Milo's first rugby match...

My friend Alex plays rugby. This is a mysterious sport to me. It looks and sounds like pain incarnate. Kayla says it's everything boys want to do in sports, and anything goes, no holds barred. Though I think Alex did say one time that biting wasn't allowed. Other than that, anything goes.

Alex plays on the U of M team, and they're really good. They go to nationals every year, and I guess they're a club sport, but they play all the D1 teams. Yesterday, they played in the U's new outdoor stadium; pretty big deal in that they

usually play on some random field with no benches or bleachers for their few fans to watch from. But this match, they invited lots of people, and went to battle against their arch nemesis,

U of Wisconsin, Madison (there's a big rivalry with them in every sport apparently, something with gophers and badgers)

Alex's whole family came, Sarah, his gorgeous girlfriend, and her whole family (who happen to all be great friends with Alex's family) came, and Kayla and Derek and Milo and I went to see and be proud.

As I said, I don't really understand how rugby goes, but Alex seemed to play a pretty important

role. He's #1 (the announcer at the start of the match introduced him as "#1, both in uniform

and in their hearts" or something like that :) You can see him lifting a guy up to try and grab a

toss from the sidelines. He also ends up being in the scrum, or scrim, or scrub, that huge crowd that tries to plow the other team over while getting the ball to their own player.

It was super fun to watch, and I'd love to learn the rules sometime. Milo was a great sport; maybe he'll play rugby some day? I guess that goes back to him earning his nickname "Mack" if he can survive a match with cousin Jake the Tank :) Way to go Alex; you're #1 in our hearts too!