U.S. Army Capt. Sammy Sullivan runs with the ball during a rugby sevens match at the Los Angeles SVNS tournament on March 3, 2024, at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, Calif. Sullivan will be competing for the U.S. women’s rugby sevens team during the 2024 Paris Olympics on July 28-30 at Stade de France in Saint-Denis, France. (Evan Denworth/USA Rugby)

U.S. Army Capt. Sammy Sullivan entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 2016, hoping to play soccer.

But the Fayetteville, N.C., native didn’t make the team. So she went to Army women’s rugby coach Bill LeClerc and asked for a tryout, despite having never played the sport.

About eight years later, Sullivan will step onto the field at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, France on Sunday as a member of the U.S. women’s rugby sevens squad in the Olympics.

“Bill says this quote: ‘Sam needed rugby, and rugby needed Sam,’ ” Sullivan said.

“Kind of from the get-go, I fell in love with it,’ Sullivan said. “The controlled violence was appealing to me just because it was a sport meant for that and everyone was on the same page about that.”

Sullivan has made herself a staple for the Eagles in her short time at the Chula Vista Elite Athletic Training Center in California - a remote station from the Army’s World Class Athlete Program based in Fort Carson, Colo.

The 26-year-old edge prop made her first U.S. rugby sevens squad during the 2022 World Cup in Cape Town, South Africia, but she didn’t debut officially until Dec. 2 of that year at the World Rugby Sevens Series tournament in Dubai.

Since then, Sullivan has collected 14 international appearances and is well into double digits in tries – a score earned by grounding the ball in the opponent’s goal area. She recorded her first try in the first minute of a 12-7 win over Canada in Dubai.

She tries to lock down her position with speed and physicality, she said.

Sullivan said she was confident she showed enough to make the Olympic roster before the official announcement in June. She described herself as a “14-minute player,” referencing the length of a full rugby sevens match.

“Going into Olympic selections, I felt like I did everything within my realm that I could do to make it,” Sullivan said. “So, when the team was named, I blew a sigh of relief and was a little excited but then instantly nervous. Now, it’s about performing in Paris.”

U.S. Army Capt. Sammy Sullivan stiff-arms an Australian player during a semifinal rugby sevens match during the Los Angeles SVNS tournament on March 3, 2024, at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, Calif. Sullivan will be competing for the U.S. women's rugby sevens team during the 2024 Paris Olympics on July 28-30 at Stade de France in Saint-Denis, France. (Evan Denworth/USA Rugby)

The 2024 Paris Games was the plan when U.S. coach Emilie Bydwell originally offered Sullivan a SUA Rugby residency spot in December 2019 when she was still a senior at West Point.

The daughter of a former Army Special Forces officer who played rugby in college and the Army, Sullivan earned the Prusmack Award that year as the top collegiate sevens player in the U.S. Bydwell saw Sullivan as a player of the future and wanted to bring her in with the Tokyo Olympics scheduled for the summer of 2020.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, delaying the Tokyo Games until 2021. Instead of taking up the residency offer, Sullivan decided to pursue her military career first. She was stationed at Fort Carson, working as a platoon leader while also driving 90 minutes to Denver and back three times per week for rugby practice.

She didn’t regret that decision.

“Those moments in Colorado in the freezing winter, doing training exercises with snow 2 feet all around us are some of my favorite memories still,” Sullivan said. “I learned a lot about myself and learned that my never-give-up mentality could last outside of organized sport.”

Following that assignment, Bydwell presented a USA Rugby residency spot to Sullivan again and she accepted.

Despite how quickly she has taken to the international game, it hasn’t been smooth sailing.

As an enforcer during her soccer days, being physical and running all over the field isn’t new to Sullivan. Yet as a member of the team’s front line at edge prop, she has found herself playing in scrums and lineouts in situations where she wasn’t comfortable.

Considering teams have maybe 30 seconds to put together a scrum, she said, Sullivan didn’t have a lot of time to learn. Still, after a few errors in her first few attempts, she grasped the concepts.

“Our coaches were very patient with me, and I feel like now I got pretty good at it,” Sullivan said. “Jumping in a lineout can be nerve-racking sometimes because there’s a lot of pressure on you to get the timing right and outsmart the opposing team who’s also going to lift someone up and try to get the ball.”

As for what she expects when the Games kick off, Sullivan isn’t afraid to go after lofty goals: It’s gold or bust.

She pointed to a 19-5 victory over France on April 7 in Hong Kong as a reason for optimism. The Eagles bullied the French, whom Sullivan described as “the most violent team” in the women’s game.

The hosts, coming off a silver medal in Tokyo, and U.S. share a group during the Olympic tournament, squaring off Monday in the final pool-play match. The two are expected to be in the medal hunt along with 2016 winner Australia and 2020 winner New Zealand.

“Tiger Woods has a quote that I saw (recently), ‘Why show up to a tournament at all if you’re not going to win?’ That really resonates with me,” Sullivan said. “If we perform at our best every game, then we are a gold-medal team.”

U.S. Army Capt. Sammy Sullivan runs past a Canadian player during a pool-play rugby sevens match at the Los Angeles SVNS tournament on March 3, 2024, at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, Calif. Sullivan will be competing for the U.S. women’s rugby sevens team during the 2024 Paris Olympics on July 28-30 at Stade de France in Saint-Denis, France. (Evan Denworth/USA Rugby)