Confession of an American Rugby Addict
I’ve got a problem.
There was a time in my life when bars were synonymous with the night. That was before the addiction, before the cravings – back then, I didn’t even know what a rugby field looked like.
Yes, it’s a tangled lot you’ll meet here on a Saturday morning – like a theme park for Anglophiles. The only thing more colorful than the accents are the incessant chants and taunts they frame. Bellowing together like a drunken choir, we sing our discontent or celebrate our victories. Yes, we’ve all got a problem. We all love rugby.
Of course, it’s only a problem because we live in the United States. Here we’re at the mercy of time zones and satellite television. If I’m drinking at nine in the morning, it’s only because the Six Nations tournament starts at two in the afternoon, Greenwich Mean Time. If I find myself in a pub at all, it’s only because no other establishment bothers to cover the games. Hell, I’d go to church if they would only set up a live feed.
That I have never been a sportsman makes the scene all the more unlikely. I was raised, for the most part, in the United States, and I have my obligatory favorites – the Forty-Niners (born in San Francisco), the Trail Blazers (lived in Portland), the Yankees (college in New York City). Right now I’d have trouble naming three players from all three teams combined – and I certainly wouldn’t lose some Saturday morning slumber to worry about their shifting fortunes. While I gave American sports an honest chance to captivate me, they were never quite up to the task.
There’s a pusillanimous character about our sports, a frustrating fixation upon every second. Those last two minutes of basketball stretch into an eternity as fouls suddenly become a legitimate strategy; a valuable (albeit desperate) measure for the offenders to battle that third contender, the clock. What a perversity – and what a lurching pace the game takes as players ration their seconds like misers over gold coins.
That same tottering pace would be apparent in American football, were it not viewed through the lens of modern sports broadcasting. The action moves forward like a car with a broken clutch; a sudden heave and an abrupt stop. The television screen promptly fills with flashy graphics, myriad statistics and mindless commentary that serves to distract the viewer from the spectating equivalent of whiplash. Watching football on television isn’t sport, it’s sports entertainment. Yet it’s still more interesting than football alone.
How different it is to watch a rugby game. Here the clock takes a backstage to the action; nothing barring a severe injury will stop it. There are no parsimonious time-outs. The clock does not signal the end of the game – only the referee has that power. After eighty minutes of play, the losing team is allowed to finish their last-ditch efforts for the goal without the added burden of having to battle the clock simultaneously. The action flows like a river, continuous and dynamic. Watching the team lines and formations becomes hypnotic. Both offense and defense are constantly moving with the ball, relentlessly in motion. One begins to have an eye for how those fifteen men are situated, their density and position; like watching a line of pawns in a rapid game of chess, one seeks out the weaknesses and advantages as they evolve. After such a spectacle, American football seems as static as a ball and chain.
My move to New Zealand proved to be the catalyst for my rugby obsession. In this small country of four million, rugby is the national sport – it could be called the national passion, if there only was such a thing. Though diminutive in population, the kiwis often dominate the international rugby scene against much larger opponents. England, France, Italy, Australia, Ireland, South Africa – all have lost to New Zealand just last year. Here in America, we’re deprived of the spectacle of truly international sports competitions, at least among our most popular sports, and I have come to realize how truly robbed we all are by this arrangement. Here we speak our own sporting language, self-contained and introverted to the world. We have to wait four years for the Olympics to swell with national pride, to participate within the international community. Instead, we have World Series and Super Bowls by ourselves, like some inside joke.
All of this ran through my head as I watched New Zealand take to the rugby field, my inaugural experience viewing an international rugby game. They call themselves the “All Blacks” on account of their uniform – a black shirt with black shorts – unique among the colorful uniforms displayed by most rugby teams. Taking to the field and facing the opposition, New Zealand begins every international match by staging the Haka, a traditional war dance of the native Maori. It is an impressive display to say the least, a performance likely to induce chills among the uninitiated. It is a reflection of the greater culture that has grown up around rugby, as well as an intense supplement to the excitement of international competition within a universal sport. Those kiwis taking the field earn five-figure incomes by U.S. standards; twenty years ago, most of the national players still had day jobs. They played then, as now, because representing New Zealand in international rugby is considered one of the highest honors available, and certainly not for multimillion dollar contracts. It is a refreshing difference in motivation that becomes apparent on the field.
If we rugby fans come close to canonizing rugby, it is a manifestation of our shared fervor. Contagious, yes, but not unwarranted. It is a enthusiasm that does not stop at a particular team or country, but extends over the entire sport. It is a culture that transcends national borders and foreign accents. We all love rugby.
Coming back to the states brought these thoughts home for me. These days I can’t complain too much. New York City has something for everyone, even the ardent rugby fan. My weekly pilgrimages have taught me that my fascination with rugby was more than the context in which I viewed it. I’m still making the effort to see the games. I am a sportsman. But after all, who doesn’t have problems?
