Rugby opens doors, it brings people together, and that’s why Kentlake High graduate Devon Vieira loves it.

“One the field you’ll be playing against girls you think are the worst,” Vieira said. “Afterward there’s socials and the home team feeds the team that traveled. You’ll talk and find that you have a lot in common with those girls you just thought you were terrible.”

Vieira began playing in eighth grade when went out to a Kent Crusaders rugby club practice. Up that point she had been a soccer player.

“A friend of mine wanted to stay in shape during the offseason, so, she suggested we play rugby,” Vieira said. “I had literally never heard of it before but I heard there was tackling so it was really intriguing for me.”

And then her friend who suggested they check it out wasn’t able to play. So, it was just Vieira and a bunch of rugby girls she didn’t know.

Vieira was intimidated because she was the youngest player there.

After the first practice, though, she had a feeling rugby could have a place in her life.

“I was really pleased with it because it was such a new sport and I kind of knew at that point I had potential in it,” Vieira said. “Also, the girls were all so kind. The girls were coming up to me, introducing themselves and offering me rides. And the coach … he’s just awesome.”

Rex Norris, who teaches social studies at Kentwood High and has served as the head football coach there for the past eight seasons, is the U19 girls coach for the Crusaders.

Rugby opened doors for Norris and Vieira said he helped her find opportunities through the sport.

Vieira, who just graduated from Kentlake in June, will attend Quinnipiac University in Connecticut to play rugby.

“I would not be going to this school if it wasn’t for Norris, either, because he believed in me all along and he pushed me and saw potential,” Vieira said. “From day one he told me rugby would do great things in my life.”

For Norris, who led the U19 team to a 26-3 record this past season with losses only to the national champions and the runner up to go along with the team’s 12th state championship, rugby has been a part of his life for quite some time.

A native of west Texas, Norris moved to the area and met a guy who knew Tom Ingles, the former head football coach at Kentwood. When they found out he had played rugby in college and he could coach, Norris got his foot in the door at the school.

More importantly, Norris met his wife thanks to a trip with the rugby squad to France.

“It helped me get this job, it helped me get married, it’s flown me all over the world,” Norris said.

The U19 squad draws girls from close to 10 schools in the area, not just the Kent high schools, and it’s helped open doors for Cassidy Meyers.

While Meyers may now be known for winning a state wrestling title this past winter as a junior at Kentwood, rugby may well be where her long term future is in athletics.

Meyers took up rugby in seventh grade after learning about it from a classmate.

“I thought it was kind of interesting,” Meyers said. “When I first started playing it was all really confusing. I had no clue what was going on and why there were doing the things that they were doing. After I had played in some games it was a lot of fun. There was adrenaline constantly pumping through your body. And the girls on the team, they kind of change you in a way when you got to know them.”

Anyone can play rugby, Meyers said, there is no stereotypical type of body or person.

Like Vieira, Meyers is a former soccer player, having grown up playing the sport.

Meyers didn’t try out for club soccer this year. Vieira stopped playing after her freshman season of high school ball.

And like her teammate, Meyers wants to focus on rugby, especially now that she’s a member of the U21 national team. In June she played in Colorado with the national team and will play in New York in July.

“When I started looking at the most passionate sport I was in and I had to start focusing since these opportunities were coming in, I had to look at what I wanted to do,” Meyers said. “Being on the United States U21 team is just a great feeling.”

And if Meyers puts in the work, she has a shot at playing in the world cup, possibly even in the 2016 Olympics.

Those opportunities were just too hard to pass up.

Rugby may also open doors to college.

Meyers has been talking to a school back east about playing rugby there.

Her senior year at Kentwood she will play soccer in the fall for the Conquerors and she plans to wrestle in the winter.

Once wrestling is over in late February she’ll be ready to play again with the Crusaders rugby team which starts practice in January and plays through the end of May.

Maybe along the way she’ll find some more rugby players.

“If I go up to someone that has played sports before … I tell them that rugby is better than the sport they’re playing,” Meyers said. “I tell them to come out and hit some girls and release some of that anger. As long as you can catch a ball and you can put one foot in front of another you can play.”

She guarantees that anyone who tries it will fall in love with rugby.

Vieira has done her share of recruiting. She would often walk through the halls of Kentlake and see a girl she thought had potential.

“I really just emphasize the fact that they’re playing with the Kent Crusaders, that they’re not just going to be part of a team, that it’s like a family,” Vieira said. “I’ve met some of my best friends on the team. Rugby season is one of the best times of the year because it’s so much fun. You meet new people from all over and you travel a lot. Even though rugby is intimating anybody can do it and excel at if they want to.”

And it’s not just girls.

Norris’ entire defensive line played rugby.

And it doesn’t hurt that rugby opens doors. Norris added that there have been more than 30 Crusaders players, boys and girls, who have been on the national team.

“It’s very rare at the end that I don’t have a kid who tells me that they love the sport more than any other that they’ve played,” he said.

It seems like Vieira is right — rugby does open doors and brings people together.

For more information on Kent Crusaders visit the club’s website at www.kentcrusaders.com.