By Clark Judge
(April 30, 2025) — Not that long ago I was contacted by a friend who asked if I’d like to write about his high-school daughter’s athletic achievements. I told him I might if I knew what they were. So he told me, and now I’m here.
Her story is worth hearing.
Her name is Carlee Harwood, and she’s the 17-year-old daughter of Bill and Sandi Harwood. A senior at Mercy High School and one of four children, Carlee is a good student, an even better athlete and something of a local pioneer. Five years ago she broke the gender barrier when, as a seventh-grader, she was the first female to play on the Haddam-Killingworth youth football team – following the path her twin brothers had taken two years earlier.
Except Carlee chose an alternate route. She went from a team cheerleader to one of its players, lining up at guard and defensive line and never missing a game.
See what I mean about her story?
But we’re not finished. As a ninth-grader, she wanted to continue playing for the Xavier High School team but was rebuffed. So she returned to cheerleading – this time for Xavier, where her brothers were playing – and moved on to another contact sport. She joined the Shoreline Spartans girls high-school rugby team where she is the team captain, its leading scorer, surest tackler and, frankly, best player.
“We’re very proud of her,” confessed her father. “She’s worked hard.”
A multi-sport athlete who runs track (the 100, 200 and 4 X 100 relay), participates in gymnastics and, yes, once played football, Carlee is perfectly suited to rugby. She’s fast. She’s physical. She’s fearless. And she is undeniable — running over, around and through would-be tacklers in a recent doubleheader sweep of Staples and North Haven to extend the Spartans’ undefeated record.
“She runs through people like it’s nothing,” said her coach, Ciera Harris.
She’s so accomplished that last year she was invited to play a game for the premier Connecticut Rugby team of 15s … so promising that she just accepted a scholarship to play rugby next year at Sacred Heart University … and so dominant that when Harris was asked to identify the one facet of Carlee’s game that needs to improve, she couldn’t.
“Nothing,” she said.
If all this sounds like one determined teenager, it’s because Carlee Harwood is. At an early age – eight or nine, she’s not sure – she borrowed her brother’s helmet, jersey and pads and dressed up as a football player for Halloween. Then, a couple of years later, she put the helmet and pads on again … only this time for real, making an unprecedented leap from the sidelines to inside the boys’ huddle.
“That was really weird,” she recalled. ”I got a lot of stares when I went to games, but I just thought it was fun. I really enjoyed it.
“I remember one time when we were at an away game, one of the boys across from me said, ‘Are those braids underneath your helmet?’ And I said, ‘yeah.’ Then I took off my helmet, and he was like … ‘Nooooo!’ They didn’t want to touch me sometimes.”
That seems to be going around. Opponents rarely touch her in rugby, too, but it’s not because they don’t want to; it’s because they can’t. In a recent 36-17 defeat of Staples, it seemed every time she got her hands on the ball she scored, leaving a trail of frustrated tacklers behind as she outmaneuvered and outran them 40, 50 and sometimes 60 yards downfield.
Her mother and father were there, as they are every game, with Mom rooting her on from the sidelines and Dad watching calmly from the stands. Both supported Carlee when she flirted with football, and both are enthusiastic about her burgeoning rugby career.
“We never said, ‘No,’ to her,” said Sandi Harwood (photo above, right, with Carlee). “When she did football in seventh and eighth grade, I figured that would be the end of it. So we let her try. Then this came along, and I’ll be honest: I knew nothing about the sport. I just figured it was football without the gear.”
That’s fairly accurate. Granted, the rules are different. So are the size of teams, with Carlee playing rugby sevens. Plus, there’s no forward passing. But the object of the game is the same: You score by crossing a goal line at one end of the field (called a “try line”), and punting and kicking are integral parts of the game. More important, the physical element is there: You stop opponents by tackling them to the ground.
Which is where Carlee comes in.
“I like physical sports,” she said. “When I started rugby, something just clicked. It was like: This is my sport. I loved it because I couldn’t do football, and I felt like it was a way to get my inner anger from everyday things that I let build up. I always use sports to get that anger out, but with gymnastics it was never enough. With football, I could hit people.”
Not let’s get something straight: Carlee Harwood is not brazen, arrogant nor combative. Her parents describe her as easy to raise, she stays out of trouble, and her teammates seem to look to her for guidance. In fact, shortly after agreeing to attend Sacred Heart, the Spartans posted a photo of her on their website with the word “COMMITTED” in caps.
In a nutshell, that defines Carlee’s approach to sports.
“I love her leadership,” said Harris, “and how well she receives feedback, how much she wants to learn about rugby and how much she absolutely loves the game. Carlee is an amazing player. She’s a leader on the field and off of it, and she brings the team together. She not only kicks butt as a player, but makes sure she goes hard every practice, every play and that her teammates go hard in everything they do.”
Now you know why I listened. Carlee Harwood is a good teammate, a terrific player and a source of inspiration for high-school girls unafraid to try something uncustomary. So Bill Harwood was right. Her story is worth telling.
“You know what I love?” said her mother. “That she was the first person to try something. That makes her a trendsetter who set the tone for everyone else. And, for me, that’s a big deal.”
Photos by Clark Judge
