Rugby Roots

Yesterday I was bouncing around some blogs and ran across one triathlete whose atheletic roots are in Rugby. Of course this sent me to thinking about my own atheletic roots. I've been in some organized sport since I was 4 or 5 years old, starting with t-ball I believe. Sport has been a vital part of my life ever since. Though I eventually became a good student in college graduating Summa Cum Laude etc... Sports were about all that kept me interested in going to high school.

However, when I reflect on my life long attachment to sport I recall with greatest fondness my time as a rugger, Rugby player that is. I played for six years for the U.S. Marine Corps and it was fantastic! During my brief Rugby career I played inside center, tight head prop, lock and even one game during the 1988 military national championships as a scrum half. I think like triathlon, Rugby is not only a sport but a complete lifestyle unto itself. However, unlike triathlon, Rugby is a pretty unsustainable lifestyle filled with a lot of physical punishment doused in beer.

Don't get me wrong, Rugby is not exactly the brutal, uncivilized sport that many think it to be, that is a cultivated immage. It's a tough sport sure, it is filled with hard hitting, hard drinking and bawdy songs but at the root of it, as we ruggers like to claim, it is a gentleman's game. It is not filled with the oversized cry baby rich kid wroship me egos of football, baseball and basketball; for the most part it is simply filled with ranks of regular people out to have a good time and I say people because it is not an exclusively male sport either, there are plenty of women's leagues out there.

So, I salute myRugby roots and leave you with a snippet of the tamest Rugby song I could locate. Rugby songs always take the form of call and answer, singer and chorus and as noted on one website, "WARNING, Rugby songs are tawdery at best!"

Cheers!

CHORUS:
I used to work in Chicago, in an old deparment store
I used to work in Chicago, but I don't work there anymore

SINGER: A woman came in for some velvet

ALL: Some velvet from the store?

SINGER: Velvet she wanted, felt she got!

ALL: Oh, I don't work there anymore!