GILROY—On Friday, Christopher’s Carly McPolin signed her letter of intent to play rugby next season at Lindenwood University. The thing is, McPolin has never played a game of rugby in her life.
The Cougar senior is a two-sport athlete, competing in both soccer and track, but she never imagined she’d be playing a brand new sport in college.
“If you’d have asked me freshman year, I would’ve said you’re crazy because it was 100 percent track,” McPolin said. “Honestly, if you’d asked me six months ago I wouldn’t have believed you. The moment I touched a rugby ball, I knew this was a special sport and that I loved it.”
It’s been a whirlwind journey for McPolin to get to this point and it’s all thanks to the power of social media. McPolin’s mom Chris Sutton Barel started uploading videos from her soccer games and track meets to Facebook and the right people took notice.
Sutton Barel had befriended a rugby coach and recruiter named Kevin Battle from Santa Barbara, but didn’t think much of it. Battle, however, kept a close eye on McPolin’s footage and saw a rugby player in the making. Since most rugby players in the U.S. don’t find the sport until college anyway, Battle figured it was worth a try for McPolin to land a scholarship.
“Hearing about the success she’s had with track and the combination of struggling with soccer because she’s too physical and getting in a lot of trouble and getting a lot of fouls because of how rough she plays, I said to her ‘you sound like you would be the perfect fit for rugby’,” he said. “It’s all about speed and it’s all about tenacity and toughness.”
All this began last February and since then McPolin has attended camp after camp studying and learning the game. It was at a camp over the summer that she met her coaches from Lindenwood and was invited to tour the campus in St. Charles, MO—just 15 minutes outside of St. Louis. After visiting the school, meeting the team and speaking with the coaches, something clicked inside of McPolin and she knew she’d found her perfect fit.
The sport combines the speed of track with the physicality of soccer and for McPolin, it doesn’t get much better than that.
“With rugby, I totally get the best of both worlds,” she said smiling. “I’m getting recruited as a wing, too—that’s all speed. I’ll just get run my little heart out and on top of that, I’ll get to hit people. Who wouldn’t want to hit people?”
McPolin signed her letter in a Christopher gym filled with friends, family and classmates. She didn’t reveal her choice to attendees beforehand and instead had sweatshirts from different schools lined up before proudly putting the Lindenwood one on.
“It feels amazing,” Mark McPolin, Carly’s dad, said. “I don’t even have the right words to say. I’m just so happy for her.”
“She’s a hero to a lot of people and watching her sign that is just the culmination of all the that she’s done,” her stepfather Mark Vivian added. “I wish I could take credit for it, but me I’m just guiding her. She earned everything and watching her sign that is representative of who she is. She has a bright future ahead of her.”
Even track coach Jeff Myers was beaming as Carly signed her letter—although it’s for a different sport. He spoke of her transformation from a young freshman athlete who lacked confidence, to the vivacious and determined one that stands before him today.
“She proved there’s no conventional way to do it,” Myers said. “To find her niche and do so well at it so quickly—that’s Carly.”
Carly still has half a year before she heads over 2,000 miles east to her new school. Nonetheless, Sutton Barel—a native of Wisconsin—said she’s excited for her daughter to experience life in the Midwest and discover a new culture in the process.
“I’m just so happy to see all of her hard work pay off. It’s been a long journey and she’s worked really hard,” she said. “Just watching her start a new chapter and it’s a new sport with new opportunities to go all over is exciting. She can do so much with it.”
Likewise, Carly is eagerly awaiting her departure from the Golden State. She plans to major in psychology and minor in drama at Lindenwood, all while learning the game of rugby.
Word of her scholarship has spread through campus and Carly has been swarmed by underclassmen looking for guidance. Her advice to them is simple: there’s no right way, just your way.
“Honestly, just decide what you want and go for it. It may not be track—I decided it was going to be track—but if you go out at 100 percent, it’ll be OK,” Carly said. “You’ll land on your feet and it’ll be right.”
