End of the Season

With the end of the Rugby season at hand, I started thinking about who all would be leaving the team, and what positions they would be vacating. There were only 6 seniors graduating (well, 5 plus Eric Wright, who technically already graduated, and Mike McMillon, who will graduate next December), so I decided it was a small enough amount that I could do miniature profiles on each senior, where they are going, and say who would be replacing them.

It took some doing to get them to all talk to me, because it's finals week and they had a lot of things to do. However, after a lot of work, I was able to sit down with them and get them to talk a bit about what their plans were. I found it interesting to see what each person had planned. There were a lot of different answers to that question.

I was also able to find who the most likely candidates were to take their positions. In some cases, like Wright and Hojnowski, I was able to find out who would take their place on the team as well as in the "coaching staff" (head coach and forwards captain respectively). However, in Ryan Becks case, the president of the team and a fullback, there was no clear hear to either spot. There was the same problem with McMillon for his place as a fullback. This was because those two rotated in the position, and not many other players have played the spot.

I found it interesting to talk to the players. These guys were basically the players most comfortbale talking to me. I wonder if that was a result of their age or not. I was thinking about covering the team next year on my own time, and I still might give it a shot, but having to make all new relationships with the team might be a bit more than I want to volunteer the time for, especially when I'm not getting paid or credit. I suppose that might be to lessons learned right there. When it comes to sports reporting, every year some new bonds have to be forged with the team, and respect and trust have to be earned every year. And two, sometimes doing what you enjoy isn't worth the time when you aren't getting paid. It's a sad lesson, but never the less true, and something that may need to be painfully learned next year...