Guest Blogger: Gerry White

Gerry and I met through the Ruckosphere and then finally met in person in Austin in April 2008. I had the pleasure of meeting his children too, in fact his daughter won the October Free Rugby Raffle! He has attended a few games for the Austin Valkyries and has sent me some amazing photos! Thanks for all the blog love and for writing this blog post!

IMHO, rugby is dysfunctional. Ever since my first experience with the sport, I have known that it is for and by a different breed of people. I was just out of high school, in incredible shape, had a very competitive mentality, and was jonesing some serious good times. And rugby did not disappoint. I played my first sevens tournament with the local rugby club, which just happened to have two of my older brothers involved. We spent a typical hot windy Saturday in San Angelo, Texas; running up and down the field passing that ball back and forth. I was a soccer player so the kicking duties fell on me. I converted nine out of ten and sprained my ankle so bad that it warranted a trip to the emergency room. The nurse was impressed with the twelve pack splint we had crudely fashioned, and took little time in getting me cleared for departure. So, we headed back out to the lake shore for the after game festivities. Speaking as a nineteen year old young man, that was the most fun I’d had in a long time. But aside from the experiences of the social atmosphere, rugby provides each player with strategy, skill, fitness and mental challenges which are inherently fun for people to attempt to overcome. So, to say that rugby players put the fun is dysfunctional is an understatement.

The game of rugby, is a thinking game. It is played by two teams of equal amounts of players, either fifteen, seven or some number in between those two. The object is to use your teammates in a way to overcome the others defense in order to score more points than the opponent. This can be done in many ways, including: running at the defense, kicking over and behind the defense, passing skillfully amongst the members of the team in order to create chances to breach the defense or applying enough pressure on the defense in order to force the opponents to give up critical penalties and therefore chances at points by kicking through the upright posts. When a player sees and identifies an opportunity in the game to score, and makes the correct choice of actions to exploit that opportunity thereby helping his team score, that player is usually gettng high fives and accolades from her team. Loosely translated, she is having FUN! And although the right decisions can be made to create opportunities, execution at the time those opportunities arise is what makes those attempts successful.

The game of rugby is a skillful game. A lot like soccer, rugby is a ball possession game. When one team has possession of the ball, they can do innumerable things with it, including: pass it, kick it into touch, up and under it, dummy it, banger it, squib kick it, miss pass it, maul it, ruck it, drop kick it for points, etc. Each of these actions is in itself a skill which can be executed well or poorly. These skills vary in degree of difficulty and the lucky player who manages to execute a chip kick in the run of play for a score is a grinning player indeed. Yes, correct execution of any skill in order to help your team is not only exciting but FUN. Whether or not a player is in shape enough at the eightieth minute to correctly execute that skill is a fitness thing, and playing rugby unfit is no fun.

The game of rugby is a running game. Fitness is not only optimal, but critical to the success of the player and therefore the team. With games being eighty minutes long, with no timeouts or huddles; rugby takes a lot of conditioning in order to be competitive. A fit player will find herself around the ball a lot. She will find herself able to provide not only support for her teammates, but also explosiveness for herself when she gets the ball. Rugby is a very physical game too. The tackling, rucking and mauling are hard on the body. Getting your face stepped on is no fun, but stepping on someone else’s face is very fun….in comparison (not that you should enjoy tap dancing on someone else’s head – hee hee). The fitter a player is, the more likely they will be prepared to have a positive impact on the game for their team; and let’s admit it, when you carry your team to victory on your back (along with a few defenders) it makes you smile handsomely! But being fit takes work and work is best accomplished with a good attitude.

The game of rugby is a psychological game. It is not only in the best interest of the player to have a strong body, but a strong sense of self as well. Can you picture yourself trampling the weak opponents? Can you picture yourself sliding on your belly into the try zone to score the winning points? Can you pick yourself up off the ground after getting run over and take it right back at the opponent even though they lead by twenty points? Mental resolve is the basis for all the other parts of rugby. If you do not have the mental resolve to train hard during the off season, then you have already conceded the season to your opponents. And anyone afraid of a little hard work is probably a quitter anyway, and how many happy quitters do you know? How many people do you know who have given their all and come up short and are still grinning ear to ear because they at least gave it their best shot and the opponent has to commend her for at least stepping on her face real well? A player with a good attitude will play just for the sake of playing, winning be damned, losing be damned, let’s just play. But besides the tactical, technical, physical and emotional challenges rugby gives us to overcome; there are the intangibles in the rugby world.

The game of rugby is it’s own lifestyle. People live for rugby. People die for rugby. Rugby players eat their dead. Rugby players celebrate the loss of their “scoring cherry” by running naked like a zulu warrior. Nothing is sacred in rugby but rugby itself. People claim magnificently that they are rugby whores. Rugby players will make friends with anyone on the sideline and always have a spare beer for another rugger. Some will even share their mates with another rugger. Rugby players do things like boat races, dead man lifts, stair surfing, prom dress games, spatula branding, human pyramids at three in the freaking morning in the neighbors yard, slip and slide try practice, choir practice – oh yeah baby – and rugby players sing!! Many a rugger has bought me a beer after the game because I impressed them with my will to smack them for cheating during the game. Rugby playe
rs are like that, and I love it!! IT. IS. FUN. And face it, it it weren’t fun, nobody would be coming back to play it. And yes that weekend in San Angelo, I zulued…on one leg…naked…on the lake shore….by firelight…drunk……enjoying the time of my life because it was FUN!