Former Poinciana athlete has emerged as one of rugby’s best

from Orlando Sentinel:

Victoria “Vix” Folayan’s rapid rise in rugby is rare.

She didn’t play growing up in Boston or at Poinciana High, where she set seven school records in track and played five other sports.

“I played one season of football at Poinciana as a wide receiver,” said Folayan, a 2002 graduate living in Oakland, Calif. “That piqued my interest in contact sports.”

Eight years after first playing rugby as a junior at Stanford, Folayan, 27, is on the USA national team. She hopes to play when rugby makes its debut in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

“[Her late start in the sport] is very unusual, but she is tremendously gifted athletically,” said Kathy Flores, who coached Folayan in national-team matches, including the 2010 Women’s Rugby World Cup in England. “One of the things she has going for her is, she has very explosive speed.”

Rugby has two versions: one with 15 players, the other with seven. Flores coached Folayan on the 15s team. Ric Suggitt coaches her on the USA 7s team.

“Vix is very dynamic and can break a game open at any time,” Suggitt said. “Vix is not shy [about] contact. We are glad she likes mixing it up.”

According to a listing of clubs by the Florida Rugby Union, Central Florida has two men’s club teams — in Orlando and Daytona Beach — and a women’s team in Orlando.

Folayan (5-5, 160) earned an academic scholarship to Stanford and was a track-team walk-on as a freshman. She concentrated on academics as a sophomore and started playing rugby the next year.

Stanford won back-to-back national collegiate titles while Folayan was on the team.

“It doesn’t surprise me she would be active in something like that,” Poinciana athletic director Mal Harpell said. “She was a heck of an athlete. She could do a lot of things. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she was a decathlete.”

Said former Poinciana track coach Dana Dodson: “She could probably do just about anything she wanted to do. She was a tough-minded individual.”

Folayan, a math teacher at a charter school in San Francisco, plays as either a wing — a perimeter player whose football comparison would be a wide receiver/defensive back — or flanker, a position comparable to a running back and middle linebacker. She is expected to take part in a World Cup residency camp next month in Maine.

“The thing that I really appreciate about playing with her is the way she has developed as a player and the amount of effort and focus she has put into making herself a better player,” said Nathalie Marchino, a teammate and friend.

One of Folayan’s trys — a five-point score similar to a touchdown — during a 19-12 loss to Canada at the 2011 Las Vegas 7s tournament is on the national team’s highlight video.

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“A lot of people think I am tough because I play rugby, but I am really not,” said Folayan, who has a brother living in Central Florida. “It’s like a persona when you are on the field. I feel like I am Wonder Woman. I feel like I can do anything.”

jrwilliams@tribune.com or 352-742-5921