Summer of '94
| It was 1994. I wanted to play a bit more rugby with my buddy Rob before
I left Montana to attend Graduate School in Washington, DC. I wasn't sure
if I would be able to play rugby after that summer so we disappeared every
weekend playing a mystical game often seen in enchanted forests. This game
does not usually allow the Giants of land play. This game is usually reserved
for the fairies and brownies in the world. But this was my last shot at rugby.
Maggotfest Missoula, MT See Maggotfest in Montana Rugby stories from the Stories link. Rob and I started contacting 15s players we knew, to get the base 7 we needed to play 7s. Sean, my hooker and IB #6, agreed to play. We then got a few of the backs that played 15s. The old timers said they were unable to play due to requirements on the golf courses. So we had 10 veterans of 15s. We then started recruiting. We found our foreign exchange students key in this respect. Stas and Oleg, 2 Russian exchange students took the challenge of playing Rugby. Both were fantastic athletes and they fared well in the game of Rugby. We also picked up Yoji, the Japanese scrum half that just transferred to the US. His Kamikaze skills and 2 pack of cigarette a day habit would keep us in stitches all summer. STATE TOURNAMENT: HELENA MONTANA The Helena All Blues, coming off one of their worst seasons ever, were to host the state tournament. I hadn't played since Maggofest 2 weeks before, but I found myself on my way to the pitch the Thursday before the tournament and ran into my good buddy Rob. Rob, who was from San Diego, had stayed for the summer to work and take some classes. It was the first time I had any of my college buddies around for the summer and I knew it would mean one crazy summer. That day I had been "FIRED" from my day job. My boss had requested I work on Saturday. I told him I was unable and that when he hired me I told him I needed that Saturday off. He said, either you work or you are fired. I was not about to miss the State Tournament, so...I walked out. Asshole. So that night I was down and out. I needed a job for the summer and knew my fiance would not like my news. And as would have it, a rugby mate stepped up. "JT, you need a job?" Sure I replied. "Well you can come work at the moving company, pays $8 an hour." That was $2 more an hour than I had been making. Great. I had a job. That meant the next night we would go out hard. A bunch of rugby guys went out drinking and ended up at JDs Night Club. THE ONLY DANCE CLUB in town. The door guy used to play rugby with us and didn't pay attention to anyone's IDs including Rob's. Rob was 19. We spent some time smoozing the door guys a bit that night and made sure they all remembered him and then started drinking. Rob and I had planned on camping out at the field and got a wild hair to Spray paint our mascot in the try zones. We didn't want to spend our own money, so we walked up to everyone in the bar, explained that we were hosting the state tournament and had planned on going out and spray painting the team mascot on the field. We walked out of the bar around midnight with $28 in change and singles. We got Rob's tent, all our supplies and headed to the pitch. We picked up a few cans of paint and some beer and decided it would be best to paint the pitch the next day. When we woke up and went to work painting the pitch. A few team showed up and we chatted a bit. The field actually looked good for the drought stricken state and the teams were quite impressed. My father, who I had volunteered to tend the grill and concession stand showed up and we talked for while. This would be his first rugby event. He soon would grow to like the sport more and more, til one day many years later I would catch him proudly wearing my Helena All Blues jacket. Cheers to papa. The tournament went terrible. Our Front row, Samson and Sean Bray and I were all completely hung over. Our Captain berated us the entire game (as if the 3 of us loss the entire game...final score 48-0). We started drinking and by the time the party was to start, we had my father drive us to the party. The Blues in typical fashion found the farthest point away from town to have the party and it was sparsely attended. The Blues Old boys were there in force, however. They were singing songs and partying. Jumbo, the affectionare nickname of my college gridiron defensive coordinator, was there too. He was a powerful lock. 6'9" 350. On one of his first plays of the game he took a boot to the eye and left with about 10 stitches. That night I teased him about his eye and he made fun of the big blue poobah hat I had recently gotten at maggotfest. I also teased him about his rugby nickname. The old boys referred to this bohemoth of a lock as Pinky. We finally caught a ride back downtown and spent the final hours of the day drinking in the empty night club of JDs. The tournament was a success. The team raked in a few thousand and my father was presented with a beer mug: Montana Rugby Union. Since my club had hosted the State Tournament and with limited new players out the seasons prior, recruiting became a priority. I convinced the teams forefathers to allow me to use the newly raised funds to build a team using the 7s season and gain more players. It worked. COBRAs RFC Helena, MT and Bozeman, MT We played several 7s match vs the COBRAs (City of Bozeman Rugby Assn.) and lost most matches, but won a couple. Both Stas and Oleg scored tries that day. Stas and Oleg both seemed pretty sure of themselves entering the match. Their story can be found on the Russian Rugby Stories page . We went out that night and partied hard. The Russians brought their lovely Russian women, who were a huge hit in their tiny bikinis (we partied out by the lake.) Weeks later we were to play COBRAs in Bozeman. Rob and I tried to round up the players on Friday night, but found only 2 girls we knew from college and Stas. We departed for Bozeman with 2 cases of beer at 2 AM and with Rob's trusty tent. After camping out on some strangers lawn, we attempted to find the pitch, but got lost and headed back to Helena. 3s wouldn't be that much fun anyways, we figured. Dutton Days Dutton, MT Our next match was Dutton Days 7s. Dutton is a small cow town in central Montana. Population, about 550. A couple of Dutton graduates went to college, found rugby and throw a tournament each year on their cities "Founder Day" festival. For 3 days, the town has parades, street dances, fireworks, and cheap beer. And each Saturday, most of the town would fill the small High school stadium and watch rugby. They had no clue what they were watching, but they cheered. It was lots of fun. Well, we brought the Russians and Yoji to this cow town party. Our numbers were down severely. We had 6 and one was to join us the next day (Saturday). So we partied Friday night hard. Yoji got very drunk and decided he would sleep in the middle of the street. During the street dance. Jim Lessig, IB 92, a guy that I had met 5 years earlier during the State Grid Iron All Star game and partied with afterwards, teased our foreigners, but felt a brotherhood even with these foreigners and carried Yoji to the sidewalk and put him down on a picnic table. He went back out on the street to dance and again passed out in the middle of the dance. After the dance ended and everyone started going back to their tents, we found Yoji still passed out on the street.....nearly stomped to death...damn country line dances. We helped him to his feet...he threw up, but saved his cigarette and re-lit it and walked with us. He was not in the mood to play rugby the next day. We played in front of a big crowd the next day and lost all of our matches. A new recruit we picked up, Mike Moe, IB 89, scored his first try in his first game. After the matches, we all found ourselves wandering back towards the bars for beer. We met a few local girls, watched the fireworks, drank a lot more beer and Jim Lessig and I sang rugby songs on stage at one of the bars. We also met a group of Kiwis traveling across country who were trying to tell us that League is a much superior sport than Union. I stole the bands tambourine that night and was annoying everyone around my tent by pounding on it all night. In the morning, Jim Lessig was pounding on it as he was driving away from the camp site.....I saw him disappear around the corner and that was the last I ever saw of my tambourine, not the man....Jim was around all summer and years later at Maggotfest when I was with the Highlanders. Democracy Days, Kalispel, MT We had planned on entering a side, but instead, we ended up with 10 guys (this was a 15s tournament) and we just decided to whore the entire weekend. We departed in Yoji's car with Oleg, Rob, and I as passengers. Rob and I plugged a watermelon with Everclear and we drank the high octane melon and consumed many beers. We arrived in Kalispel and drove directly to Moose's Saloon. We found several teams all drinking and carrying on. Our clan was instantly recognized when we entered due to my big blue poobah hat. Rob wore a plastic green bowler hat from St Patrick's day. We drank many more beers, when Oleg joined us asking to borrow Rob's hat. The bar closed and we found Oleg saying goodbye to a pretty girl....wearing Rob's hat. Rob instantly objected, but Oleg defended his decision to give her his hat by saying, "I think she liked me. She wanted your hat, and she looks better in it." I guess the whole communal thing from the Soviet Union had not left his grasp yet. We got to the pitch and started to set up our tent. The half eaten alcohol saturated melon had fallen in Yoji's car and had created a terrible mess. When we tried to clean it out, we ended up just throwing pieces of watermellon outside the car. After a few hours of trying to set up the tent in the dark, drunk, arguing, we climbed into our tent. The next day we found chunks of the broken watermelon under our tent. We moved our tent and found the rest of our guys. The guys split up and whored with several clubs. I ended up playing with Banff RFC, while Mike Moe (a rookie to rugby) played with the COBRAs. Mike was still wearing the COBRAs jersey when he got to our camp site. I quickly told him to stow it in his car (to steal it.) Later I went into his car and stole it from him. There is no honor among thieves I explained to him later. Several of our other mates were scattered around the tourney and we all met at the end of the night around the big fire and sang rugby songs and drank beer til the wee hours of the morning. A team from California brought several new verses of the S&M Man, one of which I memorized to use as my own. Who can take Bill Clinton, rip off his jeans, lock him in a room with Homosexual marines? The S&M man.....etc. I ended up talking to a girl most of the night along with a random rugger from California. We discussed childhood memories (ie the Sit and Spin, the Green Machine, and other toys, cartoons and television shows from our youth. The girl and I wandered off and we shared a bottle of Cold Duck (Andre's $3 Champagne). After some idle chit chat, she went off to her tent and I decided to go for a naked run around the pitch (for no reason other than I was drunk.) I ended up passing out near my tent with my rugby shorts on and a tent cover for a blanket. Our rookie had less of a splendid night. His ride was the team tag along. He had run into us several times at the bar and became a supporter. He volunteered to give Mike a ride up to Kalispel and then told him that while in the Marines he had contracted Aids. He must have regretted telling him, because he was very isolated the rest of the weekend. Yoji and Oleg had left Saturday night, which meant we had to ride with the guy back to Helena. He seemed very depressed and drived like a mad man. That was the last time any of us ever saw him. All in all, another fun weekend of rugby. The final story about 7s rugby was an interesting mix of Friday night drinking and silly Saturday rugby. Big Sky State Games Billings, MT We left for Billings for the Big Sky State Rugby games. We lied to our club President and told him we had 8 guys traveling. Really, we had 3. We wanted one last party and figured if worse came to worse, we could find whores or not play at all. We drove my car to Billings and were trying to save money (for gas) by not using the AC. This was a mistake. While Montana is known for its cold winters, it also has some very warm summers. We finally broke down and went in comfort for the final 2 hours of the trip. Along the way, we felt obligated to write our own team rugby song. We used a song from a CD we were listening to and just changed the words. "My scrum half and your scrum half, siting my a fire, my scrum half told your scrum half, 'gonna kick your ass tomorra', talking about Hey now, Hey now, Hey now, Hey now, Iko Iko." Needless to say our little drunken opera never made it to stage and I don't recall ever singing it other than in the car on the way. Because I was driving, I decided that I wasn't going to stop for Rob to piss. He was almost in tears when we finally stopped. We all ran for the bathrooms and made such a comotion, we happen to get the attention of 2 officers in the gas station. We pretended to be sober and got back in our cars scared shitless of being busted. We made it though. We arrived in Billings around 8 p.m. and went directly to Magoos, the Billings Bulls home. We ran into most of the rugby guys we saw all year there. Lessig, while he played for COBRAs, was from Billings and he agreed to let us camp in his mothers yard. We drank and drank and drank all night long. Before too long it was getting very late. I remember telling Mike and Rob to come back for me and then sitting talking to a bunch of people. Well last call came and went. I was standing in front of the bar with a full pitcher of beer and no ride. I only had $3 to my name. I wandered aimlessly (somehow in the right direction) until I reached some generic 7/11 (Suzee's Quickie Mart and Pump). I startled the pimply faced kid at the register, who was not prepared to see a drunk prop at 3 AM carrying an empty beer pitcher and wearing a big blue grand poobah hat (that I had gotten at Maggotfest only weeks before...see 94 Maggotfest ). He agreed to sell me 8 hot dogs (he was just about to toss them in the trash) for $2 and a bottle of water, which marked the first time in my life I had ever bought water from a store. I walked the remaining 2 miles to the pitch and slept under a picnic bench until my team arrived the next day. If it were not for the beer, 8 hot dogs, and the big blue poobah hat, I surely would have died that night. Wes Clark, owner of the Rugby Readers Review , upon reading this, commented that he was surprised I did survive after my rations of beer and hot dogs. I woke up to two guys poking me with stick. "Hey rugger...is this the rugby field." I woke up and met 2 members of the Colorado State University 7s side. They had recently won the National title or taken 2nd (not sure) and were playing random tournaments in the west. They had lost about 5 players on the way up to Billings from Ft Collins and were planning on not playing. What a perfect coincidence. We joined forces, but still ended up losing in the end. We partied with our new friends, drank lots of beer, stole a couple of their jerseys and ended up stealing the Bulls' keg and putting it in the CSU van and driving off with it to drink it in peace. We passed out that night and that ended my 7s life. Well, other than a random game or two (I actually scored my first try in a 7s match while playing with a team from Ontario after moving to DC). I would never be able to look at the game again. Much too
serious for being so short of a game. A game, where the shorter time
favor the big guy.....but the lack of mobility kills him. No, I will leave
7s to the glamour boys. |