Give Blood---Play Rugby

The World Cup of rugby is going on right now. Ahh, the glory days. I played for a number of years back when. We had a club team at Gustavus Adolphus College; then, after graduation, a bunch of us who were still around the Twin Cities started a team called the Metro Rugby Club.

When I started playing none of us were really up on the exact rules or intricacies of the game. Basically we knew that if some guy on the other team had the ball, you would hit him as hard as you could; and, if you had the ball, some guy would try and hit you as hard as he could, unless you got off a lateral or kicked it. Basically, we'd go nuts on the other team, and when the ref blew the whistle, we'd stop and wait for him to tell us what was going to happen next. We did grasp the game after a while, and had a great time playing. Not only was it fun hitting people as hard as you could, without wearing pads; but, after the game, the home team bought the keg, and you drank arm-in-arm and sang songs with some guy you just tried to annihilate a short time before.

Alas, my rugby playing days came to an end on the fields at Fort Snelling during a tournament. I got wholloped waiting for kicked ball to fall into my arms (no fair catches) and had a sterno-clavicular dislocation. I can't remember what happened the next season, but I didn't play again.

See the guy who's having his neck broken in this picture, #2, does anybody know the name of the position that this guy plays?

See this physical specimen with the grimace, see the arms on that guy; well, believe it or not, back in my prime, when I was playing, my legs looked exactly like that.