University of Virginia Library

Dartmouth Coach Spells Fun,
Charm, Appeal Ruggers Enjoy

By Corey Ford

Reprinted from The Saturday Evening
Post

I happen to think that Rugby
is the answer to the creeping
professionalism which threatens
college sports today. It is strictly
a game of the players, by the
players, and for the players. The
members of the team handle their
own training, arrange their own
schedules, and run their own
matches. The college's limited budget
can offer no financial assistance.
Their shoes are cast-off
football cleats. Their playing gear
is donated by friends. They do not
even have the use of the regular
stadium, but are relegated to a
remote lower forty without scoreboard
or bleachers. And still the
popularity of this athletic stepchild
increases each year, as more
and more players desert the rigid
regimentation of other sports for
Rugger's more informal green
pastures.

Why? What is the appeal of
this game? Al Krutsch, who was
captain of Dartmouth's Ivy League
champion football team last
year and also a veteran member
of the Rugby Club, summed it
up after his return from England:
"Football is a great game, of
course, but Rugby is more like an
athletic fraternity. Here's the difference:
In football I might play
opposite the same man on the
other team for four years, and
never get to meet him. When the
game's over, he leaves from one
side of the field, and I leave from
the other. But after our Rugger
match with the Old Millhillian
side, my opponent looked me up
later, and we did London together
and grew to be good friends.
Maybe that's the real appeal. Football
is all win, win, win. Rugby
is for fun.

It is this fraternal feeling that
makes the game unique. A well
executed play will elicit cheers from
the other side, and if a player
is injured and returns to the fray,
the members of the opposition
lead the hand clapping. And when
a match is over, following another
hallowed British custom, the hosts
form a double line and applaud
their visitors off the field; the
visitors return the courtesy, after
which they all adjourn arm in
arm to share the fruits of victory,
or at least their juices.

Which is the whole meaning of
Rugby, I think and the reason that
its cleated imprints in a sand lot
or city park may mark the most
progressive step that amateur sport
has taken in many years. Sometimes,
to be sure, college athletic
authorities show a certain lack of
enthusiasm for Rugby's traditional
independence, and itch to make it
conform to their established rules.
But if its individuality is destroyed,
if it is ever regimented and controlled
like football, then its value
is gone.