The suggested topic for today’s post is to share my favorite sports to watch and play. Given my age and physical condition, playing sports is not totally out of the question, but so far, I have not come under the spell of the “Pickle Ball” craze, and I gave up golf some time ago because of its time-consuming nature.
I loved the game. Still, taking most of a day out of my week to chase a little white ball around a 6,000-foot course seemed selfish given my other responsibilities and commitments. I still love the game and watch the pros play on television as often as possible.
I am also a big fan of football, baseball, and many Olympic sports. I don’t often pay the price to see any of those events in person, but I watch them, especially the playoff games. To wrap this little bit of sharing up, I admit my favorite sport to play was one I seldom watch on television.
That sport was rugby. I say it was because rugby is not a sport for someone who exited his 60s several years ago. As for why I don’t watch rugby on television, it is because I am spoiled, I suppose. Part of the rugby experience is being on the sidelines, watching the sweat fly, and hearing the grunts and groans of contact.
The other part was the nature of amateur rugby, which I played for over twenty years. It was like playing with family. In those days, at least, my rugby club was an extension of my family. My daughters were raised watching me play and knowing all my teammates. Even today, almost three decades after I retired from rugby, getting together with my old mates is like a family reunion.
If you’d like to know more about my rugby family, check out “Nostalgically Speaking: Blood, Sweat, and Beer” or “Blood, Sweat and Beer.” BS&B was my first post on my rugby family. It was published in 2012 and is a bit long. Still, it will give you some insight into rugby and what kind of guy I am.
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I learned at a very young age that I was not destined to be “athletic.” I hit puberty and the knees went to hell. Even in elementary school, I didn’t have the stamina to even do the “600 walk-run” thing we were subjected to. I am talented at bringing up the rear. My mother, apparently, liked tennis, for some reason and decided to give me tennis lessons. I was in 5th grade and could have cared less. The art lessons, I enjoyed. She did not like swimming but, I lucked out on lessons in the 4th grade. I did turn out to be a good water kid but, diving was retarded.
I have a maternal uncle that loves golf. It puts me to sleep.
I did turn out to be a decent dancer. Shagging was fun. I could march (band). Played flute for a short time and I sing pretty well (not exactly sporting, tho…).
What is the difference between rugby & soccer? There is a third one but, I can’t remember the name.
My young ahteltic life was just the opposite. My dad had a bad experience in high school and decided football, baseball, etc. were stupid. My brother and I were not allowed to participate in organized athletic acitivities. Dad did try golf later on, and we played some, but he didn’t like competition. Golf went the way of everything else, other than hunting, shooting, and chasing young women. I played some sand-lot ball and what have you occassionally, and the school coaches were all trying to recruit me. I found rugby through a friend. I was 28, and had no idea what it was. Then he said it was sort of a cross between soccer and football, and the home team furnished the beer after a match.
The third sport you’re like thinking about is Crickett. Rugby came out of soccer, and the easiest way to explain it is think of it as cross between American Footbal and Soccer. It’s full contact tackle, wiithout pads. Also, there is no undisputed possession. There are some things that will stop play temporarily, but you can take the ball away from the the other team at anytime as long as you don’t violate the rules.
Good gracious…on all accounts.
Another thing I turned out to be good at was Yoga (early 40s) and, earlier (late 20s), Isshin-Ryu karate. Got as high as a purple belt. I liked kata but, did not like kumite. It was for self defense but, it was an art form, too.
Thanks for the explanations.
Candy really enjoys Yoga. I’m about to try some “chair yoga” to see if helps me keep moving. I do regular workouts six days a week, but need to get into the stretching and exercises beyond resistance training.
Chair yoga must be new. Never heard of it…
Yeah. It’s for old farts! https://yoga-go.io/start-age-full2
I’ve been rugby-adjacent to my husband who got introduced to it when we lived in Australia. I can appreciate the team would be like a family. That seems like the best outcome for any sports team. Also, Detroit really shoulda kicked that field goal on fourth down.
Yeah, my first thought was who got bought during half-time. The Lions were a totally different team in the second half. As for rugby, when I met my wife our first date was dinner on a Friday night. It went great and we had been matched up by some trusted friends so she hinted that maybe we should go out again soon. So, I asked, “What are you doing tomorrow afternoon?” She didn’t have anything going on so our second date was to see me play rugby. She still tells people who ask how we met that her response to the rugby match was, “Why would anybody do that to their body!” Still together 28 years later.
Gotta admit I kind of get where your wife was coming from! But what a fun story!
Lions outcome shocked me because I left the room at halftime to do some class work and didn’t check in until after the game.
Congrats on 28 years. Friend Husband and I celebrate 39 this Friday.
Congrats on 39!! We were both married before, less successfully. In fact, we’d both decided we would not marry again. Then we ended up at a birthday party for a mutual friend. The most amusing aspect of our meeting, is neither one of us intended to go the party, but our other plans fell through and we ended up there. She wouldn’t even talk to me that evening, and I ducked out early because things were so strained and strange. Two weeks later we had our firs date, and 12 months later we were married.
That’s a wonderful story. At this point I’m pretty sure it was love at first sight for me but we have still have our share of ups and downs! Thanks for telling your story.
You’re welcome! We both love telling it because we were both in a bad period of our lives in some ways. Not only that we were raised a few miles from each other, graduated the same year from rival high schools, had friends in common and never met until thirty years after graduation. As it turned out, our parents had known each other casually, through her family’s business. North Texas is a small world in some ways.
I get a good workout screaming at the Cowboys on my TV screen. I had to give up golf due to back and foot issues, so now I’m down to verbal sports.
Golf was a lot more fun when I travelled a lot on business and golf was usually on the event menu for the visit. Played at all sorts of nice courses at someone else’s expense. That made it even more fun. I still hit a ball every once in a while at Top Golf when kids or grandkids are around.
Momo and I have retired our clubs. I plan to ship mine to my grandson in Corpus, he and my son play once or twice a week at the Naval Air Station and on the island. Like you, I played a lot of great courses for business.
One of the most interesting and amusing things I ran across playing out of state was in the northeast. It was in the fall, and the falling leaves were blanketing much of the course. That’s when I was introduced to the “leaf rule.”
LOL!