question authority – yars

By my mid twenties I had been playing rugby for eight years and was a fixture on the A-team. Once after an injury, broken wrist, or maybe one of my five shoulder separations I was running with the B-team to get my fitness back. A new fellow just out of college with a long pony tail and attitude to match was running my position on the B-squad so I ran outside center next to him.

In Tuesdays practice we sprinted up and down the field in our unopposed lines he continually tried this cute little move. I mentioned that wouldn’t work in an A-game since it took too long to develop and he might try and alternative move. He glared at me and muttered something along the lines of who did I think I was anyway.

Well Thursdays practice found me back on the A-side and marking him in the scrimmage of A-team vs B-team. Every time he tried that little stutter step I hit him as hard as I could. I piledrove him into the grass at Forest Hills park over and over. We never said a word, but this was A-game intensity. I viewed it as an exercise of Pavlovian extinction of undesirable behavior. Whenever he returned to it, I planted him. By the end of the scrimmage the ball was flowing quickly to the wing with no cute moves.

Funny thing is he and I later shared many a brew and hour discussing the finer things in life, like footwork receiving a pass, or the value of the passive tackle and he went on to become an excellent player, far exceeding me.

The morals: Unsolicited advice is rarely acted upon or accepted, and it’s OK to question authority, but sometimes authority might just thump your ass.

YARS – yet another rugby story

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