People of Northwest Arkansas
The People of Northwest Arkansas is a podcast celebrating the power of storytelling by providing a platform for individuals living in Northwest Arkansas to share their unique and inspiring life experiences. We believe that every person has a story worth telling, and through our podcast, we aim to amplify these voices through thoughtful interviews and engaging storytelling.
People of Northwest Arkansas
A Playbook for Life: Parenting, Rugby and Real Estate Insights with Ryan Boggs
Joining us is the ever-entertaining Ryan Boggs, who not only gives us an inside look at the sport but also shares how his rugby tactics play a role in his real estate career. Whether you're in the market for a new home or just a fan of a well-played match, Ryan Boggs extends an open invitation to connect and experience the vibrant local scene he represents.
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Hey, okay, danielle, guess where I went this weekend. Where did you go? So I went to a dog park and actually a friend of our producer was the one, and your friend he did a casting call to do like filming at a dog park Really, and so my puppy is going to be a star now for the NWA Council, oh my gosh, it's not really cool.
Speaker 1:but speaking of all things dogs, k9 Luxury Resorts is opening up in Rogers and it's almost like I would. This is not their official tagline, but I would call them like the Ritz Carlton for like dog boarding. Yeah, so they're opening up soon. I'm really excited about it. I'm definitely going to board my dog, heidi. She's like nuts, so she's going to need to get some energy out pretty soon when we start taking spring break trips and all that. Anyway, okay, so you know what else is really cool.
Speaker 3:What.
Speaker 1:Apparently, northwest Arkansas has a rugby team.
Speaker 3:They do, yeah, I had no idea Like do you know anything about rugby? Yes, they're called the Griffins. Yes, where I went to college had a rugby team as well, but today we have Mr. Rugby here. Yeah, ryan Boggs, so he's here to tell us a little bit about rugby in Arkansas Northwest Arkansas. He's also a local realtor, so we'll talk a little bit about that as well.
Speaker 1:So do you like, threaten you know your clients that you're going to tackle them if they don't.
Speaker 3:Is it even called a tackle?
Speaker 4:Yeah, it is. It's called a tackle. I didn't think about that and I don't typically feel like I have to threaten them. I feel like just my presence is a little intimidating, maybe a little bit, and they're like we better buy this house or this guy's going to hunt us down.
Speaker 3:His presence is intimidating in his white jumpsuit Not jumpsuit, what is?
Speaker 1:it. It's actually a suit.
Speaker 3:Not a jumpsuit, sorry, track suit.
Speaker 1:He's got a rocky vibe. I love it. It's great.
Speaker 3:It's comfy and cute.
Speaker 1:And so you brought something in the studio. Wait, can you?
Speaker 4:show me I'm going to show you a little bit of a comfy ball here.
Speaker 1:Okay, so let me see this. This is a little different.
Speaker 4:It's a little flat, not too much, so it would be a little bit.
Speaker 1:No laces, no laces, no laces out. Do you have to like? Punt it.
Speaker 4:You can. You can punt it like you are used to seeing in football. There's also what we actually call a drop kick, where the ball touches the ground and then you kick it. Oh, you can score points that way. I don't know if anybody, I don't know if you guys know who Doug Fludi is.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 4:I've played in the professional quarterback in the NFL several decades ago now, but he is, I believe, the only NFL player to ever score a drop goal in a professional football game.
Speaker 1:Oh, I didn't know that, and I think he's done it twice actually, Well that's awesome. Yeah, I'm going to use that at my next like family gatherings. I've got some big sports fanatics in my family. I'm going to like drop that. Tell me the name one more time.
Speaker 4:Doug Fludi.
Speaker 1:Doug Fludi.
Speaker 3:You just go back to the audio and listen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just want to go back, and now they're going to listen to our podcast and know that you learned this from Ryan.
Speaker 3:So rugby ball is very different from a football. It's similar shaped, but is it bigger.
Speaker 4:It is bigger yeah.
Speaker 1:We're handling the ball, don't, danielle? You're going to take it to another place I was going to take in handling balls and nice studio. Okay, so tell us about you. How did you come to the area? Are you from here?
Speaker 4:I'm not. I'm originally from Tulsa and I moved over here to Fayetteville in 2007 to go to the U of A to play rugby.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, Tulsa. I'm married to a man from Tulsa.
Speaker 4:It's not a bad place to be from. I appreciated a lot more now than I did growing up there. I enjoy being able to go back and experience the city. They've also done a lot in the city since I've left and lived here to kind of revamp like the downtown area and stuff like that. You used to not want to be downtown after dark, now there's a lot more nightlife and you feel a lot safer and stuff down there I tell it's fun. It is. It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 3:It's not a very far drive to Tulsa. I like to go there just like a weekend Hour 45. Definitely my favorite place to go is the Max.
Speaker 4:This is a really good bar, the Retro Pub. Yes, it's so fun, it's sacred.
Speaker 3:They have like all of this like 80s and 90s, mostly 80s kind of decor and some pinball machines and some like ski ball and a Zoltar is there.
Speaker 2:It's pretty fun.
Speaker 3:It's a great place to go. So you came down in Northwest Arkansas to play rugby. Did you play rugby growing up in high school? Like, how long have you been playing rugby?
Speaker 4:So I started playing when I was 15 years old. Like most kids I was, I grew up kind of just playing backyard football. Obviously I played real football and stuff like that too, but would always be playing football in the lot near my house with all my friends in the neighborhood. And one day a couple of guys were driving by, saw us out there. They saw me I've never been a small human. So they were like, hey, look at this guy. And they stopped and they were talking to me. They were in high school I was in eighth grade at the time and they were like, hey, have you ever heard of rugby? And I hadn't. And they're like you'd be really good at it. And they explained it to me, told me that I would get to run with the ball and things like that, which you know as a big kid playing football.
Speaker 4:I was always stuck on the offensive or defensive line, so never got to really enjoy being in the limelight, you could say, and getting to be more of a star.
Speaker 4:So I was like, yeah, let's, let's give it a try.
Speaker 4:So they're like all right, well, we actually have practice tomorrow night, we can pick you up and take you.
Speaker 4:So they did and I went to my first rugby practice the next night and immediately fell in love with the sport and found out that night that since I was in eighth grade, I couldn't play for the high school team, so spent the rest of that year essentially practicing training with the local men's club there in Tulsa, getting a little bit of experience on the field whenever I could and like, decide games and things like that. Cause again, I'm 15 so I couldn't play against the grown men yet. So, yeah, I went to their practices and things like that and when I became a freshman in high school started playing for the high school team. Like I said, it just it took over my life. Up until that point, I think, like most kids, I dreamed of being a football player, going to college, play football, going pro. You know, not understanding at that time what that really looked like, but after I started playing rugby I knew that's, that was the sport for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so rugby it comes from the UK, right?
Speaker 4:Yes, it does.
Speaker 1:Okay, I always just like I think of. I think it has a really like aggressive and like rough sport. I mean football is too, but I don't know. I always have visions of like. In the UK they have a lot of like rugby is really big over there.
Speaker 4:It is.
Speaker 1:And so I think it's really cool. There's like something different here, because I feel like football is so big here, which I like. I love football, but I also like other types of unique sports. I do too, and I think it's cool. So you said you played for University of Arkansas.
Speaker 4:I did yeah.
Speaker 1:That's so awesome. So how long have you been on the team outside of college now?
Speaker 4:Outside of college. Let's see 2013. 2013? Wow.
Speaker 1:So we were talking on a different show about things that you break as an athlete. Have you ever broken anything?
Speaker 4:Not in rugby. What Lots of concussions.
Speaker 1:Like how many?
Speaker 4:I couldn't tell you. I've had at least 11 diagnosed.
Speaker 1:What, oh my God? And you've almost you said you've almost drowned twice.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So obviously you know, with football first of all, you know, nowadays most fields are turf, yeah, but we don't play on a lot of turf fields for rugby, uh, we're, we're more grass. But with football, with that helmet on, if you're playing on a grass, wet, muddy field and you're down at the bottom of a pile, that helmet and the face mask kind of keeps your head up out of the mud and the and the water and everything like that. Well, in rugby you don't have any of that. So if you're at the bottom of a pile, you are deaf, you're, you're, you're in there.
Speaker 1:So you're like getting waterboarded almost.
Speaker 4:Pretty much, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:You're waterboarding yourself. Yeah, go play rugby, folks.
Speaker 4:Back in the fall that we had I. I got up out of the bottom of a pile and hacked up a chunk of mud and grass.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh that.
Speaker 4:I had swallowed while I was down there. It was quite.
Speaker 1:I'm impressed you haven't lost a tooth.
Speaker 4:I do have two fake teeth.
Speaker 1:Oh, oh, my gosh. Oh, I couldn't tell my front tooth yeah.
Speaker 3:I was just going to say if you're swallowing, broke them. Yeah, oh, my Well, I guess I might have lied.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I've broken teeth, not any bones, though.
Speaker 1:Well, well, that's good, though you can replace teeth.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and.
Speaker 1:I couldn't even tell so yeah, I can't tell either Wow, oh my gosh, that is wild. Okay, and then you got into real estate when I got into real estate last year.
Speaker 4:So yeah, 2023 was a kind of a pivotal moment for me. I guess you could say I had the job that I was in previously, I'd been in that industry for about 11 years and kind of was just, I was just tired of the corporate structure and you know, for better or worse, I think one of the big things that most people could take away from the COVID years was the ability to work from home and how most people's production levels actually increase when they're working from home.
Speaker 4:That was definitely the case for me, because I saw it as a privilege and always wanted to do a little bit extra so I could be like you know, hey, I can work from home and be way more productive for you as well as for myself. So that kind of, I think, started my journey out of the corporate structure a little bit, whenever they started getting a little more strict with wanting us to be in the office and things like that?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, because it's pre-pandemic levels now yeah. Like they want everyone back, they want us all back, which I mean.
Speaker 4:I'm not against that, but it just got to the point where I was so tired of having to ask permission to go to kids, my children's assemblies.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Or you know, one of my kids is sick and, as we know, post COVID. If they sneeze one time, you got to get a lot of that.
Speaker 1:Or snow days. I mean the millions of snow days that you have two kids.
Speaker 4:Yes, I do.
Speaker 1:So girl boy.
Speaker 4:Girl and a boy. My daughter, avery, is 10. She'll be 11 in May and my son, atticus, is Atticus eight.
Speaker 1:So okay, Atticus.
Speaker 4:Titan is his name.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, I feel like he's going to be.
Speaker 4:I named him that because he's going to be one of two things he's either going to be extremely smart or he's going to work for the circus and bite through frying pans.
Speaker 3:Oh my God, he's going to be like our next spy through frying pans.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, he'll be like JD, he'll be like JD or another guest on the show because, he bites through license.
Speaker 1:Plates.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:What is his middle name again.
Speaker 3:Titan.
Speaker 1:Titan. I think it's Gladiator.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that kid's going to do something. He's going to do something with that name. He has to.
Speaker 1:So your daughter's in fifth grade?
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, she's very close to our girl's, this age group, I mean it's that's a whole nother topic.
Speaker 4:But they are. He's laughing because he knows it's yeah, he knows it's stressful.
Speaker 3:He's a little bit ahead of us though, like with the girl, a little bit Like more of the preteen than we are even in the preteen.
Speaker 1:Does she have a phone?
Speaker 4:No, this is a big topic and that is yes, it's I don't know Almost asked daily when am I going to get a phone? It's like you can't even pick up after yourself, or no. I'm trying to Like she left her jacket at a restaurant one night and we had to go back to get it and I'm just like you want a cell phone and you're leaving at things like your jacket. It's freezing cold outside and you left your jacket inside at this restaurant. Like no.
Speaker 1:Yes, 10-year-old reasoning.
Speaker 4:And the fact that she'll be driving in six years is.
Speaker 1:Terrifying.
Speaker 4:Absolutely Like. I don't know if something happens between now and then, within those six years. We're just responsibility clicks.
Speaker 3:But no, there's a long way, but there's a lot that does happen between now and then no, yeah, for sure, yeah, let's not go all the way into that.
Speaker 4:I'm not ready for that.
Speaker 1:Do either. Do any of your kids call you bra?
Speaker 4:All the time. Okay, all the time.
Speaker 3:They even call me bra every day. Okay, I get called bra and I have two daughters.
Speaker 1:I'm like first of all. Do you even know what bra is short for? I'm not your brother or your bra. Yeah, I'm your mother.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, they can't help me. I'm totally a bra, your bra, oh, 100% my son.
Speaker 1:Or sus, everything is sus. Gosh yeah sus, I don't know I can't keep trap at the Trap. I can't.
Speaker 4:I learned a new one the other last weekend is Riz.
Speaker 3:I never heard of Riz I've heard Riz for Riz and I'm just Rizing. It's like short for charisma. Okay see, I had no clue.
Speaker 4:I thought it was like some kind of like new way of saying to like diss somebody. But then they were doing it and I was like I'm missing the point, like it sounds like you're hitting on me, and they're like yeah, that's it. I'm like, oh, okay, so to be Riz is actually a good thing. All right, I'm up on it now. Oh my God.
Speaker 3:There's a fun couple here in Northwest Arkansas, Sylvie and James, and they have a TikTok and they have four boys and a couple of them are teenagers and they will do TikTok videos, talking about teen slang, and it is the most hilarious thing. And they did one about Riz and they got slammed super hard by some celebrities who are like, oh just no, no, they shouldn't be doing it. And of course, like my friend, she doesn't care and she thinks it's the most hilarious thing. But speaking of kind of like schticks and like little things, Ryan here I've seen on his social media he has a kind of schtick that he does for real estate. So realtors have their own kind of like vibes and themes and stuff and so he does something on Mondays that is very unique, and so I want you to tell our listeners a little bit about what you do. Have you seen this thing?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I did see, I looked at socials.
Speaker 4:So yeah, I do Macho man Mondays. Started doing that early on, whenever I first got into real estate, as just a way to try to do something fun that would help, you know, get my name out there more. Let my friends and family and other people that you know keep up with me on social media know what I'm doing and do it in a fun way. I grew up I used to watch a lot of you know professional wrestling and stuff as a kid growing up like Randy Savage.
Speaker 1:I love Randy Savage. I knew you were going to say that I would hope so. I would hope so.
Speaker 4:I'm actually trying like not trying, but I need to go ahead and just order it. I've got it all in my cart, a bunch of stuff on Amazon to just completely mimic his.
Speaker 1:Can you do an impersonation of him right now?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, he rises to the top.
Speaker 4:That was so good, oh, I bumped the mic.
Speaker 1:I love seeing TikToks of Randy Savage because my husband is a huge fan, like it's his favorite, because he's just so over the top.
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely, and that's. I mean that was kind of a part of the persona. Yeah, and just what made me want to even start doing these videos and stuff too, is because it is over the top, it's just way extra, and if it's something that can at least get somebody's attention for you know 10 seconds, then hopefully the message that I'm actually trying to get out there in the video, you know, will stick a little bit.
Speaker 1:I love it. I think this is going to work for you. I mean, like you should use the Macho man. Macho man, randy. I love it. Well, it can be. He can carry it on in his own way.
Speaker 3:Yeah Great, it's really really funny. Do you ever have any people get confused and not know who Macho man Randy Savage is?
Speaker 1:Not yet.
Speaker 4:Not yet Not having anybody ask me.
Speaker 1:Who doesn't know Randy Savage?
Speaker 3:Well, it's either Gen Z, oh yeah, gen Z. A little trash on Gen Z, I guess some of my Chin Talks bringing it back though.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:My videos haven't gone viral enough for the youngsters to see it and to be like what the heck are you doing?
Speaker 1:Well, they say, if you have haters, you've made it. So if it does go viral and you have Gen Z hating on you, that means you've done something right, you've done something. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I think so right.
Speaker 4:That's true.
Speaker 1:They don't own homes here anyway.
Speaker 4:They love you or they hate you. Negative comments is still engagement too.
Speaker 3:It is, that's so true.
Speaker 4:I've seen plenty of things like that too already on TikTok and stuff where people want to bash real estate or real estate agents, especially in the market that we had last year, and stuff like that, and it's just like well, that's your opinion and thanks for the comment. Anyways, I just go in and like it and move on. You like the next day. That's amazing.
Speaker 1:I like your perspective, so I want to hear what you think about the market now and like, moving forward really, because I don't know this area. There's a housing crisis really is what I've heard that well, especially for teachers. I know I don't know about everyone else, but they're trying to bring in a lot more teachers and build affordable housing. But where I live, I feel like before any house goes on the market, you can just text it out to friends and you can sell a house.
Speaker 4:Yeah, like we definitely. I mean, with Northwest Arkansas growing the way it is, I mean we're still averaging around 35 to 40 people a day either being born or moving into Northwest Arkansas, and so with that growth, obviously we have a lot of development going on around here. I think that, with to your point, specifically the affordable housing development is something that needs to be focused on and taken a lot more seriously, and there is a huge amount of people who can't afford to buy a house, and it's getting close to the point where a lot of these people aren't even going to be able to afford to pay for rent Right.
Speaker 4:And what are we doing? We can't I mean we can't have that many people literally homeless, like it's just not. That's not feasible. So what is happening to help that out?
Speaker 4:You mentioned the teachers and things like that I do know Bentonville Public Schools is. They've purchased I believe they purchased a bunch of land to be able to build affordable housing for their teachers, specifically where they can. I can't remember all the ins and outs of it, but essentially they'll be able to have their monthly payments just taken directly out of their paychecks. It'll be a lower payment. It'll also be, you know, they can sign on for five, 10 years, whatever it may be, and that'll contribute to them having this housing that is either extremely cheap or, I guess, in some cases, potentially even free.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Part of their contract to work with the district. I think that's great and I do think that that's something that a lot of other businesses in the area can learn from, especially the major corporations, the big three that we have in Northwest Arkansas. I think they could really do a lot from that side of things to help the housing, because, you know, the first house I bought for myself in 2013 was $120,000. And that house is $120,000 house all day, every day.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:And this market today it's a $200 plus thousand dollar house and in no way shape or form should that house be worth that much money. It's just it's a, you know, single story, three bed, two bath, 1400 square foot house. It's absolutely perfect for a small, you know, fresh out of college or, you know, just starting family. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's about what I spent right out of college, or you know a great rental property that you know.
Speaker 4:If you want to have something from an investment standpoint, you can own and rent out to people.
Speaker 1:And that's really popular too. I know a lot of people well before the rates went up. Yeah, but yeah.
Speaker 4:But to have that house in today's market to where either a you're selling it for two hundred plus thousand dollars and there's a huge chunk of people who cannot afford that right, or you are the investor type and you are renting it out for Eighteen to two thousand dollars a month again huge chunk of people that can't afford that. So you know, realistically, that house should be a hundred and twenty thousand dollars and you should be able to rent it out. You know if you're doing that side of things to, for you know Anywhere from maybe a thousand to fifteen hundred, depending on what you know, how much money you're looking to really make out of it. But yeah.
Speaker 4:I think that that's one of the things that that we do need to focus on in this area and in the country in general is like what are we actually doing to be able to help achieve affordable housing? Yeah, that's tough, I think it's gonna be a huge issue in the next five to ten years yeah, I think so too.
Speaker 1:What areas do you do?
Speaker 4:you do all north of sarkin, so everything everything at this point, especially still being within my first year, I am. Wherever somebody needs me to go is where I'm willing to go. You know, even I'll go down to the four Smith area if it's the right.
Speaker 1:For the right deal do you have like a favorite neighborhood or favorite area that you really like?
Speaker 4:yeah, for myself, personally, I love the area off of dobson road and Rogers. Okay, I actually live in that area and there's a couple of neighborhoods on that street. There's really cute, cute houses not big or fancy, but they they're, they're nice looking there, the neighborhoods have been kept up very well and Living in that area has made me really fall in love with those neighborhoods, specifically because it is so easy to get anywhere yeah.
Speaker 4:I feel like I can get just about anywhere within northwest Arkansas within twenty to thirty minutes. Just being right there. You can go either direction, get on the interstate. Yeah, that's nice having yeah the popular places right now definitely more so are like Bella Vista center, ten that's me center ten.
Speaker 1:No, bella, this is really popular a lot of our neighbors are moving out. They want, like a little bit more land.
Speaker 3:Although the house is there, you have to renovate, or some of them are just older and you have a job, I mean you have that kind of well there are a lot of how new construction popping up in Belvis says well, the market's about to pick up, it's spring, spring is sitting out about to get busy for you, for real estate, but also for rugby. Isn't it season? Isn't spring the season for rugby, or is it?
Speaker 4:We play more or less year round here, okay.
Speaker 4:That's cool, fortunate enough, and that. I guess, depending on who you are, you can say it's fortunate. But we, because of our weather here, we don't have to stick to one season or the other. More or less up north, a lot of times they'll wait until a little bit later in the spring to start and they'll do all their whole season just all crammed into, you know, a month or two Before the regionals and nationals and stuff like that start to take place. For us we actually kind of split it up, so we do a fall season and then we take December and January off and then we pick it back up in the spring and then in the summertime we do sevens, which is completely it's a whole nother Style of rugby. Essentially it's the same issues, that you're on the same size field and everything, but it's seven on seven instead of fifteen on fifteen, so it's a lot faster pace. It's more so for the smaller speedy guys.
Speaker 3:I don't want to get trampled.
Speaker 4:I typically play during the summer with them, just for the kind of keep my conditioning and stuff like that up so that whenever we get back into fifteen which is definitely more of my forte- Okay, I'm ready, okay.
Speaker 1:So, speaking of conditioning, talk to us about what do you do to condition, what kind of working out style?
Speaker 4:so I work with a strength and conditioning coach on my own, so we do all sorts of different weight training in the gym depending on where we're at during the season or the off season. We're doing different styles, so we're either working on heavy weights for just pure strength or, right now, looking to get started with the season coming up in a couple weeks. We're all speed focused, so it's a lot lighter weight. We're using lightweight with resistance bands and things like that to develop just more explosiveness and to also just keep things lighter and easier on the joints. And then I do two days a week is just purely focused on stretching and mobility work.
Speaker 1:That's amazing and a lot of stretching.
Speaker 4:And then some sprint work and stuff like that.
Speaker 3:Lots of stretching. There's some fun videos I'll have to send them to you, Danielle of rugby players using resistant bands. There's like one video, that's like unbiral.
Speaker 1:That's awesome.
Speaker 3:And it's like totally the comments.
Speaker 1:Come on, boys, oh listen. No, you have no idea You're gonna be like oh, hip work, oh, that's hip work, stretching the comments on these videos are amazing it's all you know if you put them around your thighs and then squat down and walk and rugby players have huge thighs.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, their legs are so big. I mean you have to have big legs because you're you, that's where you're. I feel like you're using those muscles so much from games that I've been to and what I've seen like that it's just typical. You see that a lot.
Speaker 2:So we're really short, short, so that's why you can see when they're big, big thighs.
Speaker 3:Big thighs don't lie.
Speaker 4:Our first match for the spring is actually March 2nd, so we've got this week and next week to prepare and then we'll be out there. Kansas City one of the clubs out of Kansas City is coming down for us and so we're pretty excited to get that, to get the season underway and to host them.
Speaker 3:Nice. How far do you travel to when you travel? I've been as far as.
Speaker 4:Alaska.
Speaker 3:Oh wow, which is the ball?
Speaker 4:that we were playing with earlier is when I got from the tournament that I went there one year. Typically, we're pretty regional. The furthest we travel for our conference is Omaha and St Louis.
Speaker 4:Oh wow, and we usually only have to do those once a year. So it's not bad. In the summertime when we're doing tournaments and stuff for sevens, we try to get at least one tournament that's above the eight hour away range, just for some fun and to experience different places. So that was why we went to Alaska one year. We've been to Madison, wisconsin. We were wanting to go to one in Chicago a couple of years back but we missed the sign up for that, unfortunately. We go down to Austin, texas, quite a bit Shreveport places like that. This year at the end of July, first week of August, I'll actually get to be playing in my first Old Boys tournament. So I'm over 35.
Speaker 4:So, yeah, so I'm officially an old boy now, so I'll be going with kind of a all star team, I guess, of old boys, you could say, from around Arkansas. We're going up to Saranac, new York, to play in a tournament called Can Am, which is a pretty big rugby tournament that they put on every year. So I'm really excited for that. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:You know what. You don't want to mess with the old boys, because you know old man's drinks.
Speaker 4:Well it's such a boys club.
Speaker 1:I mean it's very.
Speaker 3:I remember in college I went to John Brown University and the rugby team, I mean they were a tight knit group of guys and they're a boys club. They're hilarious.
Speaker 1:So is it boys only or they're female rugby players? Yeah, they're female teams.
Speaker 4:We have a female team in North, with Sarcassol, the Fayetteville Phoenix.
Speaker 3:Oh, I like that name. We need to get some of those ladies on here, I know.
Speaker 4:They're a lot of fun. We do a lot of things together, the clubs do, especially in the summertime. We'll go to a lot of the same tournaments and stuff like that. So, yeah, it's a lot of fun. The community it's one of those things where when you're in the community it seems huge, but to people that aren't involved in it they just have no idea it exists. So, it's very interesting, but.
Speaker 1:I played powder puff one season and I got a concussion and then I never played again.
Speaker 3:Not the same. You don't think it's the same? No, not even close not even a little.
Speaker 1:Well, we drank out of a lot of solo cups and I'm not sure.
Speaker 4:We had you drink out of a cleat. No Game worn cleat.
Speaker 1:Have you? It sounds like you have.
Speaker 4:I've not, fortunately, ever had to do that.
Speaker 1:Who has to do that? The loser.
Speaker 4:It depends. There's a multitude of reasons why you might have to what we call shoot the boot Shoot the boot. I would not do it.
Speaker 3:I'm not created to play rugby Singing songs is a big part of rugby culture.
Speaker 4:After the match, at the social, there's usually a moment once everybody's had you know drinking songs. Yeah, and quite inappropriate as well, so don't ask me to share them. But once people have had, you know, several beverages consumed and they're feeling good, the songs usually come out. And if you mess up a lyric to one of the songs, you got to shoot the boot.
Speaker 1:Oh, this sounds fun, it sounds like a fraternity a little bit, because we have some songs too that I would never sing on there.
Speaker 3:It's an ongoing fraternity.
Speaker 1:I was a sweetheart of one, so I know the songs, yeah, but I would never say them on recording.
Speaker 3:I think we could talk about rugby for forever and ever and ever, because there's so many things and so many layers. Shoot the boot. I really hope that our listeners will Learn a little bit and follow you guys and check out some of your games. You started playing in 2013. When did the league begin here in Arkansas, like when did the Griffins become a?
Speaker 4:team. Yeah, so, like you said, I started playing with the Griffins in 2013. They were founded in 2006. Okay, so we're actually still a very young club, especially by rugby standards. The U of A club was founded in 1971. They're actually the oldest club on campus.
Speaker 3:Wow, amazing.
Speaker 4:So yeah, and the in 2006, a group of mostly U of A alum rugby alums got together and founded the Griffins, and the rest is pretty much history from there.
Speaker 3:That's great, yeah. So tell us, just as we kind of wrap up this conversation, what is kind of your favorite thing about rugby and what would be something that our listeners would love to hear about that just that community and the game, aside from shooting the boot yeah, aside from shooting the boot, like, what do you love about it?
Speaker 4:God, I mean I'm going to have to say you know right off the bat, off the top of my head, the inclusivity of it. One of the things the women team does to promote the sport themselves, which I really like a lot, is they talk about how every, everybody is a rugby body. You know, but like also like everybody, it's very true. You know, both for men's and women's, you literally have there's 15 players on the field for each team at a time and every position or person on the field. You know there's certain strengths and weaknesses that they all have and it takes all 15 of you working together to get the outcome that you want and desire, which is scoring points and winning the match. And you know you need big, you know, ugly guys like me and you need small, cute, fast guys that like to do their hair in the mirror every morning.
Speaker 1:And you know we're going to call Brock and see if he wants to join. He was just saying this morning he was thinking about football, and this is pretty. This is adjacent football.
Speaker 4:He's not going to do it, he's not so as long as his hair doesn't get messed up, you've got to at least come out and try it once and then.
Speaker 1:Maybe he could do the seven and seven. Yeah, wait, seven on seven.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe I'm saying the drink Seven and seven.
Speaker 3:Seven and seven after the seven. Yeah, there we go Out of the boot.
Speaker 1:So OK, tell us a little more about how you know our listeners can find you. Let's say they want to sell their house or they're looking for a house. Tell us a little bit more about that.
Speaker 4:So yeah, I'm on. You know Facebook and Instagram. Mostly my Instagram handle is listed or lifted. I thought that was pretty clever.
Speaker 4:Whenever I came up with it back when I was getting into real estate and I like it a lot, and then I'm just Ryan Boggs on Facebook, so you can definitely find me there. I am with real brokerage and I'm on a team within that brokerage Stroud and Associates. So Stroud and Associates NWAcom is where you can. You know, you can log in, take a look at listings and things like that that we have, and you can send us an email. Give me a call from there.
Speaker 1:All right, anything else you want to share about yourself that maybe we didn't cover?
Speaker 3:Where can we find the rugby team? The rugby team, yeah.
Speaker 4:So we're the Northwest Arkansas Griffins. We are on Instagram as arc rugby, so arc rugby is our Instagram handle. We also are at GriffinsRugbycom. I think it's Northwest Arkansas Griffins on Facebook. If anybody knows where the Grove Comedy Club is in Lowell, you can, you know, drive by, you'll see our field. We practice Tuesdays and Thursdays from six to eight, so you can see us out there anytime. There's no tryouts. We welcome anybody to come. Like I said, give it a shot.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm going to send Ellie. We should send our husbands out there, yeah. Let's see how a normal guys can hack it.
Speaker 4:At the very least they got to come out and watch a match on a Saturday. It's so much fun. Our home matches are fantastic, especially being there at the Grove. They have a huge patio out back and they open it up. They have, you know, drinks, food you can order right there from the patio, so everybody's hanging out drinking, having a good time while we're out there smashing each other, and then we go next door to. Goat Lab Brewery afterwards for our social and just the party continues.
Speaker 3:I'd go just to hear the songs that he won't say on the air yeah, we are. Oh, yeah, we are going to sing along. I'm a big fan of this.
Speaker 1:Like I want to get back to my like English heritage and learn some of these drinking songs. You know what I mean. Like we need more. They say there's a decline in friendship in the US. Like people don't have as much camaraderie because of devices and everyone being isolated.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I think this is cool. There's a lot of camaraderie.
Speaker 4:Yeah, they're drinking and singing together is definitely a way to and smashing each other. I mean truly, I guess. Yeah, you know, that's probably another great aspect of rugby that I love is the fact that you go out there and for 80 minutes you're literally beating the Jesus out of each other. And then you go and you drink together and you joke and you laugh and you're like, oh man, you remember when I broke your nose out there? And they're like, ha ha ha. Yeah, that was great. Cheers.
Speaker 1:Cheers, cheers. Buddy Drinks on me, that's right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's great. Well, thank you, ryan, so much for coming on the show.
Speaker 4:Thank you.
Speaker 3:It's really fun to hear a little bit more about rugby here in Arkansas. What?
Speaker 1:do you love about Northwest Arkansas?
Speaker 4:I love just how fast this area is growing and with that we're seeing so many like big city amenities coming to Northwest Arkansas, but at the same time it seems like we're really holding on to the small town vibes, and you know the values of that, and so you know, as well as keeping the focus on nature and outdoors and all of the great things that we have to do around here with the bike trails, the walking trails, running trails, I mean the fact that you can go from Fayetteville all the way up to Bella Vista on the same trail system Within an hour. You've got several state and national parks that you can get to, and I mean you can literally go out and lose yourself in the wilderness, you know, and at the same time be sitting down, you know, that night at some fine dining restaurants and you know fantastic shopping and things like that. So just how diverse the culture is, how diverse the towns and the cities are, it's just incredible. I don't think there's nothing else really like it in the US, at least that I've experienced.
Speaker 1:I agree, yeah, I haven't either.
Speaker 3:He's speaking my language. That was a great answer.
Speaker 4:It was a great answer, such a realtor answer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.
Speaker 2:I was thinking.
Speaker 1:When you said amenities.
Speaker 2:I was like yeah, I almost had spoken like a true realtor.
Speaker 3:I think that that's true, but that's great.
Speaker 3:I mean, you have to sell the area, especially to somebody who isn't aware of Arkansas, and people have so many preconceived notions of what Arkansas is and how we're just trapped in that thinking of that it's like backwards or that it's behind the times or just or maybe it's not culturally diverse enough. And I think that there's still a movement to becoming more diverse here and I think it's really great. It's neat to see the growth that's happening. I agree with you we still have that little hallmark Mayberry feel. Yet that's what I do, it's not much happening.
Speaker 4:One of the nice things about Northwest Arkansas for outsiders coming in, it kind of sells itself A because they don't have a choice. Walmart's moving them in and you got to live here, you got to buy a house. But also when they the first, there's been several times working with people moving into the area that have never been here before and the first time they see that downtown Bentonville Square and things like that, they're just, they're shocked, they're almost speechless, you could say, because it, like you said, it's like a hallmark movie. Is what is this place? But at the same time, yeah, like I said, you've got, you know, incredible places to shop, eat all the fun outdoors things that you can do.
Speaker 1:So I agree with that. Fantastic, yeah, well, thank you Ryan. Thank you for coming, thank you.
Speaker 3:I love learning more about rugby too.
Speaker 4:Anytime. I'm happy I can talk about it all day.
Speaker 3:We're going to go watch them play Danielle yeah, short shorts and their thick thighs, oh my God. And we're going to drink afterwards and you're going to sing an appropriate song. Sound good, yeah, sounds good, excellent.
Speaker 1:Hey, thanks so much for listening today. If you liked what you heard, please consider subscribing to the podcast so you never miss an episode. You can also follow us on Instagram at peopleofnwa. Thanks so much.
Speaker 2:People of Northwest Arkansas with the two Danielle's produced by me. Brock Short of Civil Republic Productions. Please rate, review and like us on any podcast platform where you listen. For more information about today's guests and the show, please check the show notes. Thanks for listening.