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By
Chris Korman
For Outsports.com
All you could see was Alice
Hoagland’s smile.
Hoagland had just awarded the
Convicts the Bingham Cup, a trophy named for her son, Mark
Bingham. About 20 Convicts had stormed the 6-by-8 stage,
swarming over Hoagland only minutes after playing their
sixth game of the sweltering, grueling weekend.
Engulfed in the celebration,
Hoagland’s smile never waned. It had not all weekend
“It’s really dazzling,”
Hoagland said, “to see so many diverse people proving to be
what they are: tough, strong and capable of playing
inspiring games.”
More than 800 rugby players,
coaches and supporters attended the third playing of the
tournament named for Bingham, a gay rugby player who is
believed to have been one of the passengers who charged the
cockpit and caused United Flight 93 to crash into a
Pennsylvania field instead of its intended target on Sept.
11, 2001.
After being held in San
Francisco and London, the tournament moved to Randall’s
Island in New York to be hosted by the Gotham Knights, and
quickly took on the character of the host city: gritty
during the day, glamorous at night.
The tournament has grown in
every way. From eight teams to 29, including three in the
women’s division. From one level of competition to three.
What started as the showcase
for a fledgling sports movement within the LGBT community
has burgeoned into a raucous celebration.
“I guess it’s no longer
appropriate to quote [Shakespeare’s] Henry V,”
Hoagland said during Sunday’s closing ceremonies. “We few
have become we the many. Are we still a band of brothers and
sisters?”
A cheer rose from the crowd.
Sydney became the first team
other than the San Francisco Fog – Bingham’s team – to win
the cup. Fittingly, the Convicts beat the Fog to clinch it.
Playing in the final match of
a truly brutal tournament (few rugby tournaments – for gays
or straights, amateurs or pros – last three days), Sydney
converted three kicks and powered through the line to score
a try and win 14-10. The Convicts were able to control the
pace of the game with sure-handed backs.
“The best thing that happened
to us is we lost in the last Bingham Cup to the Fog,”
Convicts captain Charlie Winn said. Thirty minutes after the
final match he was still hunched over, blood trickling from
his nose to mix with sweat and forming estuaries running
down to his mouth. “We’ve been looking forward to this for
two years. It is probably the proudest moment of my life.”
The matches for the bowl – a
new intermediate division – and plate both went into
overtime. Boston hit a kick in the second sudden-death
overtime to beat the Dallas Diablos 3-0, and Sydney’s B-side
edged the World Barbarians, a group of players from all over
the world, for the plate.
As Boston accepted the first
Bingham Bowl, one of the players shouted into the
microphone, “I now pronounce you team and bowl,” riffing off
legalized gay marriage in Massachusetts.
The tournament had flaws, of
course. Many teams complained about the sparse, dusty fields
strewn with rocks and debris. (Welcome to New York.) A pair
of streakers caused a slight delay in the championship game.
Not because anyone watching the rugby took offense – they
cheered and broke into a rendition of the song “It’s a Small
World After All” – but because children were competing in a
track meet at nearby Icahn Stadium. A voice emanating from
the stadium threatened to call the police if it happened
again. It did not.
Some flamboyance was to be
expected, not just because a majority of the men overtaking
the tiny island wedged between Manhattan and Queens happened
to be gay. Rugby culture tends to be – what is a gentle
word? – boisterous.
But the impromptu group
performances of pop songs came intermittently. And the
phrase, “He totally walks like he’s always wearing his
heels,” was only muttered a dozen or so times. Even
excessive beer drinking waited until mid-Sunday.
What couldn’t be ignored was
the steady, groaning procession to the medical tent.
According to head trainer
Shelly Bliden, more than 10 players ended up in the hospital
over the course of the tournament. There were several upper
body fractures, at least one serious leg fracture, countless
concussions, a few dislocations and multiple gashes
requiring stitches (sewn, it should be noted, right there in
the tent.) The medical staff estimates they used 400 pounds
of ice per day. An average bag of ice used for an injury has
a quarter of a pound of ice in it. That equals 1,600 bags of
ice each day.
“You know how they talk about
global warming and the glaciers disappearing?” Bliden said.
“Well, we used two of them this weekend.”
Hoagland still recalls when
Mark, then a gangly and shy 15-year-old, first told her he
wanted to play rugby.
“All I could think of was
English guys trying to rip each other’s heads of,” she says.
“Now I’m starting to understand the game better.”
Hoagland has been a fixture
at Bingham Cups and has become a leading advocate not only
for the LGBT community but for families of those who died on
Sept. 11.
What most of the attendees of
this tournament know about Mark Bingham they read in books
and articles that invariably described him as a gregarious
personality with a zest for life. Meeting Alice Hoagland
may have made them fully understand those depictions.
She was everywhere: snapping
pictures, running through the line of people gathered to
congratulate teams coming off the pitch, escorting the
injured to get attention.
Hoagland has had an emotional
two months. In early April she testified at the trial of
Zacarias Moussaoui, the alleged "20th hijacker," and for the
first time heard the cockpit recordings from Flight 93.
“I think it’s a victory for
America,” she said. “You hear them coming up, yelling ‘Into
the cockpit! Into the cockpit! Go! Go! Go!’ It sounds sort
of like what you hear on a rugby pitch. You could see them
staying in line, trying to get to the murderers. It was
chilling.”
When first approached with
the idea of starting a rugby team that would seek gay
players, Bingham hedged. His hesitation is noted in a
biography written about him (Hero of Flight 93: Mark
Bingham, by Jon Barrett) and both his mother and Jason
Reimuller, who also helped create the Fog, knew the idea
concerned him.
“He was worried about how a
gay team would fit into this really macho world of rugby,”
Hoagland said.
Said Reimuller, “We all
weren’t sure how it would work. How would we fit in with
rugby players, or within the LGBT community?”
Bingham eventually warmed to
the idea, and even had cursory discussions with New York
rugby player Scott Glaessgen about starting a team. Shortly
after Bingham’s death the Gotham Knights formed.
“Anyone who was involved in
the early part of this, in retrospect, they probably look
back and think it is one of the best decisions they ever
made,” Reimuller said.
Before awarding the cup,
Hoagland said that Bingham had been there with the players
all weekend. Her smile seemed to prove that. It was his as
much as hers.
May 30, 2006
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