After being born, the first place senior Sophia Clasen went to was a rugby pitch.
“My dad played in a team, my mom gave birth, they drove from the hospital to the rugby pitch for my dad to play a game. He scored, and then they left to go home,” she said. “I feel like it has been a calling since birth, basically.”
Now, 18 years later, Clasen has committed to play Division I rugby and study nursing at Grand Canyon University (GCU), making her one of many seniors to be featured in The Falconer’s Next Level Seniors series, which highlights student athletes at La Salle who have committed to playing their sport at the collegiate level.
According to Clasen, her decision to take her athletic talents to GCU wasn’t an easy one. However, she said that after visiting the campus, the choice became much simpler.
“I made the decision to go to Grand Canyon the day that I was there,” she said. “When I got there, I just knew.”
Clasen received offers from multiple Ivy League schools, including Harvard, Dartmouth, and Brown, but they didn’t have a nursing school, which was a necessity for her. She decided GCU — a private Christian university in Phoenix, Arizona — would be the best fit since it offered both a pre-med program along with a nursing school and made more sense financially.
“You go to school for four years and then you pay a [lot] of money, and then you still have to go back to nursing school,” she said. “You have Harvard on your transcript, but for me, the name just wasn’t worth it.”
Since nursing was such a passion for her, when looking at colleges, Clasen ruled out any schools that didn’t meet her nursing requirements. “If they didn’t have a nursing program, I didn’t consider it, and if their nursing program wasn’t good, I didn’t consider it,” she said.
Then, she began cutting down her list based on the environment there, as the weather was also an important deciding factor for Clasen.
“I really wanted to go somewhere sunny . . . especially living in Oregon, because it rains so much,” she said. “I just want to go somewhere that will make me happy.”
Additionally, Clasen appreciated that GCU took a faith-oriented-approach to education.
“I feel like God gave me this passion, basically, to have the opportunity to go to a school where I can continue my faith as well as do exactly what I’ve wanted to do my entire life, and play the sport that I’ve been good at,” she said. “It was all kind of a full circle thing for me.”
Clasen’s religious values have played a significant role in her life.
She believes that God has placed a passion in everyone. For Clasen, rugby is her passion.
As Clasen considers her academic transition from high school to college, she said that she’s nervous when it comes to finding balance between rugby and school.
However, despite the competitiveness of GCU’s nursing program, Clasen feels that she has a good drive and can push herself to be the best she possibly can be. She also knows that she will be able to rely on her future teammates for support.
“I have a really good community with my rugby team, and if I needed more help, I could get it,” she said. “That’s what makes me feel secure and reassured that I’ll be okay in college, and I’m sure that I’ll find a rhythm.”
Clasen has been playing rugby for seven years, and currently plays a wing position offensively and the fullback position defensively.
Clasen explained that she played briefly for a club team, and had to pause once the pandemic hit. Eventually, as things started to return to normal, she was able to get back into the swing of things and started receiving recognition from teams out of state.
“I stopped playing for clubs locally because I wanted to play at a higher level elsewhere,” she said.
At 16 years old, she was selected for the USA U18 women’s rugby camp — making her the youngest player there, as almost all the other girls were 18 and committed to college.
While her time playing at the camp was one of Clasen’s greatest achievements, she explained it was also full of learning and growth. As the youngest there, she often felt somewhat excluded and didn’t yet understand the competitive aspect of the camp.
This was a different experience for Clasen, she explained, as the rugby community has always been one of the most inclusive environments for her.
“Community is huge in rugby,” she said. “Everyone knows each other, everyone’s connected, everyone’s friends.”
At the USA camp, this sense of community was still there, but it wasn’t what Clasen was used to, as the other girls were competing for the possibility of earning a spot on the USA team.
“They still cared about each other so much, it was just different.” she said. “I really wish that I’d just been able to embrace the moments that I had and recognize that the people I was going up against . . . were all competing for something that was huge, and I just don’t think that I understood that at that time.”
Ultimately, this experience helped her to learn to “relax and let things go at the pace that they’re going at,” she said, and showed her how important it is to “enjoy the time that you have while you’re there.”
After the USA camp, Clasen explained that she felt burnt out from playing rugby constantly throughout her summer.
“I was going to quit, she said. “Then I started talking to colleges, and was like, I’d be giving up such a giant opportunity.”
The first school Clasen ever spoke with was Harvard.
“Harvard’s coach had come to talk to my coaches to ask if I had been there,” she said. “That’s what really put the fire into my drive.”
Throughout her time as an athlete, Clasen said that her dad — a former rugby player himself — has been her biggest inspiration. Almost everything Clasen knows has been taught to her by her dad — not just in rugby, but in life, as well.
“He’s so ambitious about seeing me succeed,” she said. “I know, in a way, I’m living out his dream — his rugby dreams that he never got to finish because he had me.”
While she was struggling with burnout, Clasen’s dad was also a huge source of support for her.
“He’s probably the only reason I didn’t quit,” she said. “He told me day in, day out, I was going to regret quitting, I was going to regret not doing it, that I was giving up this talent and this opportunity that I have.”
Looking to her future at GCU, Clasen is excited to get to know her teammates and create a sense of community with them. She’s also looking forward to starting nursing school and building “a new life, and a new home, and a fresh start somewhere else,” she said.
“I’m nervous about balancing everything, but I feel like in that nervousness is just excitement, because I know that there’s just so much to figure out and that I’m going to figure it out,” she said. “I’m opening up a whole new chapter in my life and a whole new world.”
Clasen said she’s sad to leave behind her friends at La Salle, as well as her family, but she feels that no matter what, her faith will guide her.
“It’s God’s plan,” she said. “It’s all going to come back and reward me and my family and the people around me.”
