Have you ever heard the terms scrum, Mulligrubber, Ruck, banana kick, and crash ball well they are commonly used in rugby terms? Rugby is currently one of the fastest-growing sports in the United States brought over from England in 1863.

Pittsburgh Central Catholic not only has one of these teams but has a newly committed division one player Garett Mann.

Garett Mann is one of Central Catholic own seniors. Mann has played rugby since freshman year but he has always had some interest in the sport.

This interest came from his grandfather playing the sport and from some of his older friends have also played. In addition to playing Rugby he has also played American Football and has Wrestled.

I asked Mann what his favorite and least favorite team to play is and he responded with “East Allegheny is my favorite team to play because they are always very competitive. It is always good to go out and play against some great competitors. My least favorite would probably be Penn Hills because of the amount of school districts that make up their team”.

After last years stand out season for Garett he was invited to The New York Sevens Tournament to play for the Pennsylvania all state team.

The game was played Saturday, Nov. 26, and featured teams from around the nation. When he first found out that he was bending selected he was “overwhelmed will excitement and was very honored to be selected for such a prestigious team”.

In the next level and in the future Mann plans to play rugby in college. At the time of this interview, his top college were Brown, Colgate, UCLA, and Penn State. Since then he has committed to playing Rugby at Brown College.

Off the field he his also a great student. Garrett’s favorite class at Central is Statistics with Mr.Sweeney because he is a great teacher and statistic comes easy to him.

Being a multi-sport athlete and being a good student is a very difficult task especially at a school that raise the standard of academic success, so I asked him how he keeps everything straight. Mann replied by saying “time management is very important and you need to lay out what you are doing and set your mind to it”.