Neither Jay nor I have been playing much rugby this year, due to being too busy at work to commit to the training schedule. But I hope to get back into it again for the fall season. Although given the fact that the team has advanced by leaps and bounds this year, including winning its first Divisional game, I doubt I’d get much time on the pitch these days! The Seattle Times has a great article on the Quake, and how it’s earned respect within the division while being an ambassador for gay men into the straight world of rugby. Good on ya, Quake, and happy Pride to all!
“There was definitely that stigma from (other players) and from clubs as a whole,” says Dan Smith of division rival Budd Bay, a predominantly straight team in Olympia. “They didn’t want to give them too much respect: ‘Come on, man, this is a gay team.’ Saying they weren’t as good as everyone else.”
The Quake has defused misunderstanding with a common love of the game, and its progress on the pitch has shown that a team can build “ruggers” from scratch and play with anyone, gay or straight. That’s what team founders had set out to prove — that people who aren’t typically exposed to rugby’s world of mauls and scrums can be coached to win.
Great article. There’s a lot of good info here, though I did want to let you know something – I am running Mac OS X with the latest beta of Firefox, and the design of your blog is kind of funky for me. I can read the articles, but the navigation doesn’t function so well.