The rest of spring 2008

My first season of refereeing wrapped up as follows:

4/12 - 4/13 MBA World Cup

This was an event to remembered. Every April, the Duke University Fuqua School of Business hosts the MBA Rugby World Championships. This celebrated event has been held since 1980 and is typically attended by 25 or more of the world’s most prestigious graduate business programs.

In 2008 it was plagued by some serious monsoon type weather (april showers) - with all the fields having standing water. I had a really good time - the rugby, even though it was wet and slow - fit the style of teams competing at the tournament and made for a good event.

The first day was a stop and go affair - any time there was lightning there was a required 30 minute break. The day, however, did finish as intended. I unfortunately cannot remember exactly who I refereed - but I do remember being assigned Ivey (Canadian Business School) 3 times, awarding a penalty try, and thinking NYU were a bunch of pricks (they were very mouthy).

I refereed the Plunger Final (for 17th out of 22) between Chicago and Harvard B. This was by far my best game, from a refereeing perspective, and from an entertainment perspective. Harvard B pushed ahead with an early try and conversion through a backs play. They also picked up a penalty to round out their scoring at 10. Chicago got one try in the first half, leaving them with 5. In the last play of the game Chicago scored another try, making it 10-10 - leaving me with the fear of going into overtime. Luckily, Chicago nailed the difficult conversion for win, 12-10.

The second day I had my first assessment by Ray Davis. I did not feel the game went well - I even made a blatantly wrong call (calling a scrum for what should've been a 22 drop by grounding in goal). Fortunately I was still promoted to C3 that weekend.

4/19 Enodiaks @ Guilford

Guilford College is based out of Greensboro, NC and is a member of USA Rugby South's Collegiate Men's Division 3. I don't know the last time they won their conference - but it has not been since I have been in college (2004). Guilford, however, did show up well on this day where I had my first experience ever with them. They were playing Enodiaks - a combination of two new clubs in the Raleigh/Durham area. Eno River is based out of Durham, NC. The Kodiaks are based out of Raleigh, NC and advertise themselves as being open to men no matter their sexual orientation.

At any rate, Eno River and Kodiaks were both low on numbers to they combined to become the "Enodiaks" to play Guilford.

It was immediately obvious who was the better team - Guilford basically ran in tries at will. To Eno's credit, they did muster a penalty and a lineout on the Guilford 5 meter line to drive it over for a try. Final score was something along the lines of 90-5.

Hopefully Guilford will capitalize on the excellent number of players they had for the game - many of whom looked rather good (but considering the opposition....).

I hope Eno River and Kodiaks continue to grow their clubs so that they can be competitive in the NCRU.

4/26 Elon Women's Round Robin

This was my final game of the season. Upon arrival at Elon's field I realized this was going to be a PROM DRESS game. I immediately told them I was going to have a hard time refereeing the game....as it was impossible to tell who was on what team as they were all wearing randomly colored dresses. The girls were all comfortable with that.

It turned out to be a reasonably enjoyable event - the crowd was really into it and the girls spent most of their time laughing.

An easy way to end the season......