74 Comments

Sorry to say, the first thing I thing of now when I hear “Brown” is Emily Oster.

I’ll do my best to replace that with “Gato playing rugby”. 😉

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Dec 11, 2022Liked by el gato malo

Remember that Brown also is home to Andrew Bostom & Glenn Loury, two warriors fighting for the truth in every nook and cranny.

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My first thought was that it was the women's team that won because it included a mentally-ill man who pretended to be a woman, as happened at Penn with swimming. Sounded like another Ivy fraud.

So glad to hear it was legit!

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Dec 11, 2022Liked by el gato malo

There's nothing better than the feelings when your own team wins!

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That is really cool. Playing club rugby at D3 was intense so I can imagine when it is at D1.

I do have to ask though, how such group of pale, testosterone containing individuals are allowed to self-associate at Brown? It seems counter to everything modern Brown stands for.

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Don’t they teach capitalization at Brown?

Just kidding.

At first, I found it offputting, but strangely, I’ve come to rather enjoy this quirk.

It is stripped down, uncouth, incompetent, having no pretence of authority, it suggests frivolity and haste which is but a disguise, because in fact, the reader is in for a real surprise, a treat; this author is profoundly well judged in his argumentation and conclusions.

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My new favorite sport whose rules and strategies are still a bit of a mystery to me!

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Same here. On a couple of golf trips with my son to Scotland, we started watching the games while pub-hopping, I became strangely attracted to Rugby. Soccer does nothing for me, but Rugby is interesting. Anybody here know who broadcasts the games in the US?

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NBCSN shows 7 Nations matches on Saturdays in Jan and Feb...

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Thanks!

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What ,my favorite feline is a Cat of Providence?Mr. Lovecraft had an entire fraternity of his feline friends Kappa Alpha Tau and our current Covid overlord Dr. Jha as well.Van Wickle Gates are a portal to another strange World.

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Ever true here as well. We must hold Jha responsible.

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Too bad the guy died, the dream world needed further literary exploring and the cosmic horror stuff was getting old. The quest for Kadath just wasn't enough.

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Dec 11, 2022·edited Dec 11, 2022

Nice win! But “Brown Rugby” sounds like an oxymoron. I’m sure the admin stopped supporting this testosterone-filled, faux war play long ago. I think this was the “I identify as woman today” championship? Just sayin’ 😉

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I used to play that when I was a kid. Here in America, we call it "Kill The Kid With The Ball." 👍😂👍

Good Job Boys!

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Congratulations! Only 27 national titles to go until you catch up with my Cal Bears! :-D

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author

wow, what a flashback.

does cal still have a team?

😼

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I went to Cal, and had a dozen friends on the rugby team, and I guess they still have a team, even though Berkeley probably still makes them practice in masks. My son graduated from Brown last year, where he lived in the rugby house senior year w/a dozen buddies, who defiantly lived semi-normal lives during the lockdowns. Good for them!

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I ceased having anything to do with Cal in the late 1980's. As the graffito stated in a bathroom in the Chemistry building (Hildebrand Hall), "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."

Clever, but Cal has been a part of the problem for a very long time.

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They may be the most COVID-tortured college students in the US. Just another arm of Commifornia.

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;-)

Lemme tell ya. I was a freshman in '69, so I have endured parts of seven decades of Cal athletic futility. If they still do have a rugby team it is no doubt half tranny and completely focused on hanky-panky in the scrums...

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Dec 11, 2022·edited Dec 11, 2022

No, Cal alum here - we quit competing in rugby in order to focus on our real passion: beating arch rival Stanford at their own prison experiment: https://reason.com/2021/02/10/california-student-dorms-guarded-by-cops-who-only-let-them-out-to-eat-and-use-the-bathroom/.

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Dec 11, 2022·edited Dec 11, 2022

They seem to be doing well. But it is California

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As a lock (a long long time ago) I say congrats to the second row (and everyone else too). Honestly though I think rugby 15's is a way over specialized sport. Sort of like the NFL version of football. Rugby 7's is THE game. Wish it had been around when I played.

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Rugby at an American uni! I had no idea yanks played 'our game' at all (I'm ex-kiwi, currently visiting family in NZ & avoiding all local media & keeping my head below the covid parapet). At last a redeeming feature at a top US college. And can Gato climb any higher in life's rankings? Only a little, he could have played open side 😁

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author

lol. actually mostly i did play breakaway. that number was a bit aberrant.

and i lived in sydney for a bit and played for a couple teams there. played in a tourney in christchurch over your way.

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I should have known maestro. Waka Nathan, Ian Kirkpatrick, el Gato, Mourie, Kronfeld, McCaw.

I've been out virus hunting on MTB's with my 7 yr old. No sign of it at Carrick vineyard near Bannockburn, just a table of nice kiwis bemoaning the woke mob.

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From an old 2nd Row . . . Kudos to all who take to the field.

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Aren't these the only two rugby programs in the US?

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My women's team won the state championship multiple times in the early aughts. The bragging rights definitely came with an asterisk: Montana had only one other women's team at the time.

(We really whooped 'em, though 😂)

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Montana? Maggot Fest, God bless you!

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Ha! Yes. So many fond (if fuzzy) memories of Maggot Fest over the years!

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It's good that Americans are now appreciating football (what your 4% of the global population calls "soccer") but it's even better that you are starting to appreciate rugby. I am from the other side of the pond and grew up playing rugby (Full Back and Kicker) but in the US it has been restricted to the miltary and the more "preppy" institutions, where perhaps it still remains?

It's a great game - a Man's game which helps build character and a grasp of the understanding of the importance of the team. Perhaps it's restricted audience in the US is symbolic of these issues?

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Dec 11, 2022·edited Dec 12, 2022

The lead singer in my high school blues band was one of the most hard-assed prison guards that went so haywire in the Stanford experiment (on the left in this photo):

https://allthatsinteresting.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/prisoners-face-wall.jpg

You won't be surprised to hear that he was full-on fascist when it came to Covid.

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Love the props to rugby, and very interesting to see that you were a flanker, often the position for the meanest and toughest on the field. Does the east coast have a different national championship than the west coast? Where is this championship in relation to the championship played in the spring that usually includes teams like St. Mary’s , Life, BYU. I thought Army (which is also east coast) beat St. Mary’s last spring in a national championship. Are these two separate competitions?

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