The Fightin' Impalas

For the past four and a half weeks, I've been training with a rugby club in Indianapolis, the fightin' Impalas, and yesterday was the first game of the season; a non-league match against the fightin' Boilermakers of Purdue. Being the new guy, I seem to rate fairly low on the proverbial totem but I was assured I'd get an opportunity to show what I could do. 

I was in the game for probably less than five minutes before it occurred to me that my unrestrained mane, though quite handy for striking fear into the hearts of my opponents, was something of a liability in terms of my field of vision. At no point was this more evident than when I was given my first shot at playing eightman; ball goes in, ball goes back, I crouch down, hair in my face, I pick the ball, run blindly, trip over teammate, land like a ton of bricks. Somehow, the lack of success I was seeing at the eightman position didn't seem to slake my teammate's enthusiasm for getting me the ball and this resulted in me spending most of the afternoon running into unseen defenders. Sneaky little trickers.

Who doesn't love April? And yes, I do mean the character from Ninja Turtles.

-Ryan