As a youth, athletic competition was near the top of my list of most important elements of life. I couldn’t sleep the night before a junior football game, Little League All-Stars was something I dreamed about since T-Ball and local high school stars were larger than life in my eyes. With all of that being said, rugby was nowhere on my radar.

The sport has grown immensely in our area in the past decade, thanks in large part to Josh Young, who coaches the Eastside Lions Rugby Club.

Young and I had an interesting conversation recently where he attempted to debunk many of the myths casual observers such as myself often purvey about the sport he loves.

REPORTER: Football was by far my favorite sport to play growing up. I loved the collision, the physical nature of the game. But rugby players are unprotected and I just can’t imagine playing a game so intent on collisions without wearing pads.

JOSH YOUNG: That’s what a lot of people think, that it [rugby] is a lot more dangerous than football. But what’s more dangerous: riding a bicycle, or riding a motorbike?

We don’t wear pads in rugby because the game is designed where you don’t need pads; the game emphasizes safety. We have 60 kids this year, four different age groups for six months and we have only a handful of injuries. Once people come out and play rugby or watch it, they realize it does make sense. Around Washington and around the world, there are old mens and old women’s teams going up to 70. I’ve never seen an old-persons football league in my entire life.

REPORTER: I think it’s safe to say that most people who watch football, basketball and other team sports enjoy the strategic element of the game. That is: we are a nation of armchair quarterbacks. Everyone can watch a game on Saturday or Sunday and go into the office on Monday morning and talk about how their team should have attacked the opposing defense more aggressively between the tackles, focused more attention to establishing a deep passing threat, or executed at a higher level on third down.

But when I watch a rugby match, it looks like complete chaos.

JY: Rugby is actually very simple but very complex. A lot of people when they first hear the word rugby, they think of Aussie Rules, which is a lot less structured.

You’re running and passing and tackling, but when you start talking about field position, offensive patters, defensive alignment, there is as much strategy and decision making as in any other sport. It’s not coach driven, it’s player driven. It is free flowing like soccer so you have to make decisions on the fly. It is still up to players to make the correct decision but everything is very controlled and structured.

REPORTER: Soccer has a long established stronghold in the youth sports communities around the Puget Sound, football and baseball are American staples that are omnipresent and basketball is perhaps the game that produces the most talent from this area. But no one around here is even playing rugby.

JY: Our club is made up of local American athletes who were born and raised here, but then we also have kids from New Zealand, Ireland, England, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa and Japan. Being on the Eastside, there’s a huge ex-pat community.

There’s no limitation and it’s getting to be really big around here.

REPORTER: OK coach, I’ll concede that you and some other groups are growing the sport on the youth level in this area, if you will concede it has yet to arrive on the collegiate and professional levels.

JY: In June on NBC was the college 7s championships and next year a few of our players (two players from Mount Si High School) are going off to Central Washington University, which was one of the teams playing on NBC. It is a club sport, but it’s becoming much more like the varsity model and it’s being demoed in 2012 as an Olympic sport and 7s is about to be professionalized.

REPORTER: Even if I wanted to play rugby, I would have to grow another 10 inches and gain 75 pounds of muscle.

JY: Rugby, like several sports, accommodates multiple body sizes and body types.

Like in basketball, you have smaller guys that might distribute the ball but you also need your “offensive lineman types”. It’s a lot more about the person and the skills they have as opposed to the size. If anything, speed is the most important element because if you have speed, you can do a lot.