The Kuperus Family Blog: Josh's Rugby Season

The other day I received a letter from my aunt and uncle in Holland where I was posed several questions about rugby. When did you start? Why did you start?

Instead of writing a letter back, and making them wait the year or two it would take my letter to find them over in Holland, I decided to write a blog post instead. I type out my answer, click the little orange Publish button on my screen, and three seconds later, their eyeballs can read my words. Simple, easy, and no required purchase of a postage stamp.

Let me rephrase their question as I see it. What would possess a skinny white boy like you, weighing under 150 pounds, to want to play rugby: a sport known for no pads, full contact, and big boys? When did you take leave of your reason? Were you trying to commit suicide?

Of course, when call myself "skinny" I'm not the those-aren't-abs-those-are-ribs skinny or the poke-me-and-you'll-cut-a-finger type of skinny, but nonetheless, I'm pretty skinny. My body's built more for dribbling a ball around a court than for slamming into a bunch of other bodies.

My reason?

Well, it all started on a bright sunshiny day ...

But before that, I need to give you a little background.

My family first came to Hawaii in September 2010. Since that (historic) date, I had not played a single sport.

Not one.

Well, that isn't entirely true. I did play a few games here and there: a soccer game in Foundation School, a basketball game, or two, or three ... or four, with my cousin, David Amels, and one memorable game of volleyball in India, with brown teenagers most of whom knew no more English than 'hi' and 'bye' and 'thank-you' ... we had great conversations together, me and them.

(Later we all stripped and jumped in a dirty, scummy well to cool off and show off our flips, but that's another story.)

But the fact is, a game played here and there is not the same as being part of a team, with official uniforms, and games scheduled every Saturday. It may not sound like a big deal to some of you who haven't touched a baseball in years, but for a teenage guy, not playing sports, not being part of a team, that was tough.

The bottom line is:

I liked sports.

And I wasn't playing any.

So back to paragraph number ten:

It all started on a bright sunshiny day. I was on my way to class when I saw Ben Nonoa, a big Samoan guy, sitting down at one of the picnic tables near my school, talking with two of my classmates.

"Hey Josh," Ben said, "We've just been talking about these guys joining my rugby team. Wanna join?"

Picture the past events of last year flashing through my brain at this moment. The sad lack of sports. My obsessive need to do something athletic again. My countless petitions to my parents to sign me up for something, anything.

Rugby is a sport, right?

"Sure," I said.

After that my fate was sealed. I started to attend practices. Got to know the team (Hawaiian guys). Figure out how the game of rugby worked.

You see, I didn't know the first thing about rugby. Literally.

My first game came around. I still didn't know the fine details of the game. Basically all I knew about rugby was, "Get on the field and jump on people."

And that's what I did.

As the season progressed I became better at jumping on people and learned more about the game. I learned what in the world a scrum was, how "hooker" on the rugby field was a position and not a prostitute, how the back players ran their plays, how the forwards plowed theirs, and generally learned how not to make a fool of myself on the field.

It worked. (I think.)

In the end I learned that sometimes the best thing to do on the rugby field is just to stand there and act like you know what's going on.

I also started to work out in the weight room to build muscle. Not bodybuilding status weightlifting, mind you, but enough to keep my arms and legs from being ripped off by some burly Samoan.

My team, the Kona bulls, won the first game we played. And then we won the second. And then the third. In fact, we never lost once until the very end of the season when Waimea beat us in one brutal game. But, since they had several players over the age of fifteen they lost by forfeit.

And then if you want to get technical, two games we had played against Hilo and won were counted as forfeits on a technicality.

But we prefer to say that it was an undefeated season.

It sounds better.

Of course, when I say that we had an undefeated season, you need to know that only three Under 15 rugby teams exist on the Big Island: Kona, Hilo, and Waimea. When the tournament came around, these were the only teams we had to play to win state championships. And we had been playing them, and beating them, all season long.

The tournament for state champions came around, and so I found myself one early Friday morning in a car heading for Hilo where the tournament would be held. My team needed to play, and win, two games, to go on to the state's championship game on Saturday.

Hilo is notorious for rain. Friday afternoon, the sky decided it wanted to be a shower nozzle. Soon, the bright green field transformed into a dull brown muddy mess. Puddles the size of Lake Michigan formed. The grass disappeared. The player became so muddy from tackling each other into the mud, their uniforms were indistinguishable from the other teams.

After and Before.

Buuut ... we still played the two games. And we won them both.

Saturday morning opened with a light drizzle. The field was still brown from the night before, and someone had to repaint the white boundary lines over the mud. Our game was scheduled in the afternoon, so my team spent the day watching other teams play, passing around and playing a beat-up ukelele and attempting to not eat too much junk food.

The time for the game came.

Coach Ben Nonoa led the team onto the field for warm-ups. We did a few passing drills, a few suicides, and then all joined hands for a brief prayer. (Dear God, let us win this thing. Amen.)

The team did a jog around the field, bowed twice to the spectators on each side, shook hands with our opponents, and got into position on the field.

The whistle blew.

The ball was kicked.

And the game was on.