Anthony Cantu has been in many ways your average collegiate athlete. He wakes up early every morning for practice, heads out to the field to meet his team and spends several hours training. For the rest of the day, he breaks down practice and analyzes ways to improve his game.
Yet while most college athletes are assimilated with “Americanized” sports terms such as goals, points, touchdowns and finishes, Cantu spends most of his time surrounded by “tries,” “lineouts” and “scrums.”
Cantu, who graduate Biola in December of 2012 but is still on the team, played rugby throughout high school, and sought to continue the sport at the college level. Unfortunately, things did not work out quite as planned.
Cantu transferred from Whittier College in fall 2010 and hoped to join Biola’s rugby team right away. Upon arriving in La Mirada, he had to come to terms with a hard truth: Biola had no rugby team.
But lack of an organized team didn’t stop him from pursuing something he loved.
“Me and another guy, Kyle Hamilton, tried to start something up, just by word of mouth,” Cantu said. “We kinda were just like ‘Hey, wanna play rugby? Come out to the soccer field this weekend.’”
Faculty advisor brings added spark
After a year of on-and-off interest, Cantu was introduced to Andy Draycott, an assistant professor of biblical studies.
“He had told me he was a big fan of rugby, and had been wanting to get something started. He said ‘I hear you play rugby. What do you think?’”
From there, Biola rugby was no longer just an idea.
“We realized we could actually make this work, but [we] were going to have to do it the [Associated Students] way. We had to take the route of club funding and club fair,” Cantu said. “It was slow going to begin with, very humble beginnings, but by the end of that first semester, we had enough for team scrimmages.”
The rag-tag, motley crew that Cantu and several others put together in that first semester was made up of both seasoned vets and newbies.
“Basically we were taking guys who had played football in high school, who played soccer, who wrestled, and we were trying to take those natural skills they had developed physically and apply those to rugby,” he explained.
Team makes large strides each year
After a year of playing through scrimmages against other schools, and after gaining several incoming freshman in 2012, Biola officially joined the Southern California Rugby Football Union. They played their first league match against Westmont College at the beginning of February, and then went on to win their first league match ever against Point Loma Nazarene University two weeks ago.
This past week was a huge test for the young team. They lost in the final minutes to Azusa Pacific University 24-21, but the fact that Biola hung with the Cougars the entire game is a testament to the team’s growth, as Biola had lost 63-0 to APU just over a year ago.
Despite the youthfulness of the team, Cantu is confident the team will be successful moving forward without him.
“It’s definitely bittersweet, but I can’t wait to come back and play an alumni game in five or six years and see how far this team has come yet again,” Cantu said.
Rugby has their final regular match of the season, and Cantu’s last game with the team, March 9 at their home field at Rancho Elementary against Whittier. The match is scheduled for a 1 p.m. start.
