You are beside yourself when they\u2019re born. You love watching them grow, even when they\u2019re next to impossible teenagers. You\u2019re there to cheer their achievements and console them in their disappointments. You spend countless hours watching them compete in sports. You guide their life choices as best you can. You give them everything. You have such high hopes, and when they go off to college, you think they\u2019ve made it. They\u2019ve found their way. But what do they do? <\/p>\n
They become rugby players. <\/p>\n
Now I\u2019ll admit to some hypocrisy here. I once played the game. Well, not exactly. I went to the first practices, one spring about 35 years ago, where it was all conditioning. As a runner, I sprinted uphill first. These rugby guys lacked my lung power. Then lithe, I left those lugs in the lurch. <\/p>\n
Alas, lung power isn\u2019t what makes a great rugger. You need to be a little crazy. No, a lot crazy, and not only appreciate, but enjoy pain. We started to scrimmage. What made me think I wanted to play a game where they hit each other without benefit of helmets, shoulder pads and commonsense? Getting hit \u2013 or worse trying to hit someone weighing 75 lbs. more than you coming at full speed and with a demonic look in his eye \u2013 was bad enough. But then being on the bottom of a pile not only crushed but suffocated? No, it wasn\u2019t worth the camaraderie later. I returned, broken and battered, to the loneliness of the long distance runner. <\/p>\n
But there my wife and I were this spring on fields in western Pennsylvania watching our middle child, Hunter, putting her surgically repaired shoulder into some 200-pounder and getting crushed, while we wondered where we went wrong? <\/p>\n
Lady ruggers are, well, first, they\u2019re not ladies. Ladies don\u2019t play a game where key features are \u201cscrums,\u201d \u201crucks\u201d and \u201cmauls.\u201d At the half of one match, as a team came off, the bits of conversation I heard as they passed by would not be called lady like. <\/p>\n
\u201cDid you see the shit that ass hole was doing?\u201d queried one dainty damsel. <\/p>\n
\u201cI just punched her fuckin\u2019 face,\u201d demurred another. <\/p>\n
No, they\u2019re not ladies. <\/p>\n
But they certainly like each other. Yes, women rugby teams are comprised of a number of lesbians. Which is fine for the men\u2019s team members, waiting for their match and cheering from they sidelines . Although judging from the guys\u2019 comments, which they being ruggers, were more like grunts, I wasn\u2019t sure if they found the ladies sexy or cute — like watching puppies play, compared to the men\u2019s dog fight. <\/p>\n
But absent the sexual intrigue, it was just like watching our daughter when she played basketball or soccer. And she made us proud when she scored on the team\u2019s first possession. But it wasn\u2019t a goal. It was a try. <\/p>\n
(For the uninitiated and (un)unwashed, the term \u201ctry\u201d comes from the early rugby rules, when putting the ball down over the goal scored no points. It merely gave you the opportunity to try to kick it through the goal posts for a score. I\u2019m not sure when the rules changed so that the scoring was more like American football. But I\u2019m pretty sure I know why: to completely confound newcomers as to why they use such an understated term for several points, more than for the kick afterward. I\u2019m not even sure how many points a try gets you. Then again, you\u2019ll recall I never got passed the conditioning.) <\/p>\n
The rules are mystifying. Being a college club team, it must have a chaperone. For Hunter\u2019s team it’s a woman who looks like she could have played the game herself. Might even still. I asked her about the rules, and she claimed ignorance. She\u2019s been the chaperone for many years, she said, but still didn\u2019t know most of the rules. Must be a good paying job to completely dissolve your sense of the least bit of curiosity. <\/p>\n
In any case, it was a glorious day. Brisk, but sunny. Hunter did well, and she survived. This was the third trip we planned to see her play. The first one we drove in a pouring rain to Philadelphia, my home town, where both physically and mentally, most of the guys are qualified to play. And about 40 percent of the gals, too. When we arrived, one girl was on her knees in the middle of the mud puddle that once was a rugby field. It was Hunter with her first separated shoulder. Yes, there is a reason I had to number it. I did mention it was surgically repaired? The second trip was canceled when in a scrimmage where they were short players, she tried to tackle a 210 lb. guy who volunteered to fill in. (Guys don\u2019t care if it\u2019s gay ass or not, they\u2019ll volunteer for the chance to grab it \u2013 and it\u2019s within the rules!) Separation number 2. So at least the day was successful for what it was not followed by — a trip to the emergency room. <\/p>\n
Her shoulder repaired, she\u2019s still at it and considering joining one of the local amateur teams to keep playing when she graduates next year. We saw another game this month. They lost, but it was successful in that she suffered only a broken nose. Surgery was less painful and there\u2019s no physical therapy involved. How do you exercise a nose? <\/p>\n
Because rugby matches must be followed by much more beer than I can hold these days, we bypass the post-match celebrations. Hunter has found her first community of friends she truly trusts. They play hard, both during and after the match. Some of her teammates have traveled abroad as missionaries and have inspired Hunter to consider the Peace Corp or Teach for America. Her grades are good. She\u2019s only been arrested once. Maybe we did good after all. <\/p>\n
Then why does she play rugby? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You are beside yourself when they\u2019re born. You love watching them grow, even when they\u2019re next to impossible teenagers. You\u2019re there to cheer their achievements and console them in their disappointments. You spend countless hours watching them compete in sports. You guide their life choices as best you can. You give them everything. You have… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[118],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}