Rugbygate

Back in college, I played club league volleyball.

Club league as in not varsity. We had some pretty good players, but nobody was under the illusion that we were an official, varsity team.

Our league had nothing to do with the NAIA, to which Eastern College's varsity teams belonged. And it had nothing to do with the NCAA teams that our rivals Temple and Villanova fielded in other sports.

Still, it was great fun. The league included club teams from Eastern, Cabrini, Haverford, Swarthmore, Villanova, Temple, Lehigh, Penn State (Delco) and Montgomery County College.

Montco was actually the league powerhouse due to the fearsome Shlosser. I don't know if I ever learned his first name, but the man could crush a volleyball. After getting six-packed by him in one game, I had the word "Mikasa" imprinted backwards on my chest. It was still legible the next day.

And but so anyway it turns out that club league sports are something I have in common with our president. George W. Bush played a season of club league rugby while at Yale.

I learned this (via Cursor) from Jerome Doolittle, who also reports that, according to presidential adviser Karen Hughes, the president likes to, well, embellish a bit when describing his college athletic career. He cites this from a book review of Hughes' Ten Minutes from Normal:

A strange anecdote about Vladimir Putin's interest in Bush's college days seems to be included so Hughes can mention Bush's underappreciated athleticism: "'President Putin knew you had played rugby, but he didn't have the context. I mean you just played for one semester in college, right?' I said, dismissing it.

"'I played for a year,' the president corrected me, 'and it was the varsity.'"

Doolittle offers this correction:

... The underappreciated athlete couldn't have played varsity rugby because there wasn't any varsity. Because rugby was a club sport.

Now, okay, this isn't that big a deal. I'm not even sure it's a little deal. But the fact is the guy played a bit of intercollegiate intramurals and he likes to tell people that it was more than that -- that he played Ivy League varsity.

That's kind of smarmy and less than admirable, but whatever.

Still, consider the kind of treatment this story would be getting if it were John Kerry, rather than George W. Bush, who was caught lying about his athletic resume.

Mickey Kaus would latch onto the story for at least a week, interpreting it as a deeply meaningful and revealing metaphor -- maybe even a "synecdoche." Mickey would begin referring to it through some semi-clever nickname -- "Rugbygate" -- and Slate would publish day after day of his explorations of all the deplorable things such a story might indicate about the senator's character. (All of which would be more substantial than the confused trivialities Kaus has recently been peddling on Microsoft's dime.)

But don't expect Kaus or the other Heathers to even notice George W. Bush's embarrassing exaggerations of his boozy semester on the rugby field. The standards they apply are not equal.

Oh, one more thing for the record. Eastern's club team faced off against Yale's volleyball club team in one tournament at 'Nova's Nevin Fieldhouse. We kicked their butts.

Comments

[asdf]

Good point, Fred. To which I would add that the Yale Rugby Club does a lot more drinking than anything else. They bring kegs for post-game fun, IIRC.

[Kate Nepveu]

Don't _all_ rugby clubs do a lot more drinking than anything else?

[Kamilah]

That's part of rugby culture. The home team has a party for the away team after the game. Food is served. After at least one 80 minute game (and possibly more if your team has multiple sides), you need food, and the host team is responsible for providing it.

For most clubs, alcohol is involved along with other rugby traditions like singing, skits, bonding events for the rookies. For the few varsity sides in the country and for nerdier schools like my alma mater, post-game events tend to be dry.

[Stack]

"'I played for a year,' the president corrected me, 'and it was the varsity.'"

Doolittle offers this correction:

... The underappreciated athlete couldn't have played varsity rugby because there wasn't any varsity. Because rugby was a club sport.

I like how this follows roughly the same form as Bill O'Reilly's "Hey Inside Edition was a respected show! We won a Peabody! Two Peabodies! Well, actually a Polk but it's all the same!" lie. I expect if he had been talking to someone not part of the administration, the conversation would have ended with "SHUT UP SHUT UP CUT HIS MIC!"

[emptywheel]

Guys,

I'm all about slamming Bush as much as the next person. But I think you're making a big deal out of nothing.

I played (women's) rugby in college (including, at times, against Yale). There was no Varsity Rugby, correct. But that's because there's no such thing as varsity rugby. All over the country, the top level you can play in college is club. In fact, quite a few schools (including Dartmouth, Stanford, and Berkeley--which, when I played--allowed its varsity football players to play rugby in the off-season, although I believe that practice has ended as Berkeley's football has gotten better) play in the Club league against post-collge club teams. This means you've often got "club" rugby players playing against the very best rugby players in the country.

On my college team, we recruited heavily from the varsity teams. My senior year, for example, we had the two fastest sprinters off the track team, the best tennis player in the school (and nationally ranked), the former keeper off the soccer team. They played rugby because, in our little school, at least, rugby was a much more competitive sport than anything else.

Now I don't doubt Bush drank a lot while playing rugby. But if he actually played, he played a very strenuous sport. Then he drank a lot. (You get pretty beat up playing rugby, so the beer does have its medicinal value.)

[random]

I concur with emptywheel. There is no such thing as 'varsity' rugby anywhere as far as I know. The Ivies would be the most likely to field such a sport, and they don't have 'varsity' rugby.

There are similar wierd things in other college sports, especially in the Ivy-esque geography. I can plausibly say that I rowed in Division I Varsity Crew, but it was the Lightweight division, men's crew was the only Div. 1 sport (without the scholarships, budget, etc.) at MIT, and only the first boat (8 guys) was called the 'varsity' and most of the time I was in the 2nd boat. Furthermore, though MIT is an Eastern Sprints school, and thus in the toughest league in the country, we usually got roundly trounced. But there's something oddly invigorating about getting trounced by the best.

[asdf]

I think the point is more about Kaus than Bush, to be honest. About the ridiculous nature of these types of attacks.

[JP]

Ah! I get it! You're a Campolo-ite!

Great blog, by the way. Just discovered it recently. I should hang out here more often.

[eek]

There is such a thing as "varsity" rugby. My cousin plays on the Cal team.

http://calbears.collegesports.com/sports/m-rugby/sched/cal-m-rugby-sched.html

[Paul Orwin]

In most collegiate clubs, there is first side and second side rugby, which correlates to varsity and j.v., roughly. When two clubs meet, they have a first side game, and then seconds, which may include some first side guys if the teams are short (15 players per side, so 30-35 players total is a lot for a sport with a limited pool). I played at Claremont, and briefly at the U. of Minnesota, and this was the rule at most places. Some schools may well even call it varsity rather than first side, although it is technically a club (otherwise we couldn't drink so much, apparently).

Also, from my perspective, GWB seems like way to much of a wuss to play rugby (can't help myself there!)

[Willoughby]

Please. He went out and cheered the other guys on. He had previous experience as a cheerleader, after all. Can you imagine Dubya's punk ass on a rugby pitch? He'd get broken.

[Inside Center]

He must have been a Forward. Not bright enough to be a Back.

[flanker]

He must have been a back. He's too much of pretty boy to hang with the forwards.

[asdf]

Nicely done, Fred.

[Brian McCormick]

Main Entry: var·si·ty
Pronunciation: 'vär-s&-tE, -stE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -ties
Etymology: by shortening & alteration from university
Date: 1646
1 : British : UNIVERSITY
2 a : the principal squad representing a university, college, school, or club especially in a sport b : REGULAR 1d