I went to a level I coaching/collegiate player's camp this summer. It was rugby nirvana. I'm still scratching at imaginary fleas and picturing chalk talks while I sit at my desk at work. Twelve hours of rugby a day for five days. Who could ask for anything more?

And yet, there was this one thing that happened up there that touched a darker nerve for me. It was the kind of thing I usually like to just... pass by and not think about. No, it wasn't the boy being tied up with duct tape and left by the camp dinner bell. No, it wasn't the amount of alcohol consumed, or the ribbing each of the coaches took and or gave. Or even the fact that I had to observe so much during the practice sessions because I was there for the "coaching aspects" and am far in years from being a college player (I carried my black plastic mouthpiece with me at all times anyway, just in case I had a chance to "mix it up," with the college boys).

You see, there were thirty-seven college players in attendance on the first evening of the camp and only thirty-five on the second evening. One left because of a family emergency and the other, well, after paying for his "camp" experience, he simply left.

Rugby is a violent sport. There is attrition due to injuries. This is something I know intellectually. I can do the math in my head. It's a fact. All teams have to deal with attrition one way or another. That's what "having depth" in your key positions is all about. At the camp, the number of able bodied players for the game three days later, was down to thirty-one. That's like the blood I find in my mouthpiece after I put it in my mouth and bite down. I expect it to be there, and it disturbs me at some level, but I keep putting the mouthpiece back in because, well because...

What happened at the camp was just an echo of what I've heard a hundred times before over the years.

"Whatever happened to that guy with the black hair? What's his name - "

"Black hair?"

"That fast guy with great speed. What's his name?"

"That guy, yeah. Elvis. Whatever happened to Elvis?"

"He's gone. I haven't seen him."

"What happened to him? Has anybody talked to him?"

"I think he's just - you know - gone."

"You don't' think he'll be back?"

"I don't think so. You know he had that look."

"The look."

"Yeah the look."

And the funny thing is I know exactly what the look is. It's a look that says, "I'm not like you guys. I'm not one of the hardcore. I don't want to be playing this game ten years from now with crooked fingers, a bow-legged walk, and white patched scars on my knees, unwrapping tape from my ankles and wincing in pain as I try to pull my shirt up over my swollen shoulders and bruised rib cage after a game. I figure I'll just play a couple of years and get out."

Oh.

In the morning, after breakfast at the camp on the second day, when we all heard that the two players had left, we all nodded sagely. I had a feeling some of the players were going to leave. The other coaches seemed to have the same feeling. We all looked at each other with discreet glances and nods. The players had been put through two practice sessions that had lasted over two hours each that day. I asked which player it was that had left without an explanation. When he was described, we all nodded again. One of the coaches had an ear that was puffed up like a cauliflower from playing second row. He scratched at it pensively.

Players come and go all the time. Elvis reappears every year in different guises, shapes and sizes. Elvis is alive and well and still trying to play on a rugby team.

Sometimes, though, I wonder if we don't somehow... push them out. If it's such a tribute to be considered one of the - hardcore. It probably depends on whether I've got my mouthpiece in hand or not and whether my gums are still bleeding and whether or not, at that moment I still like the taste of black plastic.

The End