Fasolamatt passes along this piece about the Macalester women’s rugby team from Mac’s student newspaper, which undoubtedly increased circulation with the headline, “Rugby resorts to whoring.” Turns out that’s just a part of the game. Um, let’s let the article explain:

The women’s rugby team this year may be small, but what they lack in numbers they make up for in spirit. In the world of team sports, however, sometimes that isn’t enough.

“The women we have are incredible,” Head Coach Nadine “Nader” Barten said. “But they can’t take on twice as many [opposing players].”

Fortunately for Macalester, it’s common for small teams to combine with other teams. It’s called whoring. “Whoring is a legitimate rugby term,” Captain Katherine Horstkotte ‘10 explained. “There are people who pride themselves in being whores.”

The term is believed to have originated with a Mr. Jim Simms, a rugby fanatic who passed away in 2001. As that lovely tank indicates, there is a whole merchandise industry out there that, frankly, might not fly if one replaced “rugby” with “soccer” or “dirty” or just eliminated “rugby” altogether. But hey, if it’s a term of affection, we’re cool with letting it roll.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 11th, 2008 at 3:59 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.