 From
One Rugger to Another
“No good deed goes unpunished.”
Often true. But occasionally you get surprised.
Last fall when the Wisconsin Rugby Club’s former
coach Adrian McDermott was visiting Madison from NYC,
I rode my bike from work at the Memorial Union to join
the group meeting him at the Avenue on a Friday evening.
As we were leaving, someone at the next table noticed
my T-shirt – from the recent Stuart Daily Ten
a side tourney that Old Boy Dan Marz created; the “This
is your brain on rugby” design.
“Wow,” one of the gentlemen said, “Our
daughter plays rugby at Stanford. She’d love a
shirt like that!”
So, I took off the shirt and handed it to him, saying
something like “from one rugger to another,”
adding that I hadn’t worn it before today so it
was nearly new. We all had a good laugh and our group
left for the next venue, the Weary Traveler.
While waiting at the crowded bar, a woman asked sarcastically
if I was making a fashion statement.
“What?”
“You’re just wearing a wind breaker, unzipped
halfway.”
I nodded then explained.
“Oh. We just thought that you were some kind of
doofus with a midlife crisis…or one of the homeless
guys from the shelter down the street.”
I’d forgotten all about it until I got an email
in December from Grant Dekker. He asked whether I was
the guy who had “given the shirt off his back”
for another rugby player he’d never met. I guess
he found me via the WRC web site. I replied that I was,
and that as a coach and player (OK so I wander around
the pitch occasionally as an Old Boy) it was my pleasure.
He explained that his daughter Susan loved the shirt,
and asked for my address so they could send me a card.
Christmas morning I opened a nice card (view
card) from Grant and Susan Dikkers that arrived
inside a package that contained a Stanford rugby T-shirt.
The card said, “From one rugger to another.”
Marc Kennedy
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