How Bad Were We - Rachael Berman, 10/25/01
Clocks and Mud - Vanessa Chan, 10/25/01
Filling in the Blanks - Ali Pollock (Popper), 10/25/01
The Pink Skirt - Bridget Tannian

How Bad Were We - Rachael Berman, 10/25/01

This seems to call for a "how bad were we" message...

I remember two good ones:

One season where we only scored 1 try, and the player who scored it was somebody we had borrowed from another team.

One season (before I joined - this is from Kelly Grant/Craven) there were so few players that showed up that they took their rental car and went to see Plymoth Rock instead of bothering to go to the game.

Who else has good stories?

Having played for MIT, who almost always lost, and Beantown, who almost always won, and Boston, who did some of both, there is a clear winner. MIT was and is far and away my favorite team.

Rachael

Clocks and Mud - Vanessa Chan, 10/25/01

I think my favorite stories are:

1. When we were playing away (I forgot where) and Natasha Kablaoui, Marianne Bitler, Kiwi and I were staying at a hotel and someone (me) managed to change the time on the clock while she was setting the alarm and of course none of us had watches so none of us knew. So the next morning we strolled downstairs, had an amazing huge brunch since our game did not start for another 2 hours. We sauntered to the car to drive the half hour to the game. Karen turns on the ignition and according to the time on the car clock, the game had already started, except the fly half, scrum half, captain and 2 wings were not there. As we are driving there, in the midst of our panic, we get a little lost, take a couple of wrong turns and got there way, way late... Luckily it was a tournament so someone else played and we played later, but our team was not too happy with us... I can't even remember if we won or not but I do remember Katy Quinn's face when we saw her...

2. Beating Yale on the wettest and coldest rugby day of them all and taking Meghan (our coach) up on her promise that if we did beat them, we could throw her in the mud. Then after the game, shivering in a New Haven Laundramat in our sports bras, while we tried to dry our muddy and wet clothes in the driers.

I have to agree - MIT times were the best!

Filling in the Blanks - Ali Pollock (Popper), 10/25/01

To fill in the blanks on Vanessa's stories:

Both of Vanessa's stories happened in the same tournament. It was "Beast of the East" at Providence College. The first day it was about 34 degrees and freezing rain. We beat Yale, threw Meghan into the mud, and propped ourselves against the driers at the laundramat to warm up as we burnt the mud into our clothes as we dried them (we didn't bother to wash them first. Why bother?). The next day it was about 65 degrees and sunny, and Vanessa, Marianne, Karen and Natasha were about an hour and a half late. But yes, our match got rescheduled so the rest of us didn't kill them. And we played against Southern Connecticut and won (least that's how I remember it).

My two favorites are:

1) Coach Bridget Tannian showing up in a (pink) skirt for the Wellesley game. It was the first time we'd beaten them in a million years,and we tried to convince Bridget that it was because of the skirt, and that she should wear a skirt to every game. She was having none of that.

2) Driving about 4 HOURS to northern Vermont to play St. Michael's and Norwich Academy in a round-robbin type of thing. I think we had 10 players, so it was stupid for us to go in the first place. Of course, about 2 hours after we had left Boston, a girl from St. Mike's had called us to say the matches were cancelled. This was in the time before cell phones, so they kindly left the message on our match secretary's answering machine back in Boston. Boy did we look stupid showing up at the school, wandering around looking for a rugby match that didn't exist. Let me tell you, nothing beats spending 8 hours in a van, NOT playing rugby, to get to know your teammates...oy.

Ahh, good times.

The Pink Skirt - Bridget Tannian

Just a clarification: I was wearing the skirt because the team promised they would win if I wore it, not because I just felt like wearing a skirt one day. Oh, and the pink skirt was borrowed from Rachael.

Bridget

P.S. There was the time that 4 of us went in my car to a match someplace in Maine, but we were the only ones that made it because nobody in the van with the rest of the team had directions. So we (Tallessyn, Julie, me, and somebody else. Karen maybe?) stopped by the field to apologize to whomever it was we were supposed to be playing, went and got some pizza, and went home.