Raw passion
By Liz Barry on Apr. 15, 2009
The rugby match halts for Mike Eagle, a hulking ex-football player known as “Bunny.”
He grimaces in pain, clutching his shoulder, which juts forward at an unnatural angle. A teammate thrusts it into place, unleashing a grunt from Eagle that seems to emanate from the bowels of Hades.
Within seconds, the 29-year-old is back on the rugby pitch, slamming his body against opponents from the Virginia Military Institute’s rugby club. Haggard and sweaty, Eagle plays until the end.
“In some ways, rugby is life,” he says after the game.
“It’s a commitment. There’s always been the slogan, ‘Give blood, play rugby.’”
He dislocated his shoulder three times that match. The week before, he nursed a bruise the color of swamp muck that spanned from shin to thigh. When rugby ravages his body, he gets up again, coarsened and sustained.
Eagle is the captain of Lynchburg’s one and only rugby team: the Blackwater Rugby Football Club, also known as Rampage.
Blackwater Rugby, founded in 1997, is part of the national organization USA Rugby. They play two seasons a year, spring and fall, where they travel to matches as far away as Pennsylvania to North Carolina.
Right now, the team has about 28 players, well above the 15 required on the field, but too few to field for two fresh lines. They recruit through word-of-mouth and by approaching weightlifters at gyms.
The players run the gamut from baby-faced college students to gray-haired rugby veterans pushing 50 and 60. Some are lean and lanky like long-distance runners; others have the brawny build of linebackers.
Like Eagle, they all get nicknames. “Bunny.” “Bubbles.” “Zeus.”
Some speak of the match with a glimmer in their eyes that hovers between raw passion and borderline madness.
“It’s so hard to describe how addicting this is. Once you try it, you don’t want to play any other sport,” says 39-year-old Greg Markham, one of two coaches.
Rugby is a cross between football, soccer and wrestling. Passing, punting and tackling are all fair game in this full-contact sport where players don’t wear pads. Unlike the stop-and-go pace of football, rugby is a running-intensive sport played in 40-minute halves with few breaks.“It’s more of a mental game than people let on,” says Markham.
“On the field, you have to read and react.”
The sport gets a bad rep for bloodlust and hooliganism. But amid the tangled limbs and body pileups, it possesses grace and beauty.
And while battle scars are a rite of passage, there are rules that aim to prevent serious injuries. Only the players in possession of the ball can be tackled, and it must be done below the shoulders. Hurling an opponent face-first into the ground will quickly get a player ejected from the game.
Rugby is a sport steeped in tradition, with a distinct culture. Born in the United Kingdom, the sport has been played in the United States since 1870. It’s the precursor to American football, and even precursor to basketball, which was invented as an indoor alternative to rugby during harsh New England winters.
In recent years, the game has taken hold in Lynchburg. Saturday’s match against VMI at Central Virginia Community College attracted about 50 fans.
It’s a blustery spring afternoon, with a gray-blue sky that threatened rain but never delivered. The spectators camp out along the sidelines with lawn chairs, coolers of soda, beer and a portable grill or two for hot dogs.
Blackwater loses, and the match ends without any trips to the hospital, a relief for the moms and girlfriends in the crowd. During a notorious match against Charlottesville last fall, the ambulance was called three times. In one incident, a spectator broke his leg when a player slammed into him while running out of bounds. As the story goes, the bone’s snap was heard from across the field.
The combination of physical sacrifice and social traditions fosters strong camaraderie, which players cite as one of their favorite aspects of the sport. Some compare it to a fraternity.
Saturday’s match ends with the “Zulu,” a long-standing ritual for players who score their first try, the rugby equivalent of a touchdown. This week, two rookies are singled out for their recent scores. The players line up at the edge of the field and begin a slow clap.
They strip down, one to his skivvies, the other to his bare skin. The slow clap escalates into song.
“Hey, Zulu Warrior. Heeeeey, Zulu Warrior,” their teammates roar.
The duo runs the length of the field and back to a cacophony of hooting and hollering. Ben James, fully naked, removes his hand from his crotch in the final sprint and tops it off with a cartwheel. “I don’t think I ran that fast all game,” he says after the run, slightly winded.
Afterward, Blackwater descends upon the Corner Café, along with rival teams, VMI and Hampden-Sydney. There are no hard feelings now. Even the ref shows up.
“You go out there and beat the crap out of each other. Afterward, you hang out and party with the opposing team,” Eagle says.
The barroom, which is crammed with about 40 rugby players, smells of sweat. They drink beer and eat chicken wings and fries.
While the players eat, Markham presents the “Man of the Match” award for the day’s outstanding player.
“Every time we have a match, we want to punish a guy who has done something good,” he says.
The chanting revs up.
“Shoot the boot.
Shoot the boot,
Shoot the boot.”
A smelly, dirt-encrusted rugby cleat is passed to the center of the bar. A player pours beer inside, and the Man of the Match chugs it down, alcohol dribbling down his chin.
When he’s done, the players bellow crude songs. Beer cups sway in the air, and foes become friends in the gritty bar.
—For more information on the Blackwater Football Rugby Club, visit http://www.blackwaterrugby.com.
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