A professional rugby player fixed our plumbing

A professional rugby player came to my house today to fix our blocked sewer pipes.

A fine rugby player and a hard-working plumber – and thanks to Raymark Plumbing and Sewer for hiring so many Seattle Seawolves, who, let’s face it, can’t make much of a life on salaries from the Major League Rugby, now in its second year.

Perhaps this will be like Johnny Unitas working for Bethlehem Steel during the National Football League’s off-season back in the 1950s. Or, Lou Groza selling insurance. Jim Brown was a marketing rep for Pepsi-Cola, and Frank Ryan taught math at Case Western Reserve University (I was a Browns fan long before the Seahawks were a twinkle in anybody’s eye).

If others do what Raymark is doing to keep good players playing the game in the United States, it could be the start of something big for fans, the players and the league. And some day, soon we hope, the teams will be playing a salary players can live on.

Of course, my player-plumber never asked for advice from an old rugger, but that hardly stopped me.

Keep at it. You may not have studied chemistry and psychology in college to keep my pipes clear, but do this to keep playing rugby well and as long as you can. My teammates built concrete farm silos in the 1970s – thanks, Bruce — so we could play at the Ohio State University and for the Old White in Atlanta. Later, working the night shift on Saturday night left the day open for rugby.

Let others help you to play at the top level as long as you can because some day you will see the play but not get there in time to make it.

And some day, your damned teammates will start dying. First it was Tripp, whom Old Puget Sound Beach heard about while on tour in New Zealand and Fiji, where Tripp should have been instead of in some cancer ward dying.

And whatever happened to Simo, who would stick canned smoked oysters up his nose and pull them out and eat them at highly inappropriate times. And the Round Man, big smile, big girth and a deadly pass from scrum half.

You go to a team reunion and reminisce about the kicker that stared into the setting sun, goal post down there somewhere, and kicked a penalty that won the Heart of America tournament in Kansas City. “Oh, he died in a car accident some years ago,” we were told.

Johnny Mack shot in a bar he managed. Botz dared to be gross, and we thought he’d never die. But he did.

Then Don, who I had a bit of a shuffle once at practice. He was big, I was small and I’m sure he never thought once about it as he walked off the pitch and then painfully off the planet.

Even if you make enough money in rugby to live on, never take time off like Joey Galloway did in an NFL contract dispute. Did he think the prime time of his playing career would last forever? That he could waste year of it?

Just remember, there will come a time when you would rather play rugby than talk – or write – about it. Let Raymark and others help you out.