What Would Radcliffe Rugby Do

This column was almost very boring. It being my last, I thought it would be appropriate to address the Democratic presidential candidates and politics on the national stage. So I dutifully wrote to Harvard Students for Dean to test the waters. As luck would have it, this columnist got Dean’s first name wrong in her email, and subsequently got no responses from HSD, (or whatever their acronym is). But then I realized: I’m not interested in writing about Dean. How he really likes to talk tough about Bush. How he’s running a more grassroots campaign. How he ran a tight ship in Vermont. It’s all great. It’s what everyone’s talking about. Let’s talk about something else.

What about a group of women who like to get up very early in the morning and wrestle around in the goose poop on Soldier’s Field? What about a team who gets no Crimson press even when they kick Yale’s butt every season? What about a club team whose financial budget is miniscule compared to their male counterparts? What about hookers, props, outside centers, and scrum-halfs? For this column, let Radcliffe Rugby be your McLaughlin Group, your All Things Considered, your James Carville (with hair). Let’s find out what they think.

If you’re not convinced that Radcliffe Rugby merits the commentator’s chair, consider this: they’re smart enough to see through political B.S. and cynical enough about current affairs to want real change. They’re politically committed, extracurricularly over-committed, and they can sing a mean rendition of “Doe, a deer, a female deer,” that, if included here, would ensure that Crimson President Amit R. Paley’s mother never invites me to Seder again.

So, the question I’ve posed is, if they went to the polls tomorrow, “What would Radcliffe Rugby do?” I’ve conducted an informal poll, and I got 20 responses out of a squad of around 35. It won’t get me through Stat 100 (I don’t know what did get me through Stat 100), but it will serve the purpose. We had a few outliers: one libertarian who plays wing, one self-described “gay neo-con” who plays second row, and one Canadian fly-half for Carol Moseley-Braun. Otherwise, those who responded will vote, and they’ll vote left. The majority are Dean supporters. Several ruggers are pessimistic that anyone can beat Bush, but will vote anyway. Four others favor Kucinich, and, in a perfect world, would vote for him before Dean. One thinks that Clark might have the needed edge. But most are swayed by Dean’s tough talk, and a couple even mentioned that Dean’s candidacy has inspired them to care more about politics.

But what’s most interesting about the results of my “poll” was that a majority of respondents expressed frustration with the general direction of mainstream politics. Eleven out of 20 Radcliffe players, though they see the election as important, still feel that a Democrat in the White House won’t bring about change of the order that this country desperately needs. One scrum-half wrote that she will be “100 percent satisfied if we can just get Bush out of the White House,” but this was a minority opinion—most who responded will be happy to see Bush go but won’t be completely satisfied to see the baton passed to any of the other candidates. A forward prop seems to sum up the feelings of many others when she said, “of course I recognize that the outcome [of the presidential election] matters gravely, but I also feel quite disempowered.” Radcliffe Rugby will vote, but it’s not because any of the candidates truly represent their views.

Some would say that the more progressive concerns expressed by the rugby team should be quelled in order for us to shore up support for a candidate who can beat Bush. But I think that the team’s words of warning about the perils of politics-as-usual couldn’t come at a better time. In a moment when the center beckons to candidates (and of course this side-stepping may only get worse after the primaries), Radcliffe Rugby’s opinions matter most. We could sit around all day and debate whether Dean’s really liberal, or whether anyone actually likes Clark. But this will do little to change the fact that too many Americans are in prison, receive little pay and even less respect for the jobs they do, and are sending billions of tax dollars to a government that fosters corporate greed. Politicians can make a difference, one outside center said, if they “decide that oppressed people matter.” But have any of the Democratic candidates made that decision? Radcliffe Rugby speaks, and we would do well to listen.

Beccah G. Watson ’04 is a history and literature concentrator in Adams House. Her column appears on alternate Fridays.