Crude, Dude!

Its the pregame drink-up in Carbondale, Illinois. The keg has been tapped, and the game--as played by the Southern Illinois University's Men's Rugby Club on the eve of the season's last home match--is fast, formless and, to an outsider, apparently unencumbered by rules, save one: Your dick must touch skin. Dick tag. The idea is to penis-poke an unsuspecting teammate, preferably in public, ideally while he chats up a girl. No one announces the game has begun. But as awareness dawns, a certain knowing posture spreads through the room. Players take to resting exposed hands on their heads, well above the crotch zone, an effective defense until the "it" guy launches himself off some piece of furniture, pelvis first, fly open, pink steel puppy on the loose. Or until a player--uninitiated or too wasted to care--sits down.

A rookie, dipping Skoal on the sofa in this cramped student house, has just been tagged. Someone's flaccid business just brushed his face. "Fucking fuck," he sputters, wiping his cheek. "What the fuck? Fucking fag." He is a fresh-faced newcomer trying to fit in. "It's dick tag," explains Christian "Kraft" Long, 20, a lanky team favorite who has been showing me around. The rookie scans the room, as if searching for more direction, a means to make sense of what's going on. Which pretty well sums up what I'm doing too.

The party careens on. Alternative rock blasts at a volume that blocks sound from outside. The television flashes sports highlights. In a locked first-floor bedroom, Kraft's pal, 28-year-old player-coach and league disciplinarian Conn Ciaccio, watches video porn. In the kitchen, a crowd of maybe 50 jostles for beer. Thus far, the question for the night is "Where's WKU?" The Hilltoppers from Western Kentucky are tomorrow's opponents. In rugby, unlike most major collegiate sports, tradition has it that warring teams socialize off the pitch--as the field is called--leaving behind the biting, fisticuffs and bruising collisions the sport is known for. Of course, the sport is also known for its alcoholic excess, the inclination of its players toward public nudity, public pugilism and fierce allegiance to peers in need.

No wonder rugby can seem bewildering. Rugby magazine, perhaps the sport's premiere U.S. voice, unflinchingly runs items on how to curb game-time criminal assaults or deal with public urination. Notre Dame banned its rugby team for having naked beer parties and for recording those parties on videotape. Here in corn country, the SIU Salukis pull similar stunts. A year ago, a certain team president managed to get himself tackled partway through the wall of a hotel room. Further back, several players recall a certain road trip involving a chartered bus and the bus driver who was abandoned at a gas station for suggesting the team couldn't drink en route. Then there was the Viking Party that included the decapitation of live chickens. And the ritual called Flanus, during which stripped rookies line up on a roof, six feet of toilet paper dangling from each naked butt until the paper is ignited and the flames climb up. Last to pull out his paper wins. The temptation is to write it all off as mere insanity, campus craziness gone too far. But I've come with a different agenda--to take in rugby culture, bear witness to its rituals and attempt to comprehend the codes of conduct that make it make sense on its own terms.

•

First, some background. Rugby, a 19th century British import, is now the most popular collegiate club sport in the land. Club sports serve those undergrads unwilling or unable to play varsity sports. Hence, many clubs act as repositories for athletic orphans. Rugby clubs, in particular, tend to take on a distinct persona--part fraternity (or sorority, as the case may be), part do-it-yourself athletic co-op, typically existing without the ability to recruit, award scholarships or even secure a salaried coach. Almost always, these clubs are underfinanced and student-run. Almost always, they slip beneath the administrative scrutiny given NCAA-sanctioned teams or nationally chartered Greek societies. At SIU, for example, no one in the Office of Intramural-Recreational Sports is prepared to micromonitor a club player's academic standing. That sort of policing, if it does occur, is left to the whim of each club's democracy.

Still, prior to my visit, the Salukis had been warned. They'd fielded calls from the regional unions, or rugby conferences, to which they belong, plus calls from USA Rugby--the sport's governing body--the SIU intramural sports office and the SIU Office of University Relations. A journalist was coming. Best behavior was to be enforced. Illinois Union president Steve Montez would arrive to personally referee the upcoming game. With some 650 collegiate clubs and perhaps 25,000 collegiate players, an estimated 300,000 U.S. rugby enthusiasts and an annual growth rate reported to be 30 percent, the sport has a lot of momentum to protect, not to mention a lot of longstanding image problems to combat. The goal, according to folks at USA Rugby, is to legitimize the sport and secure more corporate sponsorship, à la Reebok's recent endorsement of the U.S. national team. But in the words of one USA Rugby staffer who asked to go nameless, "I'm not going to blow smoke up your ass. At this point, the social components of the game have become actual parts of the game, like the third half. The partying and the playing, they're not mutually exclusive. And we're having a hell of a time trying to divorce them." Or in the words of coach Conn, speaking to the team's officers before my arrival: "This week, let's just try and be cool."

So where is WKU? After a five-hour drive, a handful of "old loads"--recent team graduates--blows into the party asking this same thing. Already the crowd consists of three types: current players--lots of slanty shoulders and denim-splitting thighs; social club members, who merely drink; and queens, the term used to denote females of any shape brave or stupid enough to frequent rugby functions. Now the old loads enter the mix--heads bobbing, beers sloshing, highfiving all around--and everyone cheers. Kraft is visibly excited. "These are the guys," he insists, "who taught me about college life. They'd be like, 'shower? Fuck shower, just go out.' Now, because of these guys, I feel like I'm part of something, a heritage. I mean, when I first joined the team, I was reserved."

It helps to know some more about Kraft and Conn. Kraft--tall, loud, his upper lip pocked with scar tissue from a drunken fall--is known to be crazy in the sense that he'll say anything to anyone. Conn--squat, intense and a disillusioned ex-Marine--is known to be concerned about keeping the craziness somewhat contained. Otherwise, they have more than a few things in common. Both want to become teachers. Both grew up near Chicago. Both, like most ruggers I've met, hail from broken homes. Kraft rarely sees his dad. "The last time he came down here was after I'd been in a car crash and was arrested. He said he thought I'd lost a little focus and asked what I was going to do about it. He was at my house, which had not been cleaned, and there were, like, mushrooms growing on the kitchen floor. I said, 'I'm going to make better decisions, Dad, and cut down on my drinking.' Yeah, like that could happen."

Conn hasn't seen his father in 22 years. "My dad was in prison. I joined the Marines to pay for school. I started playing rugby because I needed something, an outlet. Also, I think, the team felt a little like family. But that's pretty deep stuff for most guys on the team. And they might have to do some self-examination to get to that, and that might be intellectually challenging or emotionally painful, so they'd just be like, 'Let's go kill somebody. Let's go drink.'"

Kraft and Conn. Whenever the party consumes them, I orbit the crowd, stomaching flat suds, dodging bared foreskin, ignoring the sour smells of wet chew and cigarette ash--none of which, along with tomorrow's promised bloodletting, seems appealing. Later, when I meet Damian, a former high school jock, I gain further perspective on why anyone would choose to participate in any of this. "I was looking to stay in shape," Damian says. "I heard everybody makes the team. I heard you get to hit people and drink a lot, and those sounded like things I could do."

•

When the keg runs dry, the party gravitates toward a local drinking establishment featuring pool tables, plenty of television screens, a dance floor, a long bar, two beer troughs, a largely female staff garbed in short shorts and (continued on page 142)Crude, Dude! (continued from page 82) half shirts and a men's room oft stained by puke. So it means something when Sigma Pi brother Mike, a solid 250-pounder, tells you, "When the rugby team goes out, people know who they are. When they drink, it's like they're on a mission. If you're not one of them, you should watch yourself because they could turn on you and start fucking with you. If you want to get into a fight, guaranteed, go up to a rugby guy and say, 'Hey, bitch.'"

On the way to the bar several players attempt to overturn a pickup truck that's idling at a bank. They rock the truck. The driver honks and honks. "We know this guy," someone yells, for my benefit. "This is our friend."

Outside the tavern, the bouncers greet the team with tight-lipped nods. They, the hired muscles, are neither welcoming nor disrespectful. They are notably reserved. "That's why we don't hire anybody too big to work the door," says the not-too-big doorman. "We don't want anyone to feel challenged. You take the rugby team. We've considered banning them before because they break so much stuff. But then we want their business, which is a lot. So it's a trade-off. It depends on how much they break."

Finally, someone spots WKU. They are slouched around a pool table off to the side, looking as if the transition from their cars to the bar has left them feeling out of place. "We got a late start," drawls Joe, a massive person with a brush cut, "and we were pissing in bottles the whole way down. Shoot, it's so good to finally see some friends." He offers a toast: "Here's to staying single, seeing double and sleeping triple. Amen."

The drinking continues at an impressive rate. Lite beers, Jell-O shots, slippery nipples, whatever it takes. Later, this all-out approach to the evening leads to some static involving the police, a drunken rookie, an enraged blonde woman and an act of grab-ass--a "crime" few ruggers here would condemn. That's because, in the private universe of rugby, grab-ass is understood. Guys grab girls. Girls grab guys. Everybody acts out. Unfortunately for the ruggers, the cops don't share that view. "This is so fucking lame," says one of the old loads as the officers roll up. "This is not the way it used to be."

Other than that, it's a fairly conventional night--drinking, more drinking, crawling home to die. "The thing about rugby that you should know," Conn says, leaning woozily on the bar before last call, "is that at a lot of schools, there are not too many examples of really good players who don't get trashed. It's usually the guys who suck who don't go out."

"Personally," says Kraft, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Conn, "I drink because I'm bored. Drinking makes normal things more fun."

"So you're not at all worried about tomorrow?" I ask him. Kraft looks confused.

"Tomorrow, what?"

The Game

"Forces equivalent to 1.5 tons are exerted on a player's cervical spine during a scrum."--The American Journal of Sports Medicine

Saturday dawns to painful glaring skies. The players arrive in small groups, stumbling toward the field, sipping from squirt bottles and Gatorade jugs, a few holding their heads. A very few tote open beers. Some come dressed for the game--high-cut shorts, cleats and tight, all-the-harder-to-grab-me rugby shirts--but most clutch at least some piece of the uniform in their hands. It is just after noon. Their breakfasts have included Pop-Tarts and ginseng pills, biscuits and gravy, hamburgers, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, ramen noodle soup and Mini-Thins, an over-the-counter stimulant. Those who dined out recall addressing their waitresses with "Yes, ma'am," "thank you" and "please."

The teams warm up with a good bit of real estate between them, as if attempting to distance themselves, physically and otherwise, from last night's good cheer. Some players smear petroleum jelly on their heads, like fighters hoping to slip blows and staunch cuts. Others use black electrical tape as headbands to keep their ears from getting ripped off. Socks are secured with spare shoelaces as garters, then folded once, below the knee. Collars get tucked under. Conn unveils a new, self-styled, inspirational haircut, the Shaqfu--flat top, shaved sides, tufts of sideburns left untouched. If there's a fight, Kraft promises to moon the combatants to break it up. Meanwhile, some 60 spectators line the field with lawn chairs and beer coolers, and bagpipe music wails from a nearby car. And the air fills with the smell of liniment and a sense of imminent battle. The T-shirts on hand say a lot: We're a drinking team with a rugby problem. It takes leather balls to play rugby. Rugby players eat their dead.

The kickoff is akin, more or less, to that of football. The players, 15 to a side, gather at opposite ends of the pitch--a tad larger than a standard gridiron--and one team boots the ball to the other. You do not want to know too much about the rules. As Derek Robinson writes in Rugby: "In no other sport are the players so vague about the laws." And if they can be vague about them, so can you. Suffice it to say, the game resembles padless, helmetless, open-field football in that it involves tackling and forbids the forward lateral; soccer in that the action rarely stops and players ahead of the play are considered offside; boxing in that there's a lot of boxing that goes on; wrestling in that players do that too. Points are accrued by downing the ball across the goal line or kicking it through the uprights. The ball is advanced, most commonly, in a series of sweeps and laterals, or via a forward-bounding dropkick. Blocking is not allowed. Neither are substitutions. The game consists of two 40-minute halves. If it sounds more than a little like American football, well, now you know where we got the game.

Aside from the final score, which puts SIU on top, only a few plays stand out. At one point, an SIU back is laid flat--and temporarily motionless--by an illegal clothesline tackle. A 300-plus-pounder from WKU has stopped the back cold with a forearm to the throat. The impact is hard to watch, so radical is the halt to the back's forward progress--his chin snapping up while his legs bicycle forward, like Wile E. Coyote gone off a cliff. It is the sort of hit that makes the sideline crowd go "Ooooh," and then yell "Fuck him up" and "Revenge happens in the ruck, motherfucker." And it is the sort of hit that instantly leads to a fight. Within seconds a small cluster of players gets into it, fists flying. Seconds later, Mr. Montez, the ref, breaks it up.

Much later, an SIU player goes down in a crowd, and a WKU player jumps, with both cleated feet, on the downed player's legs. This too leads to a fight. And when the game's action gets close, the hitting is audible--like slapping hamburger--which is sobering when you consider that this is the sound of flesh on flesh.

In the end, after the clock peters out, players from both teams--even the (continued on page 158) Crude, Dude!(continued from page 142) brawlers--assemble to slap backs and joke and talk up the inevitable party. Already, the fiesta is being hyped as the weekend's main event. Now Kraft advises one Hilltop on the best way to care for cauliflower ear. Coon straight-facially tells another Hilltop what a difference it makes to play sober, arguing in favor of abstinence. And then that same Hilltop tells me why he's changed into flip-flops.

"You get so sore," he says, "it's hard to bend down and mess with your shoes. You shower and you can hardly touch your head, you've got so many lumps. Probably that's how the sport got associated with partying. Before they had ibuprofen they had ale."

The Third Half

"In rugby there are three halves, and you have to show up for all three or you're not really playing."--Kraft

More drinking. Another house party. This one, I'm assured, will be the biggest and best. Why? The answers, in the minds of the players, are too evident to explain. "Because, dude, we'll get crazy," or "WKU and us, it's like gas and flames."

The rookies throw down flattened cardboard boxes, wall to wall, to protect the upstairs floors. Team president, Andy McPeak, who lives here, padlocks the door to his room. Steve, a second-stringer recovering from knee surgery, cages his giant iguana. A few players, unable to wait for kegs, carry around cases of beer in a manner that lets you know they intend personally to drink every last can.

As day slides toward night, the revelers pack in--no concussions, blown knees or cracked collarbones this week, but quite a few fellows sporting contusions or wincing as they descend the stairs. The kegs--six barrels of Milwaukee's Best, a.k.a. "the Beast"--sit in the basement. Once the kegs are tapped, the festivities shift gears. Rookies run to fill cups for veterans. Rosko, an old load, takes out his glass eye. Liza, the women's player-coach and Conn's longtime girlfriend, announces she has a nude picture of every rugby guy.

"You've also got camel-toe," Kraft informs her, pointing to her crotch. He's wearing a baseball hat that says Smartass White Boy.

"Well, you're ugly," Liza fires back.

"Ugly, maybe, but at least I don't have that. What do you got, a vibrator in your pants? Let me hook you up to my car battery and rev the engine." This time Liza laughs. In the past, she's punched Kraft in the mouth. Conn meanders over. Unlike Kraft, he has showered and changed into a dark sports coat with an SIU rugby patch safety-pinned to the breast. "Trying to change the image of rugby," he says, winking. "What's up?" Liza touches his cheek, smiles, looks my way. "You know, I let him give my beaver a haircut once," she says. "And I shaved his balls. I won't have hair in my mouth when I go down."

We mill near the kegs. The basement is the sort of dim, subterranean space the players don't seem to mind trashing, and every now and then, one of them will turn to a corner and urinate or blow chunks. The floor is a slippery mess. Exposed pink insulation hangs overhead. On the stairs, a crotch-level peephole opens, discreetly, into the bathroom where the queens go to pee.

By now, it is widely known that I, the journalist, am here. And so I'm constantly approached. Over and over, I'm assured that if I just travel with the team to Memphis for next week's annual Jacques Strappe Tournament, or if I return to Carbondale in April for the All Fools' Classic, or if I make it down to Kentucky to take in the Banshee Tournament, I'll find other teams doing zanier stunts, including, for example, the naked elephant walk, in which players parade in the buff, arms linked through legs. Or like the practice whereby road-tripping players piss into plastic bags and launch them out the windows of speeding cars. Occasionally, too, I'm told stories with details that really stick. I am told about the naked-rookie beer chug where the last rookie, unable to hold down his final brew, was forced to keep at it, in accordance with the rules. Either that or his girlfriend could blow him, then and there, which she did. And I am told about the former rugger who "dated" or "pissed on" every girl who passed out at his house. Dated? The storyteller shrugs. Pissed on? "They'd pass out on his couch so he thought that seemed fair."

WKU has started to sing. These are traditional rugby songs, musical drinking games that, like the Zulu--a requisite show of nakedness after your first rugby score--have spread from generation to generation, coast to coast. Fumble a lyric and you must shoot a boot (chug a shoe filled with beer) or, in some instances, do a crack shot (chug a shoe filled with beer filtered through another player's ass). "Isn't it all a bit much sometimes?" I ask Conn, who has also gone upstairs, where it's quieter.

"I don't like the hazing myself," he says carefully, rearranging a shelf of team trophies made, in part, of beer cans so that the first-place ones stand in front. "There used to be a lot more of it, guys making people drink piss, gross stuff like that. You have to understand, though, that rugby's the only college sport where guys get torn up for no scholarships, for nothing but pride. I think that with some of the violence and the abusiveness toward women, there's probably some latent homosexuality there. And a lot of these guys just want attention, however they can get it. As for the camaraderie, it's like you bare your soul and go through hell. You want to talk about it afterward and have beers."

The songs resume:

Who can take a glass rod,

Shove it up his cock,

Lay it out flat and smash it with a rock?

The S&M Man, the S&M Man,

The S&M Man, 'cause he mixes it with love

And makes the hurt feel good (huh!), the

hurt feel good (huh!)

By early evening, the basement is jammed and noticeably warmer from all the bodies. I see a WKU alum called Junior passed out against a wall. And then I see a WKU freshman fetch him a beer and gently wrap Junior's limp hand around the cup. I run into SIU social club president Jay Ferris, who says--apropos of nothing--"I don't know why, but there are a lot of hootchy mamas ready to spread their legs for the team." I run into Siouxsie, a female rugger who concurs: "All the women players say they hate the guys, but they're sleeping with half of them. Rugby's so violent, it's a turn-on. What can I say?"

She stands beside a young Hilltopper--still in his jersey--who's exhibiting a perma-grin and half closed eyes. "So is that why you play?" I ask him. He shakes his head. "Nope. I think guys play because it's like riding a Harley, it's like having a tattoo. You're a badass and that sets you apart."

Another thing that sets them apart is the nakedness. An impromptu rookie beer chug has started up. The rookies, stripped and dangling, form a line, doing their blushing best to avoid eye contact. The crowd presses in. The queens snap pictures. "Look at those dicks," they shriek, "look at those balls. Isn't rugby great?" Beer after beer is thrown back for speed. First to finish wins. Each round's losers chug again. After several rounds--maybe five 16-ounce cups in five minutes--one of the rookies tries to bow out. His eyes water. His cheeks blush. He minces several steps back. "No way," scolds a nearby veteran. "We all had to do it. Drink, motherfucker, drink." Several rookies vomit but play on. Brown, who didn't make the field today because he couldn't wake up, eventually stands alone. It is decided then hat he must streak the two blocks to a liquor store. Brown sighs. And streaks. The team hounds him, shouting, "Run' rook, run."

•

The thing that ends the party this time, aside from the drained kegs, is a fight I don't actually see it, but the story goes like this: A slender young woman a pitcher on the SIU Softball team, attacked one of the Hilltoppers. Opinions differ on who's to blame, who spit beer on whom first. But what's clear is that at some point, the pitcher, attending her first rugby event, got mad. The response from the male ruggers was uniform almost practiced. They doused her in beer and then, while Andy dragged her up the stairs and out, sang, "Na-na-naa-na, na-na-naa-na, hey hey hey, goodbye." Now Andy shows off his wounds--deep raw gouges to his hands--while the pitcher sobs on the back lawn. "I want my respect," she screams. "You fucking animals. God." Conn grimaces in the doorway, looking out, while Liza smooths the girl's hair. "Don't let them get to you, honey," Liza coos. "They're just like that, they're assholes. You have to know that when you go in."

As before, the players storm to a bar. Kraft and Conn make the walk, but then Kraft gets distracted by his sometime girlfriend and Conn veers toward home. Almost immediately there is trouble. An underage player attempts to sneak in using a borrowed ID. The doorman isn't fooled, and he holds the rugger for the police But he doesn't want to be held and after a brief scuffle, finds himself bent over a handrail, struggling to break an evil-looking full nelson. The rail cuts into his middle. His face flushes red He gasps "Get--off--me," as if he can't breathe. The rest of the team yells obscenities. Lorne House, the Salukis' sole black player, seems particularly upset. "Just back the fuck off of him, dude Why you got to be like that? Just take his ID". More bouncers arrive, and these are the big ones they keep in back. They wear white tuxedo shirts and bow ties and they make something close to minimum wage. Somehow, the player manages to throw his weight so that he and the doorman lurch backward. Now one of the bigger bouncers steps in, and together-they slam him facedown onto the floor, leveraging their knees against the back of his neck.

This thing with the knees is a problem for Lorne. "Naw, fuck that," he says, and with a few brutal jerks, throws the doorman clear, then grips the bouncer by his shirt and runs him through the front door, lowering his shoulder for max impact. Lorne bounces the bouncers. Then he returns--huffing and wild-eyed-- and disappears into the crowd until he and Bull Frog, a rotund, pink-faced Hilltopper with a harelip, start to bump chests. Why this chest bumping is any one's guess. They were supposed to arm wrestle--Bull Frog has a habit of flexing his right biceps and mumbling, "You want a shot at the title?"--but somehow that challenge spun out of control This time it's Lorne who gets bounced though he doesn't struggle and his departure coincides with a bit of comic relief: Two female ruggers do a "tit smash" in the window to distract the police who've parked out front. "Watch this" they say. Breasts meet glass. Giggles of glee.

The night drags on. The acting out and one-upmanship continue--tokes from a one-hitter, the random kissing of random girls, more flies unzipped, more shots and beers. But when the place finally empties and the weekend's festivities near their close, it's not clear what the future will hold--not for the evening, nor the team, nor the sport itself. What's obvious is that this college rugby club serves as a sort of refuge for the dispossessed, the non-Greek, the unlettered, the kids from broken homes who speak of "brotherhood" and "family and stress relief." Many feel confident they'll go on to land jobs from rugby alums. Many share a distinctly primal code of conduct, a code one might come to expect from ruggers in their element, among their own. But when WKU's Bull Frog, bedecked in shorts, beer-soaked T-shirt and horned Viking helmet strays into the middle of the street, a public space, all bets are off as to what will take place. Will he do something funny? Will he hurt himself or someone else? Should everyone brace for a bad collision?

A few oglers keep an eye out for passing cars. Most of the ruggers move on. Some return to the scene of the basement party, where porn plays on TV upstairs and where Chad Barclay, a senior Saluki, smashes furniture and yells, "This is my house." Meanwhile, another Saluki senior, Ray, ducks into Jimmy Johns sandwich shop and accosts the late-night clerk, tackling the clerk behind the counter. He squeezes the clerk's neck and noogies his skull and demands a large meat sandwich, pronto, which the clerk rushes to produce. "That guy," Ray says, leaving with his food, "I love that guy." And in the next few days Kraft and Conn will begin planning the team's final road trip, when they'll load Kraft's 1987 Tempo with a case of Black Label and an Erotic Film magazine and bomb toward Memphis for three games in two days. But for now, with Bull Frog straddling the center line, straining for balance (making strange noises before a cluster of nonruggers), who can say? Here's a large individual in horns, stumbling down a busy street, raising his hands to stop traffic, looking even at this distance like some strange creature from another world you can't understand.

no pads, no equipment, no fear. college rugby is a badass subculture of violence, booze and stone age sex

"That's how rugby got associated with partying. Before they had ibuprofen they had ale."