BY HANNAH PURKEY

Online | Published March 2, 2011

Day three began with a reminder that day two was all about tackling—getting out of bed I felt the same way I’m sure Betty White did the day after filming that snickers commercial featuring her as a football player. And that was only my teammates tackling me, not opponents who actually want to hurt me. No time to think too much about that, though, as Thursday and Friday are back-to-back practices.

What happens to a non-round projectile after it makes contact with the ground

The beginning of this practice was run by our assistant coach Laurie, who had spent a good deal of the two previous practices trying to make sure I didn’t get myself killed in an unfortunate meeting with the ground or a teammates’ elbow, so I was psyched for this practice. And we were doing kicking! After four years of playing Swat soccer, I should at least be able to put some of that knowledge to use on the rugby pitch. At least that was what I had hoped.

Yet something weird happens to a ball when it is not round; all the rules of physics seem to go out the window. For example, when a soccer ball hits the ground off a punt, it bounces up and forward. This makes sense. A rugby ball when it hits the ground off a punt, bounces in whatever direction it feels like at that particular moment. This does not make sense. I learned this unfortunate fact during what at first seemed like a simple drill: one partner punts the ball and the other partner catches the ball. If only it were that simple. The only explanation I could come up with for why such a simple drill became so complicated for me is that I had somehow offended the sacred rugby ball, and it had therefore decided to punish me for this unknown offense.

The result was a lot like the squirrel in Ice Age that is always chasing after the acorn, but then he accidentally pushes it off a cliff or starts an avalanche that buries it. Yeah, it was bad. I spent most of the drill running in one direction and having the ball bounce in the opposite direction, just to spite me I’m sure. Sadly, my accuracy at kicking was just as bad as my catching, which meant my partner got a bit more of a workout than she signed up for. But by the end of the drill, I had embarrassed myself sufficiently that the rugby ball had forgiven me and I could at least get the ball in my partner’s vicinity when kicking.

How to lay an egg

We spent the rest of practice in a touch-scrimmage that could best be described as chaotic (or maybe it wasn’t, but I was still channeling a chicken with its head cut off, so at least my contribution would best be described as chaotic). But before that, our wonderful coach Chuck wanted to demonstrate an alternative way to set the ball than the approaches we had practiced previously. This technique he appropriately named “laying an egg.”

I have seen my fair share of weird demonstrations (I mean, come on, Bio 2 has carnivorous plants!), but the demonstration of this technique takes the cake. The point of the technique was to find a way to set the ball so that it would be in a good place for your teammates to pick up without exposing it to the other team. Teaching the technique, however, was much more interesting. Two different veteran players tried to demonstrate the technique as Chuck narrated what they should be doing, but neither could stop laughing long enough to actually finish the demonstration. Something about Chuck yelling, “You guys are women, you should know how to do this!” and a teammate asking in a scarily serious tone, “Wait, do we lay eggs?” made us all lose control. Fed up with us, Chuck decided to demonstrate himself. Of course, that didn’t help us get control of ourselves any faster, because no matter who is doing it, “laying an egg” is just a funny move to pull during an athletic competition.

And with that knowledge, I have completed my first week as a rugby player. I still don’t know the rules of the game, or really have any idea how to play. But that’s a problem for another day. I survived week one, and am still having fun. And, hey, now I know how to lay an egg. If nothing else, I’m sure that’s a good icebreaker on a Saturday night, right?

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