Rugby: An Elegant Violence
By Charles Spickert (and Others)
In 1823 B.E. (Before Ellis) everyone played a traditional game called soccer. But for one student, William Ellie, of Rugby College in England, the game brought nothing but frustration. His inability to control a soccer ball brought out the spirit that gave O.J. Simpson a rushing record. With a fine disregard for the rules, he picked up the round, rolling ball and, bulling his way through the bewildered opposition, drove into the enemy’s net for a score. From that time onwards, a new set of rules was established for what is now known as Rugby Football.
Eventually football, with its narrower field, fewer men, stoppage in play and Howard Cosell, evolved from rugby. But by early 1900 football, with the flying wedge, butting, etc,, leading to several deaths, had become dangerous. President Teddy Roosevelt, an old scrummer himself, decreed that either steps be taken to open up the game or he would abolish It.
Walter Camp suggested the expansion of the football playing area (100 x 53 yards) back to rugby-field size (110 x 75 yards). However, Harvard had just built its new concrete stadium stands right up close to the sidelines in 1903. Expansion of its field was impossible. The forerunner of the NCM Rules Committee, reluctant to force Harvard to conduct major renovation of the stadium immediately following its erection, kept the field area the same but made a few other changes, Including the forward pass. Thus, football and Harvard Stadium were preserved.
Basically, rugby is similar to American football, right down to the tackling, but with a number of exceptions. There is no padding, and the attire in which they play frequently doesn’t make it to the end, no forward passing or blocking for the ball-carrier, no time-outs (there are two 40-minute halves), no substitutions, and no Monday night television. But there are elements of just about everything, including what appears to be mass mayhem.
There are 15 men, compared to 11 in football, and the field is longer and wider. Scoring Is similar to football - a touchdown, or “try”, worth 4 points; a kicked conversion (2 points); a penalty kick, much like a field goal (3 points); and a “dropped goal”, simply a 3-point field goal by drop-kick.
Successful rugby requires teamwork, strategy and stamina. Rugby is a tough, intensively physical game and has been aptly described as “a hooligan’s game played by gentlemen.” It is at the same time, the most social of games, and tradition calls for two teams, who minutes before may have battled bitterly on the field, to share a keg and a song afterwards. Like any sport at all worth one’s energy and time, it is, quite simply, played for its own sake.
