Sitting with Charlene Engle and Whitney Wiegand, the two captains of the women's rugby team, you can't help but think that these girls are - in the most awe-inspiring, respect-instilling, eyebrow-raising way - a little bit crazy.
They run, they tackle, they kick, they pass, and as they'll tell you, they do it without pads, timeouts, or prime-time coverage.
Under the radar of most Tufts students, the women's rugby team is challenging the line between club and varsity, between sport and torture, between hobby and obsession.
"All it takes is that first game to hook you," said Wiegand, a junior and three-year veteran of the Tufts team. "When you're playing, you're so focused on what the rest of your team is doing and on running plays that you don't have time to be scared of getting tackled by the 250-pound girl across from you."
"Honestly, tackling doesn't hurt that much once you get used to it, and it's fun as hell to do," Engle added. "It's even fun as hell to get tackled sometimes. The adrenaline rush is unbelievable."
To the untrained eye, the racing pulse of this sport is overwhelming. Play is continuous and fast, tackles brutal and without the benefit of pads, and the rules complicated. But according to Engle, what looks like complete chaos is actually a perfect blend of physicality and finesse.
"It looks like just a mass of people running at each other and tackling each other, but it's neat to watch the way we play this game-the way we get possession of the ball, the way the ball moves around the field," Engle said.
And just as that madness yields to patterned plays with a closer scrutiny, nothing about this sport is what it seems, as Wiegand and Engle will be the first to tell you.
"There does exist that stereotype of rugby girls-very large and, for lack of a better word, beefy," Engle said. "That image has a lot of power and we do really value those players, but it's not always the size that matters. And you should never be intimidated by a girl of that size because, if you know how, you can take her down, and she will fall hard.
"And some of our littlest players are the ones you should fear the most because they will break through your line and they will score and you won't even know what hit you," she continued. "It's definitely a sport that can break your stereotypes of it."
And while that image of the 18-wheeler tackle carries a lot of weight in popular notions about the sport, it's just another typecast in a sport that carries more than its share. Tackling is more about technique than sheer muscle power and the fast-paced tempo of the sport requires split-second reactions and endurance.
"It's a sport where there is a position for everybody," Engle said. "If you're a huge girl with thighs of steel, we have a position for you. If you are five feet tall but fast as lightning, we've got a position for you, too."
That team atmosphere is an omnipresent aspect of the game, and contributes to the sport's pull among college students around the country.
"As a team, we do become kind of a family," Engle said. "When you join rugby, you get in pretty deep. You just can't run up in a flat line and see your girl get tackled that hard without developing some sort of bond."
And while the team has a touch of the cultish - this is a sport that has its own songs, post-game partying tradition, and nearly two centuries of history - Wiegard and Engle emphasize that the club is open to any and all who want to play.
"We accept anyone who wants to try out for our team," Engle said. "We've had the people who really like fashion who don't really like getting dirty, and we've had the girls that will slide at you through the mud. So we really do have it all, and I like to think that we accept anybody who comes with the mindset that they want to play rugby and have fun."
Engle's introduction to the sport was all chance, when her next-door neighbor freshman year convinced her to come to a practice.
"So I went and now I'm still living with that same girl and I'm captain of the rugby team," Engle said. "Everyone was so friendly and accepting. It's a very social team and even now, a lot of my friends are from the rugby team. It's really like finding a niche here at Tufts."
Wiegand took a more purposeful path to the pitch. She responded to flyers for open practices as a freshman and never looked back.
"I decided that this was something I was going to do, and I called home and told my mom and dad 'I'm playing rugby,'" Wiegand recalled. "They thought it would be very short-lived, but I just fell in love within the first week of practice. I played soccer my whole life, and as far as the team atmosphere goes, there's nothing that compares to it."
And while many spectators will reach for clumsy football analogies, rugby's initiated know - there's nothing quite like it.
"I actually don't like it when people compare it to football," Engle said. "Our tackles aren't about brute strength, we don't stop to call plays, and we don't pass forward, so if you want to move the ball down the field, you've got to do it the hard way. Football players do not do it the hard way."
Oh, one more thing.
"And we don't wear pads."
