This whole Rugby thread gives me college flashbacks. I went to school in DC in the '80s. It really is a small town (measured in terms of distance by by subway) and there are 16 colleges. None of whom, with the exception of Georgetown, are note worthy in terms of sports . As a result, the students, with admin support, tended to go for more obscure stuff like wrestling or pole vaulting or gymnastics. The schools loved it because it was a whole lot cheaper than a football team and they might actually win something. For reasons known but to God, Rugby (particularly women's rugby) became the cool thing in the '80s. It was the sport of geek jocks. Obscure enough to have a certain cache and violent enough to avoid being labeled as a sissy sport. Turn out for games (which were not NCAA recognized, but just crosstown intramurals was huge). This might have had something to do with tradition of the winning team taking off their jerseys at the end of a match (a big draw for the women's games)
. No one, including the players, really knew what was going on, but a good time was had by all.
What makes me laugh about this was the various ROTC units. AU didn't have one, so all the cadets had to commute. Given that we were required to be across town before the busses started running on various days a week, a carpool sytem developed between Army, Navy, Marines and Airforce. Each service had their own preffered sport. All of them wanted you to compete athletically, but each school's cadre had their own pet sport. The Navy liked swimming as GW had a superb pool. Me, think it showed a lack of confidence in their gear, but no one asked me.
The Airforce liked volleyball as it can be played in hangers with zero equipment and junior officers should know how to organize a game (at least that was the rationale). The Marines, to no one's surprise, liked boxing, even for female cadets. My Army unit was into fencing, I guess the whole officer and a gentleman thing is deeply wired
. What was a source of amusement (at least to the Army
) was this. In extremis, the Navy will swim away, the Airforce will volley, the Marines will kick both their asses and then the Army will gut the Marines like a fish.
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