Natalie Klotz, Israel captain for 2024, speaks on a voyage from Philadelphia to Israel through a rugby universe. And other stuff
(Ronen Dorfan)
Hey hey! The Israel captain is in the house!
Yep…
Speak to the nation!
I’m not great at cliché answers. I mean, it’s an honor. It’s always an honor to represent Israel. It’s even more of an honor to be named a leader. But every girl on the team could have had this role. There are 12 other girls on the squad who easily could have been captain.
That’s not a cliché; it’s a nice answer.
Thanks!
Let’s start from the beginning. Where are you from? Philly
So growing up, as a child, did rugby or Israel cross your mind?
“Neither until much later.”
What came first?
“Rugby. I went to Brown University and just got a knock on the door during move-in week from someone who said, ‘You look kind of athletic. Would you like to come out to try rugby?’ I played softball competitively growing up, but I didn’t really have a pathway to do that in college. So I retired from softball at 18 and wasn’t really sure what college would bring athletically. It was really just like a stroke of luck that I got that knock on the door.”
Who was it? Deep-State? CIA?
“Vanessa Munez, Vinnay. She became a very good friend of mine.”
Was that 7s or 15s?
“Fifteens. We later played 7s, but I actually didn’t really play any sevens seriously until I came to Israel.”
What’s better?
“15s girls are much smarter! Oh no… did I just say, like, 7s girls are dumb? (laughs)”
***
Ok. Israel. How did that happen?
“I grew up practicing Reconstructionist Judaism. There was a really wonderful congregation there, and I was very connected to Judaism, but I hadn’t really thought much about Israel until I was in college. I was studying computer science, and then I was considering doing a semester at Technion, but things never worked out. However, I did end up going on Taglit, and I had a really good time.
So then I moved to San Francisco, working for Dropbox and playing rugby for the San Francisco Golden Gate team. One day they told me we were acquiring a company in Tel Aviv – CloudOn – and mentioned that we’d just acquired this company in Israel and we’ll be working closely with them because they’re going to work on the same piece of software that our team is working on.
And I was like, great, amazing. When can I get a work trip? So pretty shortly after, I started traveling to Tel Aviv for work. I made sure I made myself indispensable. So I was traveling a lot for three years. And then I requested a transfer actually through work. So I didn’t immediately make Aliyah. But then they told me it’s three years to get my eligibility to play for Israel, now it’s five. So rugby is a big reason for me moving.”
Ok… so now here’s the deal: there is a perception, right or wrong, that American Jews (other than religious) who are on the route to make big money do not make Aliyah. But you were on Route 1 of American life – from Ivy League to the Silicon Valley – and came
You know, I should have a better answer because I get asked this question so much. I think part of it was kind of disillusionment with San Francisco. It was fun, but it lacked depth and seriousness that I felt there was just a lot more complexity to life in Israel.
And that there’s something really beautiful about the culture, especially where I’ve grown up and the community that I’ve been a part of. Work and career are such strong parts of your identity. And it felt so nice to come to Israel and nobody cared what my job was. I really was drawn to that kind of thirst for life and warmth in the culture in Israel.
Ok.. so something else… let’s put the Jewish thing aside. You are gay, San Francisco is the gay capital of the world.. Israel has its issues with this..
C’mon!! Be serious! From San Francisco to Tel Aviv??? You can’t even tell the difference.
How good is our rugby?
Israel really suffers, I think, from not having access to this pool of university students. This is kind of the magic sauce for the USA rugby program is that you get this influx of players, of athletes at 18 who might have been really, really, really successful in whatever sport they played, but not the best. And someone knocks on their door like in my case. We talk about it every year in Tel Aviv, how to recruit. It has to be personal – I would have not come to my first training if it was online invitation.
See yourself coaching at 60?
Doing my courses… I want to do it. Oh no… Omer (Khalfi, national coach) will think I am coming for his job.
***
Another bad question: You’re a software engineer – why are you f…ing up your brain playing rugby?
“No, no. It’s a very good question. I am absolutely terrified of concussions, and I’m extraordinarily aware of the risks there. I think about it a lot, especially in a career where I basically can’t do my job if I can’t look at a screen. Fortunately, the only very severe concussion I had was during my unemployment. (laughs)”
ou wear a helmet?
I wear a scrum cap, but it’s actually because I have some earrings that I don’t like to take out. And I don’t want them to get lost.
Your scariest moment?
Injury-wise? I mean, I don’t know if I was as scared in the moment. Last year, I broke my jaw, which was a pretty brutal injury to come away with. At the time, I didn’t really understand the severity.
I think the first question I asked was when is the surgery, and the second question I asked was when can I play. I broke my jaw in February, and I was playing in the national team by June.
OK. Captaincy in depth… last year great. You were leading a team of happy women. Everything just rugby. Now you have a lot of women from Galil who are basically homeless. How will you handle it?
I think rugby for us has become a place where we can escape. This is the most normal part of our lives right now in a time that is just so not normal in any way. And I think in terms of what it means to lead in these moments is to be there for each other and to bring our best selves, especially at a time where it is so difficult to be your best self.
What’s the difference between Galil and Tel Aviv women?
The Galil girls don’t wear shoes (laughs)
Ha!
The Galil girls are really some free spirits, and I absolutely adore it. I love playing with them. Yeah, I think the Tel Aviv girls are a little more hustle and bustle city, kind of like gritty workers. In terms of vibe, I think there’s a lot of overlap in the joy.
So with the war… will it hurt the team or give it extra motivation and we going to hammer teams?
Obviously, training suffered. We get a lot of the training at our clubs, and the girls in Galil lost out on those twice-a-week club trainings. But this is a group of girls who know each other extraordinarily well, who have played together for a long time. Some of us for many years. And we’re really starting to gel in that, like, I feel you on the field way where you know how each player is going to play.
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Let’s speak womens’ sports in general?
Sure, why not?
So Caitlin Clark..
Not a big basketball fans, although lived in Philly in the Iverson years. She’s a great role model. Like (soccer p layer) Mia Hamm or (softball player) Jennie Finch when I was growing up. But her contract with Nike is at a different level. Shows what women can do through sports.
No American football for women in US, how come?
No, there’s no American football for women in the U.S. With the exception of what’s called the Lingerie League, which is real football, but they give them tiny, tiny outfits to wear. And it’s vaguely offensive. Although I do know players who’ve played it, and they’re some very serious athletes. But no… Rugby kind of was the first full-contact sport that has been available to women. Even Lacrosse has the restricted rules for women, which is a lot less contact.
Where’s the best Philly Cheese steak?
Man, not one of the famous ones. It was a guy named Jim, but his place burned down. You know, I keep kosher in general, but make two exceptions: that Cheese steak and Ramen in Japan.
You’ve been to Japan? Saw Rugby there?
A few years ago, my sister lived in Japan. So I went to Japan for the Men’s 15s World Cup and got to see a bunch of games, including the Japan-Scotland game, which is in my head as one of the best 15s games I’ve seen.
The passing is crazy…
Yes, the men and the women. It’s an example of a country that said we are committed to this sport and we’re going to invest in it. I went to a training with one of their pro women’s teams, just dropped in. These were girls who are being paid professionally that were not even yet on the national team, and just the amount of support staff they had in the training, the level of the training, and it shows, right? Japan women are, you know, just one tournament away from being able to become a regular in the HSBC sevens. The men’s 15s program has become so competitive.
You did a lot of rugby travel?
I have definitely played with a lot of clubs throughout the U.S. and would go visit people in different cities because my friends tended to be rugby players.
Weirdest thing that happened?
There’s a tournament in Montana called Maggot Fest, and if I can put the weirdest parts of rugby into one place, it is that tournament. It is players from all over the U.S. I played for a team of kind of like barbarians from all over. A touring side, and it was one of the most bizarre experiences. We were in the Bel Air motel rugby club, which was lovely. Some of the men have rugby tattoos on their thighs. I got a text to the group chat, and it was like, “Come down to the parking lot, breakfast is served,” and I was like awesome they got us breakfast, and I come out and it was just like six cases of beer and it was like nine in the morning and we were about to go to the fields to play, and it’s all beers.
So the knock on the door, a life-altering moment?
Absolutely. You know, a really big part of my rugby experience and my love for the rugby was being coached by the coaches at Brown, both Kerissa Heffernan, who is now Chair of the Women’s Rugby Coaches and Referees Association, and Kathy Flores, who has now passed away. Those two coaches changed things not only for myself but for like an entire generation of women’s rugby players. I think about Kathy all the time, and I actually have her initials written on my cleats. I really value what those two coaches instilled in us, that it was not just about the game but about being a version of ourselves that we couldn’t be anywhere else. I still talk to Kerri, and I think it’s important to have their names there because they were just so influential.
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