Want a more perfect union? Watch the Rugby World Cup
On Friday, the 10th Rugby World Cup will kick-off in Paris with a monumental match-up, France against New Zealand, les Bleus against the All Blacks. Like most rugby fans in Washington, and across the US, I will be watching on TV.
With my sister-in-law, who played at Dartmouth, I’ll be at the French embassy in Georgetown. We are promised a taste of “the extraordinary atmosphere found at rugby matches at French stadiums”. Lucky us. Less fortunately, the US men’s team will also watch from these shores. The Eagles failed to qualify for France, losing out to Uruguay, Chile and Portugal. Nonetheless, American sports fans who do not know rugby should consider tuning in too.
Most will see something familiar. Rugby springs from the same root as football. A rugby ball is similar in shape to a football, if slightly fatter. A rugby tackle is similar in form to a football tackle, if slightly lower. A rugby player is similar in craziness to a football player, if slightly madder.
A century ago, American rugby might have seized its moment. As American football struggled to contain the violent passions it provoked, its wilder cousin flowered. Teams full of Stanford students won Olympic gold in 1920 and 1924. But then football got its house in order, becoming the dominant pastime.
Rugby survived, in colleges and clubs, a sport for outsiders but also for future Washington giants. Bill Clinton (Oxford), George W Bush (Yale) and Joe Biden (Syracuse) played. So did James Baker (Princeton) and Ted Kennedy (Harvard). The women’s game also took hold. Ask Gina Raimondo, Biden’s commerce secretary. She has said rugby at Radcliffe was good preparation for politics.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/07/rugby-world-cup-union
I absolutely LOVE rugby! I had friends at UW-Madison who played. My granddaughter played at Tennessee. My brother played at Harvard in the soccer off-season. It's a great sport, so much more fun to watch than football.
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