Beaufort native makes U.S. Olympic rugby team. Why she’s the ‘ultimate finisher’
A Beaufort native who dreamed of being the NFL’s first female football player is headed to the Olympics as a star of the U.S. women’s rugby team, which will depend on her speed and grit in its quest for a medal.
Naya Tapper was one of 15 players chosen to represent the team in the COVID-19-delayed 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, which begin July 3 and conclude Aug. 8.
“We have done really well and have only been getting better,” Tapper told the Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette, “so I’m expecting us to have a pretty great finish in Tokyo.”
Tapper is one of three athletes with ties to Beaufort who will compete in the Olympics.
Beaufort’s C.J. Cummings is a member of the U.S. Olympic weightlifting team.
Mahassen Hala, who trains in Beaufort, will be the first woman to represent Lebanon in weightlifting.
Tapper is an international professional rugby star sometimes referred to as “the ultimate finisher” because of her ability to score once she gets the ball and takes off, outrunning and out-muscling opponents.
Even with her skills, she was relieved to make the team.
When the roster was announced, she had been recovering from an injury.
In 2016, Tapper found out four months before the Brazil Olympics that she didn’t make the team.
“It kind of slipped through my hands,” she said, “but we’re here now.”
Rugby sevens was played for the first time at the 2016 Summer Olympics with both men’s and women’s contests. Seven players compete in seven-minute halves, instead of the usual 15 players playing 40-minute halves.
Tapper is the second all-time leading scorer for the USA Women’s Sevens National Team. As a wing, it’s her job to catch the ball and score, either using her exceptional speed to outrun the other team, or her strength to break tackles. She’s been described as “unstoppable,” and match announcers sometimes proclaim “it’s Tapper time!” when she turns on the afterburners and swats away would-be tacklers like flies.
“Physically I was immediately good just because I was running track at a high level,” Tapper said of her start in rugby.
Tapper began competing at the club level at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill after starring in track at Charlotte’s West Mecklenburg High School, where she ran the 100- and 200-meter sprints.
Departing for Japan in mid-July, the U.S. Women’s Sevens National Team will spend the first week training in Mimasaka before transferring to Tokyo for the opening July 23 ceremony. Rugby Sevens competition runs July 29-31 for the women.
Tapper was born in Beaufort and grew up in Charlotte. Her mother is Guanita Nater-Tapper, and her father, Norman Tapper. She left Beaufort shortly after her birth but came back to the city briefly when she was 4. In the ensuing years, she’s returned often to the Lowcountry to visit her grandmothers, Lucy Nater and Lorna Tapper, most recently in August.
Tapper had always been interested in “rough and aggressive” contact sports since she was a kid. She told World Rugby in 2018 that she wanted to play in the NFL but later learned she would not even be able to participate on the high school boy’s team.
One day at UNC-Chapel Hill, when she was walking through the quad, she saw a sign for the women’s rugby program.
She was not competing in track so she could focus on her studies. Rugby would be fun, she thought, and would not take too much time.
“It turned into something way more than that,” she said.
Tapper’s speed and size — she’s 5-foot-9 and weighs 176 pounds — allowed her to dominate in college. After two months she was offered a pro contract, which she turned down because she wanted to earn her college degree.
In 2016, with her degree in sight, she signed a contract, and today she lives in San Diego and trains full time at the Elite Athlete Training Center in Chula Vista, Calif.
Rugby, Tapper says, allows her to release stress and negative emotions. She compares it to working out on a punching bag.
And the sport also gives her the opportunity, as a woman, to “show the world we’re just as strong and powerful as a male in the sport.”
Earning a living as a professional
Four years ago, Tapper said, she needed a part-time job to make ends meet as a professional rugby player. But pay is improving, she says.
“It’s not comparable to football in America or the NBA, but it is definitely sustainable,” Tapper said.
If the team can bring home gold, better contracts will be offered, she predicts.
Her family will not be able to watch her perform in person at her first Olympics; only fans from Japan will be allowed to attend because of COVID-19.
But Tapper expects that there will be many watch parties in the United States.
Fans can watch on NBC Sports, and USA Rugby will be providing links to stream and watch.
Tapper has become one of the most prominent faces of the squad.
Fans can find “Nayaonfiya” T-shirts and other merchandise featuring Tapper running on the pitch with the ball tucked under her arm.
Competing in the Olympics, she says, will be a proud accomplishment that few people achieve.
Tapper hopes the experience opens doors not only for her but also future generations.
The team, she adds, is a great representation of diversity that shows what people can do when they come together, and sets “a standard the world should look up to,” Tapper says.
This story was originally published July 2, 2021 at 4:20 AM.
