Remember America's 'tavern league' era, when ill-resourced, player-coached teams contested lightly organized leagues while celebrating the cultish, borderline behavior of 20- and 30-year-olds?
These days, most do not. The game is predominated by students, most of whom weren't born at the time of its heyday in the 1980s and early 1990s. So what do we really know of the stereotype?
Jay Atkinson's 'Memoirs of a Rugby-Playing Man: Guts, Glory, and Blood in the World's Greatest Game', a well-crafted autobiography of a senior-grade player in Florida, Boston, and elsewhere, is a poignant, representative snapshot of the men who identified with rugby beyond all else.
Rugby-Playing Man's dust jacket sensationalizes its contents, but the narrative is more nuanced. As the author begins, 'There are the things we do for love, and the things we do for rugby, which are pretty much the same, at least in my case'.
To be sure, there are any number debauched adventures, some of which could still transpire today. It is one thing to revisit tales among teammates, however, and another to bring them to life -- without pandering -- for a new audience. This is a primary achievement of Atkinson's effort.
Still more interesting are recollections of how Atkinson found his home at hooker, a controversial state championship match, or a tour of Wales. Anyone who played in the era will relate. Though the book is consciously neither historical or sociological, later generations and outsiders will glimpse the game as commonly experienced.
Disgust with the tavern-league era -- homespun administrators as much as outre players -- is one explanation for American rugby's latter-day obsession with professionalizing. The union's present constitution seals the board off from the grassroots: only well-heeled capitalists need apply. Most have no affinity for American rugby culture, always a weakness for any government.
Atkinson's Rugby-Playing Man surpasses its author's narrative, portraying the good and bad of a bygone time. America's modern era, which has fallen short of its self-declared goals, will do well to find an equally skillful telling.
In this day, there was an overall better standard of senior club rugby. There were more senior rugby clubs. There were more sides and players per club.
Now we have organically grown youth and high school which is great. College has stayed roughly the same.
This USAR organization has destroyed domestic rep rugby at all levels. Senior club rugby has shrank to these levels. The top club rugby competition doesn't want sanctioning from USAR under any conditions.
It looks like we are growing like gangbusters because we didn't start counting members until 93. Now we count every kid that shows up for rookie rugby his one and only afternoon.
If we are graduating more high school age players, it doesn't matter because they have no where else to play so they leave the game.
Posted by: just sayin | 07 February 2015 at 13:47
"This USAR organization has destroyed domestic rep rugby at all levels."
And USAR has appointed one well-intentioned person to repair all the damage it spent so many years carefully creating.
"If we are graduating more high school age players, it doesn't matter because they have no where else to play so they leave the game."
And no reason other than love of the game to do so if/when they do find a club after their glory days in HS...
Posted by: Grant | 08 February 2015 at 05:27