Why We Play

In our country, true teams rarely exist… social barriers and personal ambitions have reduced athletes to dissolute cliques, or individuals thrown together for mutual profit. Yet, these rugby players, with their muddied, cracked bodies are struggling to hold onto a sense of humanity, that we in America have lost and are unlikely to regain. The game may be only to move a ball forward on a dirt field, but the task can be accomplished with an unshaken joy, and its memory will be a permanent delight. The men who play on that rugby field are more alive than too many of us will ever be.
The Changing Room 1895