The Chicago Lions women's rugby team, in black, playing the Minnesota Valkyries. |
The Rugby World Cup is being played right now in Japan. You are forgiven if you didn’t know; rugby occupies one of the lower rungs of American sports consciousness, somewhere below soccer but above cricket.
Rugby is also being played right now in Chicago, including a day-long celebration on the West Side last Saturday, as the Chicago Lions Charitable Association — the Lions have played rugby in Chicago since 1964 — unveiled its new J. Tyke Nollman Field at Chicago Hope Academy.
The action began shortly after 8 a.m., with younger players — organized rugby starts at age 4 — gathering to practice on the special shock-absorbing artificial turf.
Among them, Keandre Bates, 14, from West Garfield Park, who has played rugby for four years.
“It’s a challenge at most times. Rugby is really tough,” said Bates. “It just makes football look for little babies. You have to pass backward.”
“It’s the greatest game out there,” agreed Mike Inman, of North Center, who brought his son Sullivan, 10. “For somebody likes Sullivan, loves to be active, to be out there, tackle, and run, and do it all, this is a great sport for him. At this level they’re just kids running around being kids.”
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A rugby scrum is actually a carefully-structured event. |
We would play tackle football with no equipment before wisdom entered our lives. Even with helmets, brains are scrambled in today's game. Where does rugby stand among contributors to concussion syndrome? Yes it is fun and the contact is supposedly an outlet for aggression but is this a healthy endeavor, overall? An Englishman once told me that rugby was a ruffians game played by gentlemen, but soccer was a gentleman's game played by ruffians. But with all that contact and aggression, tempers must flare and unsportsmanlike blows are surely struck, even by gentlemen.
ReplyDeleteTo me the rugby scrum looks like a combination of a bar fight and an orgy.
ReplyDeleteThanks for describing the non-apparent intricacies of the scrum. I love the drop kick, but not sure what they're aiming at.
john
Great story. You get to visit some real cool places.
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