New film highlights rugby’s big impact

Thanks to a passionate coach, North Philly athletes have formed more than a team. They enjoy a sense of family.

The North Philly Nomads got their start with an after-school rugby club that Philadelphia teacher Larry Conlan started in 2012 at Vaux High School. There wasn’t a lot for kids to do in North Philadelphia, and Conlan thought rugby could be the kind of anchor for his kids it had been for him growing up.

“They didn’t even know what a rugby ball was, but I told them, ‘OK, it’s a game with no helmet, no pads and 15 guys running after you. Who wants to do it?’ Twelve guys signed up that day,” Conlan told the Philadelphia Inquirer in 2014.

When Vaux closed in 2013, Conlan and most of his students moved to Benjamin Franklin High School, where the club became a team once Conlan recruited more coaches and more players — kids from other schools. The Nomads practiced wherever they could. They got equipment, buses, referees and league registration through favors and a tiny budget made up mostly of donations.

Filmmaker Brandon Eric Kamin was drawn to the Nomads after he read about the team in the Philadelphia Inquirer. At first, Kamin thought he might make a short film about the Nomads, something they might use to help raise funds for the team. But the more he learned about them, the more he saw the project as something more ambitious.

He realized it should be a film that encompassed some of the team’s most powerful moments: how it formed after a round of school closures, how rugby empowered young men, how it bonded them.

It became “The Nomads,” starring Tika Sumpter and Tate Donovan. It was filmed in 2018 in Philadelphia and features Ryan Johnston and two other real-life Nomads who were “special ability extras” (actors who can actually play the game). The film closed the Philadelphia Film Festival last month.

“The Nomads are everything this city represents, the underdog spirit,” Kamin said. “I wanted to amplify their story as much as possible.”

Donovan plays the Conlan character, named Mark Nolin in the film. Donovan took cues from Conlan, an energetic, enthusiastic man who now teaches elementary school in Southwest Philadelphia. Sumpter’s character is an amalgam of real-life Nomads coaches James Brunson and Lauren Murphy-Sands. “We’re humbled,” Conlan said. “I didn’t really believe that it was even real until we were on set one day,” Murphy-Sands said. “It’s just what we do in the springtime.”

And yes, the real-life Nomads are still very much a team, scrapping for players and training space. Practices for next season start early next year.

PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER/TNS 2014 “The Nomads” is a new film that tells the story of the fledgling North Philly rugby team started by coach Larry Conlan (far left), showcasing the empowering and bonding effect of the sport for players like Tyquise Edgerson, shown here being tackled by Jamal Sherman.