Drew Briski grew up in Chippewa Falls playing a wide range of sports, including baseball, football, basketball and soccer.
When he began his freshman year at UW-Eau Claire, he was asked to join a rugby team. He quickly and flatly declined.
He finally took the leap into the sport in 2015 thanks to a friend. And that’s how Briski, who came out his junior year of college, found himself on the Madison Minotaurs, a member of International Gay Rugby. The team, founded in 2007, consists of 20 to 25 players from the greater Madison area, plays its home matches at the Wisconsin Rugby Sports Complex in Cottage Grove and travels to away games around the country, primarily in the Midwest.
Briski, 31, who works in geospatial information services at Ayres Associates in Madison, ended up falling in love with sport.
“The strategy and flow of the game is so unique from other American sports that it was easy for me to get hooked,” Briski said. “My prior sports background gave me a solid base to work from when learning the game. It took me a few seasons to really understand how to play, and it has been my favorite sport ever since then.”
One of the highlights of the season will be held next weekend on May 6, when the Minotaurs host the Madtown Scrumdown, a rugby tournament that will bring in four other teams from Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago and Columbus, Ohio, all of which are members of IGR, founded in 1995 in London, England.
The Madtown Scrumdown was started in 2018 and held in 2019 before pausing for two years due to COVID-19.
For Briski, his rugby playing days are over after tearing the ACL in his right knee three times. He now serves as an assistant coach for the team that in early April announced that it is submitting a bid to host the 2025 IGR North American Cup, the organization’s biennial continental tournament.
What’s it like having one of the few gay rugby tournaments in the country?
We think it’s great to keep it an inclusive tournament for the inclusive teams and so far it hasn’t been an issue for filling out the sides. Tournaments for the IGR community are pretty hard to maintain. Some clubs will do it for a few years and then management or whoever is leading the club decides it’s too stressful or they’re not making enough profit or even breaking even so they put a pause on it. The IGR has two or three tournaments but from what I can tell the Madtown Scrumdown is one of maybe one of two or three smaller tournaments that happen outside of those three IGR-sponsored ones.
For the regular season, whom do you play?
We’re not in a league with the Wisconsin Rugby Club and the schedule is not set by USA Rugby. We set our own schedule where we’re more on the casual side of division four rugby in the U.S. We can decide to play whomever we want but it’s typically the IGR clubs that we reach out to. But every so often we reach out to some non-IRG clubs as well.
Is there a difference in games played against IGR teams compared to non-IGR teams?
No, there’s really no difference. The difference we see is outside of the games. It’s more social. There’s a meet and greet before the games for us and then after the games there’s a third-half social that happens at any rugby match you go to and then later that evening we’ll out go out in whatever city is hosting and we’ll just really get to know the other team’s players. So it’s a very social environment because we know we spend more time not playing rugby when we’re on a rugby team. And we’re going to play these teams a lot because there’s not a whole lot of IGR teams.
What’s it like to have this kind of facility?
Having the clubhouse here in the Wisconsin Rugby Sports Complex is fantastic. It’s super unique. We are one of the only clubs to be part of an organization that owns the pitches in the U.S. It’s very rare to see, especially at the Minotours’ level, to have pitches that we can consistently play on that are consistently in top-tier condition and well maintained throughout the year. It’s definitely a luxury.
Do you need much rugby experience to play on the Minotaurs?
It’s a full-team sport more so than any other team I’ve been on. It’s been awesome to see players who have no rugby experience come in to the team and develop into pretty good players. It’s not uncommon. I came in with no rugby experience and when I came in it was much more niche than it is now. The thing I love most about the game is the social aspect. Being on the Minotaurs playing other IGR clubs has been such a special time in my life. I’ve met a wonderful person I call my boyfriend through the Minotaurs and I’ve been able to travel across the Midwest and to Europe for rugby.
What kind of athlete do you need to be to play rugby?
We know this sport isn’t for everyone. You can be any body shape and size and you can play this sport. But you have to have the right mentality to play the sport. You have to have the ability to get up after being hit.
How important is it to publicize your team and the upcoming tournament amid what many perceive as Republican attacks on the LGBTQ community?
The tournament was never supposed to be a political thing and we’re not trying to make it be a political thing. We just want other queer people to know that you can come here and be loved and play this sport with us. We won’t judge you. You can be yourself around us. It’s definitely an escape for a lot of people. Especially when you’re playing. You’re not focusing on anything else that’s going on in the world. All you’re focusing on is who has the ball. It’s an area of queer culture that isn’t publicized much because there’s still a stigma about sports being just for straight jocks. We’re really trying to break down that stigma with the Minotaurs to show that we’re here.
https://madison.com/news/local/know-your-madisonian-drew-briskis-life-on-the-rugby-pitch/article_113fbfce-4a42-5dcd-9971-a895cc747a9a.html
