This past Saturday I took my five year old son to watch the Eagles play at Red Bull Arena in Harrison, NJ. For anyone who doesn't know, Harrison is really just across the river from Newark. I have never been to Newark before--the closest I have been is cruising by on the NJ Turnpike. Having spent a few moments driving through some part of Newark, I now get jokes about Newark.
The stadium is pretty new, which I hadn't realized. It looks like they are still developing the land around the stadium itself. We parked in an old warehouse. It isn't a warehouse that has been changed in any meaningful way. It looks like it was simply abandoned--nothing developed here--and when they built the stadium, the painted some parking spaces on the floor and tossed aside a few bricks. Driving into the warehouse I exchanged high fives from the car with some people already parked and grilling. My son was perplexed by this. How did they know to offer a high five? Why did I stick my hand out of the window to return it? We have had quite a few conversations about culture sparked by rugby, and my answer was an extension of this, though pretty simple.
The Eagles played France A and lost. Of course they lost. They had a chance to win, but they lost.
I bought two tickets and decided I would spend most of a day centered around an event whose outcome was known before it started. Still, I was surprised by the ardor of my own cheers. For whatever reason, I could not deny that I gave a damn even in the midst of the futility.
What I don't get is how they--I don't even know or care who specifically the they is--charged $60 for tickets. If anyone is on the fence about going to a USA rugby game, that kind of cost is going to push them off the fence pretty fast, I imagine.
However, seeing a rugby game legitamized by the things that surrounded our trip to Red Bull Arena sparked something in the five year old. We spend a lot of time on Sunday in the yard pretending to be different rugby guys we watched in person or on tv. For at least a few days, rugby was equal to baseball. Z Ngwenya was in the same league as Chase Utley. As a father who is trying hard not to push things too firmly on his sons, it was nice that it was the kid picking up the ball and asking to go be like Dan Carter.
