BY A.J. SCHUERMANN
Rugby is the original smashmouth football. Grant Schleisner from the San Luis Obispo Rugby Club learned that the hard way when one of his teeth tore through his lower lip during a rough game.
In other games he’s cut, broken, or separated his shoulders, hands, elbows, nose, jaw, ribs, vertebrae, eyes, and ears–sometimes more than once. For half his life, the 54-year-old contractor from Pismo Beach has played and coached rugby, a sport he describes as a gentleman’s game played by barbarians.
"If you’re not a gentleman, it’s a game where you will learn to be a gentleman or you’ll get hurt real bad," he said. "It is kind of like life. It teaches you that if you’re a cheap prick, you’re gonna get paid back."
The scars on his forehead allow him to show and tell some lessons he’s learned from rugby. One time he hit an opponent late–admittedly a cheap shot–and later in the game that same guy spiked him in the face, called him a bastard, and left him lying on the ground in need of 37 stitches.
Teammate Andrew Adams, a 31-year-old insurance agent from Los Osos, learned the hard way that he wasn’t invincible. Rugby was a great outlet for him as an angry 18-year-old, but he paid for it with separated shoulders, hyperextended knees and elbows, a broken nose, broken fingers, and fractured vertebrae. A torn hamstring muscle finally forced Adams to face reality.
"Now I know how to play the game," he explained. "I know that it takes a certain amount of aggression and I know when to do the aggression, but I don’t tend to separate the other team’s shoulders because I can. It’s more calculated and precise."
Paul Cappellano, a 34-year-old teacher at Atascadero High School and president of the SLO Rugby Club, is fortunate to have limited his injuries to a few cracked ribs. Cuts, bumps, and bruises give him a sense of serenity and strength. After rugby, he says, the rest of life’s aggravations seem a little easier to handle.
"Bleeding’s not really an injury, you know? Bleeding’s just a fact of life," he said. "Sometimes it just feels good coming off the field, (after) 80 minutes of bone-crunching, sometimes in foul weather, it just feels good coming off the field thinking, ‘I’ve survived something that was pretty scary.’"
Mitchell Gregory, a real estate agent, window cleaner, and bartender at Camozzi’s in Cambria, is another veteran of the SLO Rugby Club. At 27, he’s learned how to keep his battle scars to a minimum.
"I find when rugby is played between two knowledgeable teams, injuries are pretty much minimal," he said. "The problem that I’ve seen with a lot of the younger people coming into rugby (is) they have the American football mentality, where they want to run through someone, where they want to hurt somebody. They’re your opponents, not your enemies."
Rugby has taught him that sacrifice is necessary to prosper. In past seasons, the SLO Rugby Club was the team to beat. But many veteran players left last year and the team has been rebuilding this year with several new players–some who have never played a rugby game before this season.
Midway through their season they’ve yet to win a game.
"You don’t have to win always," said Schleisner. "That’s an American thing. Rugby is an international sport. It’s not about winning; it’s about participating."
Coach Larry Ferguson still thinks there’s a good chance the team will win some games in the second half of the season. He said the new players are improving greatly with each game they play. Four have already scored their first rugby touchdowns or "rookie tries," which have been a source of inspiration, a reason to drink beer, and a sign of hope for the future of this club.
Cappellano and some of the others hope to establish a youth rugby league in the area, which would probably help the SLO Rugby Club maintain a more steady supply of players for the future.
"And I just hope they get infected with the same virus that infected me," said Cappellano. "It makes me drag my tired ass out there on Saturdays, makes me travel 200 miles to go and get guys kicking me in the head. It’s fun."
A.J. Schuermann is a freelance writer.