Why Rugby Matters: A Personal Journey of Transformation and Community
About eight years ago, I embarked on an adventure. I’ve written pretty extensively about this elsewhere, so I won’t bore anyone with the details again here. But the scrum half-sized version is this—I was a chronically skinny avoider of all things difficult who decided in my thirties to start playing rugby.
Now this was just the latest in a string of questionable decisions I’d made over the course of my life, including ill-thought-out marriages, poor job decisions, and abysmal money management. I’m happy to say that, in this case, the choice has held up over the years. The fact that rugby has lasted longer than my first two marriages—have no fear, the third is going strong and will continue to do so—perhaps says more about me than I care to explore in this blog, but it also says a lot about the game of rugby.
A couple years ago, I set out to combine two of my great passions in life—rugby and writing. I wrote a book about American rugby culture and for that book I interviewed over five hundred clubs, individuals, and organizations all across the country and at every level of organized rugby. Don’t worry, this isn’t a book plug. I do have a point here.
In all my conversations, a few themes began to reveal themselves. One of the most prominent was, if I didn’t have rugby, I don’t know that I’d be here. It was spoken by marine vets, but members of the LGBTQ+ community, by men and women living on Indian reservations, but blue-collar dudes living in small towns, by women and men who on the outside had it all together, by former addicts, by all shapes and sizes and walks of life. And it reminded me of a simple credo I tell my players on a regular basis—this matters.
There are some fantastic blogs on The Rugby Rant. They’ll tackle great subjects within USA Rugby and MLR. I am interested in those things as well. But I want to share the stories that highlight why rugby matters to so many of us, and why it should matter to more. I hope you’ll join me, and maybe even take the opportunity to share with me why it matters to you. We all have our why, and I’m here to share those whys with you.
There’s an old curse that says, “May you live in interesting times.” We certainly live in interesting times. Polarizing times. Times of loneliness, despair, and anger. The message of rugby is one of community, hope, and reconciliation—receiving a beer at the social from the flanker who gauged you under the ruck. It’s a message we need today, and one rugby provides in abundance.
Onward.
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