How come rugby club gets the wet, smelly field?

Byline: Wyatt Kirby For The Register-Guard

EDITOR'S NOTE: Before the new 20Below News Team takes the steering wheel for this school year, we'll be publishing stories from the entire pool of applicants in the next few weeks. Here's one we particularly enjoyed.

My name is Wyatt, and I'm a rugger. No, I don't work in the carpet business. I'm a rugger - someone who plays rugby - and proud of it.

Rugby is not an American sport. It traces its roots to God only knows where in England, and it is assumed that only the large and masochistic play it. They don't.

My name is Wyatt, and I'm a 5-foot-4-inch, 118-pound rugger. Not the carpet kind.

You see, the problem with playing an unknown and under-appreciated sport, especially one that many assume requires insanity, is that when it comes to turf, field, practicing space, I get the shaft.

This is the case not only with rugby, but with almost every club sport.

It takes someone of dedication to carry through with a sport no one appreciates. If your school is like mine, it might have several fields dedicated to sports. Club sports usually get one field. The bad one.

The other sports have no problem reminding us of their importance - their place as the "American Pastime," for instance - and how our sport is for the mentally mis-wired.

Those sports sometimes hog more than one field, leaving us, the rugby club, the ultimate Frisbee team, the women's lacrosse team and let's not forget petanque, on the muddy, puddle-filled abyss that is club sport territory.

While we practice tossing our rugby balls around, we also dodge Frisbees, those hard little rubber things lacrosse players use and the ocassional misfired javelin from another field. We also get a fair dose of mud wrestling.

Given the weather in Oregon, a fair amount of water is expected to fall on any given field much of the year.

Most fields have a crown, raised in the middle like an umbrella so excess water runs off to the sides.

But our field is not any given field. Water collects in the middle, and the resulting smell has prompted the question of whether we play above a septic tank.

We also have two resident ducks (and they're not college students). Rolled ankles, intersport collisions and spa-like facial treatments are common on our field.

Then, there's the equipment.

Before every game, we must construct the uprights used in rugby. Ours are built of PVC pipe and duct tape, and in years past, wood and nails.

Club sports represent not only those students who enjoy less orthodox games, but also those who are unable to pay the exorbitant fees for more traditional games.

But our freethinking nature, our enjoyment of less mainstream activities and our willingness to participate in much needed physical activity are no reasons to be punished.

Our underfunded recreation may not bring in school revenue. It may not end up sending us on to multimillion dollar careers that bring fame to our school and leave generations whispering our hallowed names in the halls (``He played here ...'').

But that's not what high school sports, and certainly not club sports, are about.

We'll take your lousy field, and we'll deal with the five other sports playing on it, but only because we have nowhere else to go. My name is Wyatt, and I'm a rugger. And I have no idea why your shag carpet has changed colors.

Wyatt Kirby is a senior at South Eugene High.