture and community
Published Tuesday August 26th, 2008
BELLEISLE - Before the championships and the tradition, rugby was born in Belleisle on a fall day in 1985.
Grant Beckingham, a teacher at Belleisle Regional High School, was glancing through the window of a classroom when he noticed several boys tossing around a "deflated and mangled'' football. The boys battled for possession of the ugly object, and the ball carrier was always taken down with a tough tackle.
Bloodied by the battle, the boys ran into Beckingham's classroom, proud of their wounds. At that point, the teacher introduced a subject he continues to teach, one that has become an important part of the community's culture and identity.
Rugby is religion in Belleisle, where the appetite for the sport is palpable by watching the enthusiasm of spectators in homemade wooden stands. Whether it's a middle-school match or the senior Rovers, rugby has a rich history in the rural community of 1,500. Come spring, residents regularly saunter over to the field, known as Belleisle Pitch, behind the high school. Many memories rest there and more are born every year.
"It reminds me a lot of Wales,'' says Beckingham, the head coach of seven teams in Belleisle. "Everybody has a rugby ball out. You'll see kids out during their noon hour and they'll be practising little things.''
That type of scenario indicates the sport is a pastime that does more than measure the results of games.
"Our benefit is we've got Grades 6 through 12 in one school,'' Beckingham says. "I get to teach every kid and build relationships that way. I could talk for days about the neat things that have gone on over the years.
"The kids have been to a lot of places. I'm just happy with the way things have turned out and I'm happy that we've reached some kids.''
The kids, it seems, return the favour by playing hard for their local teams and becoming ambassadors for their community.
"My goal here has always been to find role models,'' says Beckingham.
Like Vanessa Duffley, who began playing rugby in Grade 6. Four years later, she's one of the captains with the girls AA high school team that recently won a provincial championship. The boys AAA side also won the 2008 New Brunswick title.
"I think there's a lot of respect and responsibility that comes with it,'' Duffley says about her role. "You're proud to play for Belleisle and it makes you want to work harder. Everybody is together. It's like a big family.''
Duffley wants to continue playing competitive rugby in university, a goal shared by many of her teammates, including fellow co-captain Ariel White.
"It's been a blast,'' says White, a Grade 12 student who'll attend the University of New Brunswick next year. "You learn so much over the years. You exceed a lot. I remember watching all the seniors play and it really interested me.''
Belleisle boasts a rich system that caters to a wide range of age groups. There are three middle-school teams, a junior varsity boys AA program, a girls AA high school team and a boys AAA high school team. After that, there are the senior A Rovers, the senior B rovers and the under-20 Rovers.
Players such as Chauncey O'Toole and Amanda Bedard have used the program as a springboard. O'Toole is with the national senior men's team, while Bedard played for the country's under-19 team during a tour of England last December.
"For me, playing here at Belleisle started everything,'' Bedard says. "Playing rugby here is totally different than anywhere else, because the whole community is behind you. You have a lot of the older players helping out with the younger players. It's just people believing in others.''
The spirit of sportsmanship for which Belleisle teams are known has traveled across the Atlantic Ocean to Wales and Scotland. The most recent tour saw high school teams go to Long Island, N.Y.
"Touring is very important in rugby,'' Beckingham says. "The point is that it's a time for kids to get together and have a damn good time without anything else affecting it.''
Size doesn't matter much to a rugby player from Belleisle. Players don't care that every team comes from a bigger place with bigger players. There's an art to the game that can be taught at a young age. And Belleisle's development-first philosophy has allowed its teams to bring down some of the sport's Goliaths.
"All the schools we're competing against are bigger schools, so we have to develop players to compete against those bigger schools,'' Beckingham says. "We emphasize that if you it do it a 1,000 times, you'll get good at it.''
That was the case with Trevor Ricketson, who hadn't played past high school when the Rovers senior A squad came calling.
"I go out there and there are all these guys three times my size with real ticked-off looks in their eyes,'' Ricketson recalls. "I went out and played a couple of games and scored a few tries and we won a championship in our first year. It involves a lot more brain power than people think.''
Ricketson eventually left the game to start a family and a beef farm. But the miner made his way back to the Rovers, claiming he couldn't stay away from the game.
"It's the one thing we have out here that keeps us going and keeps us all together,'' Ricketson says. "I had to get back into it. It was right here in my backyard. That's all everybody talks about, and it's in my blood.
"It's what we're born and bred to do. Each generation seems to be coming along a little better. They have that much ahead of them. They can go up when they're eight or nine years old and watch high school games. I didn't have that, because we were just getting started.''
Ricketson reflects at the clubhouse, a modest but sturdy structure with a deck that overlooks the Belleisle Bay. It's a social sanctuary a couple of kilometres from the field on which he and many others have helped create community spirit.
"It's the only thing we have here, with the exception of the last few years when work has started to pick up,'' Ricketson offers. "If you weren't out here as a dairy farmer or working as a carpenter's helper or something like that, you were gone out west. We lost a lot of rugby players over the years that way.''
Whether they stay or go, Beckingham believes all players are remembered for their contributions. And judging by the joy on the faces of fans in the homemade wooden stands, folks in this tiny agricultural area are eager to watch what happens next.
"It makes people happy,'' Beckingham said.
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He has taken a small community and given them something to call their own. The players he has produced are, in my experience, great ambassadors for the school, the community, and the game.
Thank you for telling this story.