Two weeks ago St. James' Year-10 Rugby team participated in a tournament final. This doesn't happen often, so when the boys make it this far the coaching staff goes the extra mile to make it a big deal for them and the school. The lads were invited to play at Allianz Park -- home to the Saracens Rugby Club, one of the top professional teams in England.
Here is a look at the stadium ...
As I said before, the coaches put forth a lot of effort to make a spectacle out of matches like these. I helped set up the locker room with brand-new jerseys for the evening ...
After receiving their new gear and putting it on, the squad headed out to the field to warm up ...
The match was awesome, a hard-fought battle. When the referee blew his whistle for half time neither team had scored. St. James' coach, Stu Willis, got his guys together and stressed to them that they needed to keep up the intensity. He commended the boys on their tough defense but urged them to push forward more on turnovers. He then left his team with the captain and they prepared for the second half kickoff.
The second half began the same way the first half started -- a tough defensive battle. With 10 minutes left to play the opposition, Lanister Boys School, broke through the St. James defense and crossed the touch line resulting in a "try" worth 5 points. St. James seemed dejected but kept coming at Lanister. Another late try put the opposition up by 10 and that's how it ended: 10-0 to Lanister.
After the match Coach Willis said he was proud of the boys, that they had fought hard and left everything they had on the field. He told his guys to hold their heads high, that they had done themselves and their school proud. Coach Willis' message stuck with me on the bus ride home. It reminded me of what Coach Torrey, Chaminade's head football coach, would to my teammates and I after our tough losses. He would tell us to give everything we had for each other. The philosophies behind rugby and football are very similar even though they are mainly played on different continents.
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Last week was the final full week of boarding at St. James before the holiday break, so on Tuesday we all went to the Hampton Court Palace to ice skate. I traded my usual Bauer Hockey skates for some rented figure skates and it wasn't pretty. But the scenery at the palace, Henry VII's pride and joy, was majestic.
Here you can kind of see the beautiful palace lit up for Christmas (I was being asked by the rink guards to put away my phone on the ice, but with a quick couple strides I was able to evade them and get the shot) ...
Here is another shot of the palace from the other end of the ice ...
I look forward to seeing all of my family and friends back in St. Louis. I leave London in the afternoon on Thursday, December 18 and get into Lambert Airport that night at 10:45 p.m.
Merry Christmas
