Athletes find competition, community on Birmingham women’s rugby team

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. —

Every player will tell you there’s just something about playing rugby that just clicks. Stephanie Robinson felt it playing for the first time at the University of Alabama.

“I kind of met somebody who was starting the team there; I said, ‘That sounds fun. I’ll try it’ and been hooked ever since,” Robinson said.

Her love of the game led her to Birmingham, where she was the head coach of the UAB women’s rugby team. The COVID-19 pandemic led to the end of that team, but also the start of the Birmingham Steel.

“There’s no reason this shouldn’t have a women’s team in Birmingham,” Robinson said. “The group that was still left at UAB, we decided it would probably be a good idea to open this up to the rest of the city.”

Since 2021, the Steel has been a haven for athletes in the area looking to continue competing and find community. The Steel is the first women’s rugby team in Birmingham in more than two decades. Robinson and the staff welcome athletes of all skill levels and all backgrounds.

“I played most of the sports that most kids play growing up—basketball, tennis, softball, you name it—but never rugby. Definitely, never, ever rugby,” Adrien Watson, a second-year player with the Steel, said.

The goal of the team is to give athletes a place to compete and be themselves.

“I just saw what rugby could be for someone who’s my size, and that’s been like a thing for me,” KT Curington, a fifth-year player with the Steel, said.

It’s Robinson’s hope that the Steel is much more than a team; it’s a family.

“My goal with this has always just been to try to provide the community that I fell in love with. I know that it helped me so much,” Robinson said.

The players feel that practices are physical and hard, but also full of laughter.

“We all have this similar goal of wanting the community, wanting that sense of extended family, wanting that level of competitiveness that extends beyond high school, beyond college,” Watson said.

There’s just something special about being on the pitch with this group.

“A friend of mine when I first started playing kind of put it to me; she described one of the first times she saw me really just play,” Curington said. “It’s a feeling of just euphoria.”

It’s a special feeling that extends off the field as well.

“I was needing that sense of community; I was needing something outside of just the mundane,” Watson said.

This community has its arms open for everyone.

“As somebody who, when I came on this pitch, I did not look like a rugby player, athlete, whatever. But I am an athlete. Everybody’s an athlete if they want to be,” Curington said.