Filipino rugby player and administrator Ada Milby said she was “blissfully naive” when she became the first girl to suit up for her high school’s American football team. Growing up in the small town of Tipp City in Ohio, US, she was shielded from many of the life challenges faced by women such as gender bias, sexism and the general aversion of teenage boys to being floored by a girl in front of their friends. Especially a dewy-eyed, daddy’s girl whose athletic feat until then was 12 years as a highly competitive figure skater – a sport that has a poor history of producing American football players. But inspired by her father, who told her she could be anything she wanted, Milby made it on to her high school team. She would later take up rugby, serve 10 years with the US military – including a tour of Iraq – before settling in the Philippines and forging a career in the sport as a player and respected administrator at national, Asia and World Rugby levels. Congrats to Asia Rugby Rep on the @WorldRugby Council @adamilby on a well deserved Silver Medal at the Sea Games 2019 #WeWinAsOne #Asia #Rugby #SEAGames2019 @brettgosper @QaisUAE pic.twitter.com/hssQI8ZGm6 — Asia Rugby (@asiarugby) December 8, 2019 Milby is secretary general of the Philippines Rugby Union, a member of the Asia Rugby executive body and the first woman to become part of World Rugby’s governing council. At 36, the mother of two is still an active player for the Philippines 15s and sevens team, winning a Sea Games silver medal in 2019. American football was her introduction to contact sports and she still has no idea what made her try out for the team. But she said it was an unpleasant season playing alongside the boys. ‘Now I feel more Filipino than English’: rugby helps Philippines’ mixed-race stars discover love for mothers’ homeland “I was a little bit of a threat and the boys weren’t very accommodating,” said Milby, the daughter of an American father and Filipino mother. “So I played a year and then I quit because it wasn’t really worth the hassle of playing in that environment. “I can’t really remember why I went for the sport. It was not really a question of why but more of ‘why not?’ And I was really fortunate that my dad cultivated that mentality in me and was, ‘Ada, you can be anything that you want to be’. So playing mostly in a female-dominated sport before that, I really didn’t know what it was like to be discriminated against as a female. “Every young girl expects every man in her life to be like her father. Looking back, I was blissfully naive and I’m really glad. Had I known then what I now know about some of the perceptions around women participating in particular sports, I might not have had the same gumption to want to join the boys’ team.” It was the little things, she said, that seemed to pierce her heart and make her feel she didn’t belong. Having separate locker rooms, she was never able to be part of the pregame team bonding rituals and the head coach treated her differently. “The separate locker rooms was totally understandable,” said Milby, who played at left half back or safety. “But the head coach had this habit of calling people by their last names. I guess it was the culture and a sign that you were accepted by the team. But he always called me either by my number [14] or my first name. Little things like that I would pick up on.” OUCH! @WorldRugby Council member @adamilby breaks her nose after just five minutes and plays all 80 minutes at hooker in @PhilippineRugby 's victory over India #TryAndStopUs pic.twitter.com/bHy6GtnP54 — Asia Rugby (@asiarugby) June 19, 2019 Then there was that time of the month when Milby needed female help. It was before a game and Milby sought out the cheerleaders. “I expected that our team wouldn’t have the provisions that I needed to prepare for the game,” she said. “So I went over to the cheerleaders and the coach gave me a hard time. He said ‘Why the heck are you hanging around with the cheerleaders? We are getting ready for a game, what the heck is going on?’ “I told the coach I needed something from their med kit and he said, ‘What do they have that we don’t have?’ I just looked at him and, after a while, when it dawned on him, he was like, ‘Right, carry on’.” Despite being largely marginalised by her teammates, Milby turned out to be a pretty decent player. She knew she had to work extra hard during training and even took away the starting spots of some of the boys. During practice sessions, she was targeted by teammates who would hit her with more force than what she would receive during an actual game. “Well, I definitely stirred up something within the team,” she said. “I recognised pretty early that I would have to step up to step out, so I took everything that I had to every training. “And every time I would knock somebody on their arse the boys would all jeer and make fun of that guy I was dominating, and so that guy felt the need to really get back the next time he came up against me. “He would really drill me. I can say that I never got hit harder in a game than I did in training. The benefit of American football was you’re wearing all these pads and helmets, so when I played in a game the other teams didn’t know I was a girl. “So it was really the boys on my own team who were discriminating against me, not the boys on the other teams. They just didn’t know any better.” It was at Wright State University in Celina, Ohio, that Milby first came across rugby. She stopped at a booth where some female students were recruiting new players. They told her it was American football “without the pads and helmets” and she was keen to give it a try. Tokyo 2020: Philippines’ rugby sevens players learn national anthem ahead of Olympic qualifiers and SEA Games When she finally made it on to the field, Milby experienced for the first time what all rugby players live for – that sensational physical trigger that sends impulses of joy throughout the body and forever implants a love for the game in the heart … she took her first hit. “Rugby is one of those contact sports that you don’t know what happens when you get hit for the first time. You either fall in love with the sport or you realise, maybe this is not for me. “And the first time I got hit, I was like ‘Wow, that was amazing!’ And the first time I hit somebody and got smashed to the ground, I was like ‘I want more of this in my life!’ That was it, that was the beginning and end of everything.” Now, Milby wants more women and men to share that feeling. As an administrator she is in a position to effect change and she wants to help grow the game around the world. “As a woman I get typecast to only caring about women’s rugby, which isn’t true but I also think there are not enough examples of women advocating for women’s rugby so I end up typecasting myself in that way,” she said. “I guess my priorities are really advocating and pushing for more gender balance for women at our various governance boards, whether it’s the union, Asia Rugby or World Rugby, and making sure we have the IOC recommended target of 30 per cent to ensure we are creating that space for more women and girls to join the game. “One of the most common responses I get is somebody saying, ‘Well, the girls just aren’t interested’. I’ve had enough conversations with women around Asia to know that this is not the case. “There are usually gender norms, culture norms, all these types of things that say women should be doing other things other than playing sport. So it’s about creating programmes and advocating for programmes that really encourage women and girls to get involved.”