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Thursday, March 26, 1981
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Rugby: love of blood,
sweat, fun and winning
By Rick Stolle
W Battalion Staff
hat makes a person
want to run for two 40-minute
halves, get bloody, muddy,
sweaty and tired and then go
out and have a party with the
guys that he's been trying to
beat up for an entire 80-minute
contest?
It's a sense of tradition and
camaraderie, said Bill Taute,
president of the Texas A&M
University Rugby club.
Rugby players, he said, enjoy
contact, tradition, new things
and partying. A rugby player is
someone who is willing to give
everything he has to get beat up,
bloody, hurt, sweaty and win.
They love every minute of it.
At the end of a rugby match,
players are physically ex
hausted. Sweat runs off bodies
in streams.
Bruises are a way of life in this
rough game. But rugby players
say it's all in a day's fun.
Taute said all the hard work,
rough games and long practices
The man on the
ground is often
kicked until he
releases the ball.
are worth it because of the en
joyment everyone gets out of
the game.
"Most of these guys," he
said, pointing to the players
practicing on the drill field,
"were athletes in their high
school days. They have come
out here to stay in shape and
retain the competitive edge they
had in high school."
Taute said the game makes
the players feel good because
they have to stay in shape.
"College students are noto
rious for getting out of shape
while they study," he said.
"Rugby is the way we keep in
shape."
The game requires no special
equipment or talent. Taute said
the biggest asset a rugby player
A rugby player is
someone who is
willing to give
everything he has
to get beat up,
bloody, hurt,
sweaty and win.
can have is a quick-thinking
mind.
"You ad-lib the whole time
you play rugby," he said. "Each
situation is new and you have to
think quick, should you cut up
field, pass or kick."
Practice sessions are long and
hard. Taute said they give the
team actual game-like experi
ence and preparation.
The team scrimmages among
itself at least once a week. The
club has three teams. The senior
division includes the most ex
perienced players and competes
against other club teams. The
college division competes
against other college teams and
the club has a third team that is
not recognized.
Club teams are groups that
have taken up rubgy as a hobby.
The teams play and practice in
the members' spare time and are
usually men who work during
the day and are looking for an
active hobby to keep in shape.
Taute said it is not hard to
find men 40 and 50 years old
playing for the clubs.
//'
T
A hose guys have been
playing for years and know all
the little tricks of the game,"
Taute said. "They don't have to
worry about tests or studying
either. It's a hobby and they can
spend all their spare time with
the game and practice."
The Texas A&M Rugby Team
practices Monday through
Thursday, from 5 p.m. until
dark. Mondays, Taute said, are
conditioning days. The teams
run stands and the ramps in
Kyle Field to keep the shape
they have worked so hard to get.
Rugby is a game that com
bines the roughness of Amer
ican football with the speed and
offense of soccer.
It is an old game. The first
play was in 1823 when a student
in the English borough of Rugby
picked up the ball while playing
soccer and ran with it instead of
kicking it.
In 1871, the English Rugby
Union standarized the rules of
the game.
Rugby is played with 15 play
ers: seven halfbacks and eight
forwards. The field measures
160 yards long by 75 yards wide.
The playing area is 110 yards
long with a 25 yard endzone at
each end. The backs carry the
ball down the field, passing it
from one to another behind
them.
In rugby, the ball may be kick
ed, but not passed, forward to
another teammate. The object of
the game is to try to get the ball
across the opponents' goal line.
The ball is more round than
an American football but retains
the basic shape. It is easier to
kick than an American football
and easier to pass than a soccer
ball. It is usually passed under
handed to put a good spin on
the ball for a teammate.
A try (when the ball crosses
the goal line) is worth three
points. A conversion, kicked be
tween goal posts, is worth two.
A penalty kick and a field goal
Rugby is a game of blood and sweat, where every man is
for himself when he has the ball, and plays with others
as a team to gain possession of it.
Photo by Karen Kaley
to play with only 14 players, the
team has to make up the loss.
A kick-off, when both teams
coming together to try to gain
control of the ball, is used to be
gin the game and after each
score.
Either team may control the
ball. The ball must go at least ten
yards on the kick-off. Often the
ball is kicked high in the air to try
Continued on page 5
are both worth three points
apiece.
The ball carrier may be tackled
by opponents but his teammates
may not block for him. The car
rier runs down the field and pas
ses the ball off before he gets
tackled.
Play is almost continuous in
rugby. There are no substitions.
Should a player get hurt, the
team must play short-handed
until the athlete gets back into
playing condition. If a team has
The apology that wasn't
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Staying home from a basketball game
means never having to say you're sorry — at least to the presi
dent of the University of Califomia-Los Angeles student gov
ernment.
Fred Gaines didn't attend the UCLA-University of Southern
California contest in Pauley Pavilion, so he wasn't around when
Bruin fans pulled out toy guns and shouted "Shoot, Purvis,
shoot" at USC player Purvis Miller. The chant referred to an
allegation that Miller pulled a gun on a group of USC football
players last summer.
John Sandbrook, assistant to the UCLA chancellor, was out
raged and suggested Gaines write an apology for publication in
the UCLA and USC newspapers. Gaines refused, saying he is
not qualified to apologize for activity he didn't witness or partici
pate in.
—Collegiate Medlines