Yesterday afternoon, I met a school friend of my wife, who is a PE teacher here in south-west Virginia. My wife and her had just taken my youngest daughter and her niece to watch the Virginia Tech women's basketball team play Florida State.
She heard that I coached rugby at Virginia Tech and said that there had been efforts in her county's schools to introduce rugby. She was quite strongly against it for many reasons. Some of them involved funding, but at the top her list was the perception that rugby is a violent game, with lots of fights and every player ending up with a broken nose!
Along with others in this part of Virginia, I have been trying to get rugby introduced into high schools. To hear this sentiment from someone in my own house was depressing. I, of course came back with all the tired cliches about how rugby is safe and violence is not tolerated etc etc. But it has left me with the feeling that we are banging our heads on a brick wall.
The worse thing about this, is that we are our own worst enemy.
At the Collegiate Rugby Championship, live on NBC, there was a segment actually dedicated to how tough the sport is. They had many players listing their injuries. Well, I think I understand that it may have been done to get interest from young players that like getting injured or want to be overtly physical. But whatever the reason - putting it on NBC was a huge mistake in my opinion. It may have got some kids interested, but I think it had a huge negative impact on parents, and ultimately, its parents that say yes or no to their son or daughter playing rugby in high school.
There is also the issue of websites that show highlights and video clips. While some do show clips that highlight the positive elements of our game, most keep covering very rare mass fights or players getting sent off involved in fights. One such website recently showed a game in Rumania that was abandoned because all 30 players were involved in a fight that lasted several minutes, with seven players ending up in hospital. What is the purpose in showing this?
This weekend I saw an Aviva premiership game between Leicester and Sale. Five minutes in there was a clash of heads where two Sale players collided at a ruck. One was unconscious, the other had a bad cut on his head. Leicester were attacking and looked likely to score. But the Leicester scrumhalf, Ben Youngs, saw that the injury had happened and stopped play himself, when all he had to do was pass the ball out and Leicester would have scored.
I have looked everywhere for a clip of this great act of sportsmanship. Yes, you've guessed it, I can't find it. But I can find plenty of examples of where we are deliberately shooting ourselves in the foot by broadcasting the less parent-friendly elements of our game.
She heard that I coached rugby at Virginia Tech and said that there had been efforts in her county's schools to introduce rugby. She was quite strongly against it for many reasons. Some of them involved funding, but at the top her list was the perception that rugby is a violent game, with lots of fights and every player ending up with a broken nose!
Along with others in this part of Virginia, I have been trying to get rugby introduced into high schools. To hear this sentiment from someone in my own house was depressing. I, of course came back with all the tired cliches about how rugby is safe and violence is not tolerated etc etc. But it has left me with the feeling that we are banging our heads on a brick wall.
The worse thing about this, is that we are our own worst enemy.
At the Collegiate Rugby Championship, live on NBC, there was a segment actually dedicated to how tough the sport is. They had many players listing their injuries. Well, I think I understand that it may have been done to get interest from young players that like getting injured or want to be overtly physical. But whatever the reason - putting it on NBC was a huge mistake in my opinion. It may have got some kids interested, but I think it had a huge negative impact on parents, and ultimately, its parents that say yes or no to their son or daughter playing rugby in high school.
There is also the issue of websites that show highlights and video clips. While some do show clips that highlight the positive elements of our game, most keep covering very rare mass fights or players getting sent off involved in fights. One such website recently showed a game in Rumania that was abandoned because all 30 players were involved in a fight that lasted several minutes, with seven players ending up in hospital. What is the purpose in showing this?
This weekend I saw an Aviva premiership game between Leicester and Sale. Five minutes in there was a clash of heads where two Sale players collided at a ruck. One was unconscious, the other had a bad cut on his head. Leicester were attacking and looked likely to score. But the Leicester scrumhalf, Ben Youngs, saw that the injury had happened and stopped play himself, when all he had to do was pass the ball out and Leicester would have scored.
I have looked everywhere for a clip of this great act of sportsmanship. Yes, you've guessed it, I can't find it. But I can find plenty of examples of where we are deliberately shooting ourselves in the foot by broadcasting the less parent-friendly elements of our game.
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