Painful Fun In my sport heads collide, bones break, and blood spills. My sport is rugby. Two years ago I was an average baseball player. Well, actually, subtract maybe two inches, and most muscle. I was a scrawny little sprinter who had never played anything else, other than baseball. Little did I know, soon, a sport would change my life so drastically and become one of my favorite things to do. I believe that there are hidden opportunities for joy waiting to be discovered in any form. I was signed up behind my back, by my “friends”, and I was very discontent. I had already signed up for baseball and did not care for rugby, let alone, know how to play it. Our first practice was in the brisk March air. I could have sworn sweat could freeze before it hit the ground. Never in my life had I had such a grueling practice. Mostly, I remember the smell of the astro turf. The rubbery, cold, manufactured smell that the only other place you smell is in a tire production factory. My first season flew by. But, that summer, and basically through till the next season in spring, I did what I had to do to survive. Get bigger, and get faster. Mostly get faster, seeing that I was not going to transform into something very menacing, compared to the beard growing high schoolers I was going to face. I will never forget the first hit I took in U19 high school rugby. Well actually, I was hitting the other player, but it felt more like he was hitting me. As I sprinted forward, I lowered my body, and pounced at his stomach, but, he didn’t move. Smashing into a brick wall, might have been a good way to describe it really. All around me, I could hear growling, anger,