Staff photo/Ian Gleadle
Kristen Bush demonstrates how to pass the ball to a teammate. “We have an expression on the field called, ‘with you,’ meaning that we are in a position to receive the ball, but the truth is, when we say that to each other, we mean it pretty much in all circumstances,” Bush says.

When Kristen Bush talks about one of her passions in life, her conversation is liberally sprinkled with words like “scrums,” or “rucks” and “mauls.”

To the uninitiated, this all sounds like some kind of foreign language. But to those in the know, the lingo is immediately decipherable. It’s “rugby-speak.”

Bush is an avid rugby player who gets animated and excited when she gets the chance to wax lyrical about the sport.

“Rugby is such a unique game and there are so many aspects to it,” explains the Woodinville woman. “It’s an empowering sport and I also appreciate the physicality of it, as well as the camaraderie with my teammates.”

Bush grew up in Montana and was introduced to rugby when she was in college in Missoula. She happened one day to see a group of young, athletic women playing with what looked to her like a bloated football. They were running and laughing and having a fun time.

Bush approached them and one of the players said, “You look like you can run a little bit; here, catch this.”

She then tossed the ball to Bush, who promptly caught it. The woman was impressed and told her, “Wow, you have great hands, too. You’re on the team.”

It didn’t take long for Bush to become hooked on the game. After college, she moved to Seattle and joined the Puget Sound Breakers, a female rugby team that is now referred to as the Seattle Women. She played consistently for 10 years, before retiring to have her three sons, Dana, Kauri and Josiah.

“I didn’t really know if I would return, but now, after a13-year hiatus, I’m back,” comments Bush. “I just started thinking that I wanted to attend practices for fitness and health, but I’ve ended up getting addicted all over again. The problem is my mind still thinks I’m in my 20s and my 40-year-old body has to routinely remind my brain that I’m just not as quick as I used to be. And recovering from a game is bewildering now compared to the past.”

Bush plays both fullback and wing positions and notes that there are some interesting names for field positions, such as prop, hooker, flanker and scrum half.

She adds, “The hooker is the player who hooks the ball with her foot while bound into a scrum, but I’m sure you can imagine there are plenty of jokes about that position!”

In rugby, Bush explains, there are 15 players on the field and they remain in the game for its entirety, a grueling 80-minute match with no timeouts or substitutions.

But, she says emphatically that the sport is not violent: “Rugby is so misunderstood and somehow it has this violent image to those who don’t know anything about it. In rugby, you use your own momentum to bring a player down, but you’re not tackling in the same kind of way you do in football. You can’t do this because you don’t wear any protection when you play – no pads or helmets, nothing. It’s also important for people to know that this is a sport where you have to work together as a team. You’ll find that rugby players are hard workers, trustworthy, strategic and above all, excellent team players. Your teammates depend upon all of you, mentally and physically, for 80 minutes.”

Bush continues to explain that the challenges of the sport continue to stimulate her, even years later. Each body movement is essential. If there’s one finger less on the ball or one foot that’s not in alignment, the play can be lost. Same with a missed tackle. But, there’s also the added challenge of time, as Bush’s life is much more complicated now than it was years ago.

The team she is on, the TARTS (Thirty and Retired Touring Side), normally trains two days a week and plays every weekend in the fall and winter/spring seasons.

In addition to being a mother, the Woodinville woman serves as the Executive Director of the Northwest Parks Foundation, an organization which she helped found in 2002.

She says, “I love our mission of ‘Facilitating Healthy Lives Through Active Recreation Parks,’ since it enables me to be a part of providing recreation opportunities for diverse groups of youth and amateur sports enthusiasts. Part of what I’m doing includes helping to secure funding to build a rugby and multisport complex in South King County. A lot of my drive to complete this project was spurred from my desire to solve the field shortage issues for this sport. I’m happy to report that we will break ground on the regional complex sometime this month.”

Bush adds that NW Parks is also helping Woodinville with the Woodinville Fields campaign. She feels that the upgrades offer such diverse ways for people to get outside and be active: “This is what will keep more people smiling and feeling good about themselves and their community.”

Although rugby is not as popular in the U.S. as it is elsewhere around the globe (it’s the number two sport worldwide in terms of popularity), Bush has seen an increase in interest in the game, especially in the Northwest. She indicates that there are more local high school and college teams than ever before and she is proud of the fact that she helped make a contribution in this area.

A number of years ago she started one of the first high school girls programs in the region, at Kentwood, and served as the team’s first coach.

She later went on to do the same at Garfield High. “I had over 100 girls sign up at Garfield,” says Bush, “and I remember having the luxury of telling them that I could find a place for every girl to play, no matter what their height, weight or skill was and that I would just keep forming teams so long as they came to practice and showed commitment. You could hear the audible sighs of relief in the room. I believe in helping people include more play in their lives, no matter what sport or activity they love or are capable of playing.”

Bush explains that the high school programs are important because they feed the collegiate programs, which in turn feed the women’s teams. She adds, “I guess most of us never outgrow the sport, just life’s turns force us into temporary retirement.”

The Woodinville woman hopes to continue playing for the next several years, provided that her body holds up. She knows that eventually she will retire for good, but until then, she’ll reap the satisfaction from playing the sport and revel in the camaraderie.

“There’s just something very special about sharing this crazy sport you love with other like-minded women,” explains Bush. “The camaraderie creates a strong bond of acceptance and safety. This bond, oriented in sportsmanship, offers me a solid understanding that I’ve found people who I can trust. We have an expression on the field called, ‘with you,’ meaning that we are in a position to receive the ball, but the truth is, when we say that to each other, we mean it pretty much in all circumstances.”