Entry 18: The Football

[The All Blacks kicker lining up for a free kick.]

As far as I can tell, there are three sports here in Australia that can be called football: Australian rules football, rugby union, and rugby league. It is all very confusing to me, but I think it’s confusing to Australians as well. I tried to clear things up with somebody at one point and had the following conversation.

Me: So there is AFL [Australian Football League] and that’s football, right?
Him: Yes
Me: But the other night I was watching “Friday Night Football” but it was rugby league.
Him: Yes
Me: So… if you say football you are referring to what sport?
Him: Depends on where and who you are

So anyway, last night I went to a rugby union match, Australia versus New Zealand, but I think I can say I went to the football.* I’ll get into that in a minute, but first I want to discuss a story about football of the American variety.

A few days ago Joe Montana went on the Dan Patrick Show (which I download often) and in casual conversation mentioned that the makers of the movie Rudy embellished the story. (Joe went to Notre Dame at the same time as the eponymous Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger.) For some reason this became a national story, and Joe received some backlash, as if he was picking on Rudy or something. This is idiotic for two reasons.

For one, doesn’t everybody already know that Hollywood movies, even those based on true stories, are sensationalized. Rudy stars the kid from The Goonies. It’s obviously not a documentary.

For two, I never found the story of Rudy, even the movie version, very inspirational. For those who haven’t seen it, it’s an underdog story. Rudy is the kid who always wanted to play football for Notre Dame, but he’s too small and too slow to make the team at first. However, through hard work, desire and perseverance, he overcomes the odds and does it. He devotes years of his life to playing for Notre Dame. He gets beat up every day practicing, he sleeps in the janitor’s closet (or something along those lines), he endures hardship after hardship, everybody tells him he can’t do it, but still he fights on. Then, finally, he gets to suit up with the varsity team, the coach lets him play a few plays at the end of a meaningless blowout, and he gets one sack (really it's more like a half sack, if you notice, it isn’t even attributed to him by the commentator calling the game). That’s the payoff? It seems like a lot of wasted time and energy to me. I mean, the people who said Rudy was too small and slow to play football for Notre Dame were 99% right. It’s not like he proved everybody wrong and became the starting defensive end. He wasn’t even a solid backup. He played a few plays in garbage time the very last game of his career. That’s it. As far as underdog stories of achievement go, it’s a pretty lame one.

I’m going to write a movie and call it Sammy. It’s the story of Marcus “Sammy” Samuelson. Sammy has a boyhood dream of playing football for the University of Texas (I have to update it, because Notre Dame hasn’t been good in 25 years), but everybody tells him he’s too small and slow. Intent on proving the naysayers wrong, he tries out as a walk-on and makes the practice squad, because the head coach likes his moxie and grit. After a year of taking daily poundings, realizing his chances of having a significant role on the team are small no matter how hard he works, he quits football. Instead of going to practice every day he volunteers at a local hospital. He realizes he has a fondness for medicine and instead of hitting others on the gridiron, he hits the books in the library. He gets into UT med-school (but only after several failed attempts) and eventually goes on to become one of the most reputable cardiologists in the greater Austin region. He made it all happen by not wasting so much time and effort trying to be a really shitty college football player.

Anyway, the rugby match. It was the Australia Wallabies vs. the New Zealand All Blacks – ANZ Stadium, Sydney. It was a great time. It was me, three other blokes from work, H, T, and F, and two women, B who is H’s friend, and D who is F’s cousin (second cousin, technically). H and F are Kiwis so they were obviously pulling for the All Blacks. B and D are Australian so they were pulling for the Wallabies. T (who’s German) and I didn’t have any obvious rooting interests, so just for fun he align himself with the All Blacks and I went for the underdog Wallabies. I’m saddened to report, the Wallabies lost by one point. They had a good lead for almost the entire game, but they squandered it at the very end in epic fashion.

[A pregame ritual called a haka based on the Maori form of dance.]

It was still a great time though. We drank a lot of beer. (I’m finding this tends to happen when H and T are involved.) We went to the pub beforehand, had a few pops there, had a few more in the beer garden outside the stadium, had few more in the stadium, and then had a few more in the beer garden on the way out. H, T, B, and I then ran to catch the train back to Newcastle. (D lives in Sydney and F was staying at her place.) It’s a three hour trip, but I slept for most of it. I woke up when H threw a granola bar box at me and said, “We’re getting off here. Don’t miss your stop.” It’s a good thing he woke me up. It would have sucked to miss my stop, and I was pretty well zonked out.

We should have just got a cheap hotel room and all crashed in Sydney. It was only around 10pm when the game ended, so it’s not like it was super late, and it seemed like everybody wanted to keep the party going. There was a cover band** playing in the beer garden after the game and we were all dancing and having a good time, and then we had to end things so abruptly. Oh well.

I was needling H a little bit on the train for not pursuing D (as far as I know, they are both single and she’s cute), which I don’t think he was too annoyed by. B started getting in on it a little bit too, which was funny. I’m the guy who gets married and then busts other guys’ chops for not putting the mack down, because I know my chops can no longer be busted about such things. Actually, I’m more like the guy who has some money now, but grew up poor, so he can’t stand to see other people throw out food, even when he’s not hungry, and it has nothing to do with him. I was pretty much single for all of my 20s, so now when I'm hanging out with a single guy, and there is a nice, good looking, available girl around, who might appreciate some attention, I’m thinking to myself “come on man, don't waste this.” If they don’t try to get a number or email or something, I can't help but shake my head – a perfectly good meal dumped down the disposal.

*By the way, at first I thought it was weird that people here use a “the” when they are referring to something general – I’m watching the football, I’m going to the pub – but then I thought we do this all the time in the states too, just with different words – I’m going to the store, the doctor, etc. It’s weird if you think about it. We say it as if there is only one pub, or one store, or one doctor.

**I love cover bands. It’s the greatest way to mask the fact that you are mediocre musicians, and let’s be honest, about 95% of bands that play in bars are mediocre (or worse). Don’t try to be creative, don’t try to be original, just crank out some stuff everybody can sing along to, and we’ll all be dancing and happy.