One last word

    Prior to coming to Sydney Australia for what has become the best semester of my life I literally had no background information on the sporting culture.  I knew that rugby was big and I knew that surfing was a way of life but I did not know to what extent these sports really helped to shape the Australian culture.  Just as baseball and football help to form the American identity, rugby, surfing, and swimming make up most of the sporting culture here.  Due to the opportunity of being able to take my favorite class in Sydney, sport and learning in Australian culture, I was informed thoroughly about the sports and the culture formed as a result.  I am a sports fanatic and when given the opportunity to broaden my horizons and learn about a new sport I am all for it.  In America surfing is big on the west coast, rugby has a very miniscule group of followers, and the only thing most people know about swimming is that Michael Phelps is a stud.  Not to mention I have never seen or heard anything about cricket or netball.  Sports in this country are very different than my homeland and I absolutely loved being exposed to a new array of rules, teams, concepts, and rivalries throughout my stay here in Sydney.
    I had heard all these great things about the sport of rugby but was never given the chance to ever make it to a game in America.  My school back home, Penn State University, has a club rugby team but the only reason I know that is because prior to writing this paper I looked on the internet to find if we had one.  Club teams in the United States are looked at as jokes because the three main college sports; football, basketball and baseball, are all multi billion dollar industries that make an extremely large amount of money for their respective schools.  These three sports combine for over two hundred scholarships a year and all have a large fan base and are sponsored by some of the biggest sports manufacturing companies throughout the country.   Club teams do not have a budget and often have to raise money so they can enter tournaments and purchase uniforms as well as the necessary equipment to play the sport.  With that being said, rugby here is equivalent in its fan base and dedication as American football.  As a result of this class I was exposed to many different levels of the sport that gave me a solid knowledge of it.  In early May we took a field trip to watch youth rugby.  I was very impressed with the amount of participants as well as the assistance of so many parents and volunteers.  From what I could tell I would say that of the five or so fields that had games going on there were about fifteen players per team.  That is over 150 youth boys playing rugby at the same time.  The fields were broken down by age division and it seemed as though the older the age group the more serious and more competitive the game was.  While this rugby was obviously not as intense as some of the other rugby games that I witnessed in Sydney it still gave me a general sense of how young children are taught to play the sport in this country. 
The rugby game that had the largest impact on me though during my stay here was the State of Origin game that I watched on television.  Even though I did not get to experience the game in real life I was still able to really appreciate the rivalry between New South Wales and the team from Queensland.  These two teams hate each other and that was apparent on every bone crushing hit against one another.  I have been to three professional rugby games since I have been in Australia so I can really appreciate the intensity of the collisions and the toll that it takes on their bodies.  These hits in the State or Origin game were unlike any I had seen though.  With every play they were literally out to kill one another.  Even though the team from New South Wales lost this still gave me the opportunity to witness one of the most intense and long standing rivalries in Australia and realize that it is on par with some of the biggest sports rivalries in America.
With so many people living on Australian coastline the beach makes up a large portion of the sporting culture throughout this country.  Of these beach sports the most popular and most mind blowing to me was the sport of surfing.  Coming to Australia I obviously knew that this was going to be big here but I did not expect it to be as big as it really was.  I will never forget the first day I showed up at Bondi Beach and saw hundreds of surfers sitting on their boards out past the break waiting to catch a wave.  I was absolutely fascinated so I decided to make it a point to learn to surf and bought my own board.  As the semester is coming to a close I must say it took a good two months but I caught on and am infatuated with the sport and can see why it has such a big following here.  There are hundreds of professional surfers from Australia who make a living by going to the beach everyday and surfing.  I would say there are thousands of jobs that are much worse than that.  In America it is common for a father and son to have a baseball catch but here I see a lot of fathers and sons surfing together.  Usually the father is teaching his young child the basics behind this great sport.  To this day I still can’t believe the amount of young children I saw surfing every time that I have gone to the beach.  There are little five year olds out there who absolutely shred waves apart.  The surfing culture is also very catchy and has a large following here in Australia, especially in towns such as Bondi and Manly.  The clothes, the gear, and the hair style are very prominent throughout the surf culture and help to shape the surfing identity.  Just as baseball has its own look in the States, surfing has that here in Australia.  Surfing is a life long sport just like tennis and golf and for that reason I am very ecstatic that I picked it up in my short time here in Australia.  As I get older I begin to miss playing the sports that I used to play so it is always good to have a wide variety of lifetime sports that I can excel at.
While many more sports such as swimming, beach volleyball, netball, and cricket also make up the Australian sports scene, rugby and surfing have had the biggest impact on my six month Australian identity.  I have become very entertained by the two of them and I cannot wait to take my surfing skills back home and get my friends involved in the sport as well.  This class has given me the chance to learn background about the sports as well as gain an exceptional amount of knowledge to fully understand its place within the Australian identity.  I truly cannot believe that my stay here in Sydney is about done but I am very fortunate to have been given this opportunity and my enrollment in this class really gave me the chance to learn about what I love and that is sports.

State of Origin

On Wednesday May 25 I was given the opportunity to watch the State of Origin’s first game of a best of three series on a television with a few good mates.  I have really adopted the culture of rugby since I arrived in Australia and felt excited about this series as it was something I had been hearing about for a few weeks.  I asked a few of my Australian friends about the history of the game and found out that traditionally New South Wales struggles in the tournament and that Queensland is usually the best team.  Conveniently game one was between these two teams.  Unlike the few professional rugby games that I went to this stadium was packed full of people and even on television it was easy to see how intense the atmosphere was inside that stadium.  Originally I pictured this like an all star game that they do in the States where the best players from each teams form two teams and play each other.  No one takes these games serious and it is all a big joke and the players are laughing and being friendly with one another.  This game was not like that at all.  These guys were trash talking, hitting each other extremely hard, and did not take it as a joke at all.  This was awesome to see because it showed they had a sense of pride for their homeland and the team they were playing for.  Each time wanted to win the game and it was quite apparent from the very start of the game until the last whistle blew.  As a student living in Sydney I was obviously rooting for New South Wales but unfortunately they lost.  However, I am so pumped at how intense this game was that I am going to follow the State of Origin next year.

Cricket at USYD

Walking back from class to Sydney University Village where I live I pass two big sports fields on campus.  Today when walking by there was a cricket match going on so I decided to stop and give it a look.  I am a huge baseball fan and love the idea of sports that have to do with using bat like objects to hit balls because it is one of the hardest things to do in sports.  With that being said I really despised cricket.  My first introduction to it was in class on this past Monday and I thought it was decent but nothing special.  At second glance I think that it is the worse sport that I have watched in Australia.  First off what really gets me is the fact that they bounce the ball when they pitch it.  I don’t understand why they don’t just throw it like a normal pitcher does in baseball.  On top of that apparently this specific game had been going on for three hours already.  I just recently looked up some statistics about cricket and it says that sometimes the games last for days.  What kind of sport allows a game to go on for days and yet there is no winner?  No doubt in my mind do these guys have athletic ability and skilled hand eye coordination but they should use it for a more legitimate sport.  This is completely my opinion but I just really do not understand how people can be entertained playing, never mind watching cricket.  Leaving the field after watching for about fifteen or twenty minutes I was frustrated and I can assure myself of one thing; I will never again go watch a game of cricket.  This is the first time I did not enjoy doing something for this sports class.

Volleyball Manly Beach

On Monday the sixteenth of May I spent the morning at Manly Beach to do a little surfing with some of my new mates that I acquired while studying abroad.  Within the first half hour I fell of my board and crushed my knee against it and needed to sit the rest of the day out.  Rather than taking a ferry home I decided to make the best of the beautiful fall day and just relax at the beach, something I hadn’t done since the weather got cooler.  While sitting on the sand and watching people surf I noticed a volleyball tournament going on further down the beach so I decided to hobble over and check it out.  These guys that were playing were probably late twenties early thirties and were absolutely ridiculous in the sense of how good they were.  Every point was made off a spike or an absurd serve.  By time the game had ended there must have been thirty or forty onlookers watching these ten men destroy each other in volleyball.  I come from a school, Penn State, where both men’s and women’s volleyball are always ranked in the top five in the country and are usually competing for a national championship.  With that being said I have never been able to watch any of their matches for some reason.  However, for some reason I found it impossible to take my eye off of this beach volleyball match.  Of the five courts available for people to use recreationally there was not one open.  This was on a Monday, I can only imagine what it is like on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon.  The amount of beach sports in Australia continues to blow my mind and really never ceases to amaze me.

Netball

Before arriving in Australia I had never heard of the popular women’s sport netball.  As a typical American who is so caught up in American sports I had no interest in learning about a game that I thought was almost a mockery of basketball.  After spending a solid forty-five minutes watching and learning the sport of youth netball I was pretty impressed with this new sport and how competitive it was for a youth sport.  With that being said the whistle was blown almost every minute for some sort of infraction or foul which began to get frustrating because I felt that it was taking away from the nature of the game.  As a former basketball player I know that when referees call so many fouls it really takes away from the rhythm of the game, making it difficult to fully enjoy the game.  However, these young girls did not seem to be effected by the constant sound of the whistle and actually improved upon their playing skills as the game progressed.  Not to sound like a sexist but I was very impressed with the athletic abilities of some of these girls, especially at such a young age.  In general I think that Australians are more athletic than Americans and begin to do physical activity at a younger age.  I feel that it is uncommon to see children in Australia that are obese as opposed to home where it is a common issue.

Youth Rugby

On Saturday May 7, 2011 I was given the opportunity to witness my first ever youth league sporting event in Maroubra Beach.  The sport that we were observing was rugby.  Prior to this I have had two experiences with going to rugby games, one professional, one lower level professional, and now one youth level.  All three have been different experiences but also very informative about the nature of rugby throughout Australia.  Showing up to the field today I did not expect to see the amount of children as well as parents involved in the sporting event as I saw.  It reminded me of my youth soccer program where everyone between the ages of eight and twelve played on a team regardless of their athletic ability or skill level.  From what I could understand by observing it looked as if most of the different levels of play were broken up by age group; nine year olds had a division, ten year old, etc, all the way to twelve or thirteen year olds.  The parental involvement was also very shocking.  Almost all of the coaches, referees, and members working at the snack bar seemed to be volunteer parents who were very competitive when it came to rugby.  I saw one coach get pretty intense with his team of ten year olds and I expected a negative reaction from his players.  Sure enough I was wrong and within the next five minutes his team scored twice showing that even at a young age rugby is very competitive throughtout Australia.  In America if coaches yell at young athletes the reaction will be the opposite of what was witnessed today, hence why American youth sports are often scrutinized for not being competitive.

Second Rugby Game

On Sunday April 10, 2011 I was exposed to my second ever professional rugby game.  Unlike the first game I went to this was not in a large enclosed stadium, rather it was almost an outdoor park with a large field in the middle and some bleachers around the outside.  This had a very different feel than the first game I went to, which was between the Sydney Roosters and the South Sydney Rabbito’s.  With that being said, it was just as entertaining and intense as the first game that I saw.  It almost gave me a better experience due to the fact that I was closer to the field than I was the first time I saw a game.  I was able to appreciate the intensity of the collisions and the speed at which this game was played at.  When sitting farther away it is almost impossible to hear the sounds made when bodies collide, but when sitting up close it makes a very distinct noise that sends chills down your spine.  These guys are making football like collisions without any pads or helmets.  Within the first thirty seconds of the game a player collided with a member of the opposite team and broke his nose causing blood to gush down his face.  After receiving medical attention for about ten minutes he was back in the game.  As a result of this I would have to say that these guys are some of the toughest athletes in the world, the guy’s nose was clearly broken but he got right back out there and started making tackles again as if nothing had happened.  I think rugby makes a lot of other professional sports athletes look soft, a guy would miss a week of games in baseball in the States for a broken nose.

Gold Coast Life Saving competition

Due to a planned trip to the Gold Coast and Byron Bay I was unable to make the lawn bowling field trip for this class.  With that being said I did have the opportunity to observe a Lifeguard surf saving competition while at the beach in the Gold Coast.  My first reaction was that I was shocked to see that something of this sort even existed.  Back at home I live on the beach and I have never witnessed or heard of anything like this.  After observing for about ten minutes I realized what phenomenal athletes these young men actually were.  The competition consisted of running on the beach, using a surfboard to paddle on their knees in the water, lifting some heavy objects, and then finally saving an inflatable human in the ocean.  On that specific day the waves were huge and the current was so strong that there were not many people even swimming in the ocean.  Even so these young men were finishing this course in a very short amount of time.  Honestly before witnessing this I thought to myself how can this be considered a sport it is a lifeguard competition.  When I was leaving the beach I was kicking myself for making those comments.  These guys were specimens and phenomenal athletes that could most likely compete in any of the major sports.  Yet again I was exposed to another new sport in Australia that turned out to be very interesting and entertaining.

Manly Surf School

    On Saturday the 19th of March I was given the opportunity through my study abroad program to take a complimentary surf lesson at the Manly Surf School.  I have been surfing for a few weeks now so I figured that taking a lesson would definitely help me improve on my newly acquired skill.  Previous to heading out for my lesson I took the time to talk to one of the instructors and informed him that I was not necessarily a beginner and was wondering if he could help me out at a more intermediate level of surfing rather than the beginner lesson that the group was doing.  The instructor agreed and we then went off on a conversation about my surfing experience, where I had been surfing, etc.  We discussed this for a few minutes and then we started talking about how great of a job it is to be a surf instructor.  He then informed me that this particular surf school gives lessons all day seven days a week from the start of summer right through until the end of April.  Once winter strikes they only run a few lessons a day but even during this time the turnout at this particular school in large.
    This all came as a large shock to me.  I knew that surfing was big in Australia but I did not know just how popular the sport was.  He told me that a chunk of their interest in the surf school comes from tourists but the majority of people learning to surf are people who live in Australia ranging from five year olds all the way into adulthood.  To me this was a bizarre fact that there was this much interest in surfing that they were giving lessons seven days a week from 9:00 in the morning all the way until 6:00 in the evening.  For the lucky few surfers that own this surf school I would have to say that they are doing very well for themselves and their job consists of teaching people to surf all day, needless to  say there are many worse jobs out there.
    All in all I would say that the free surf lesson turned out to be very beneficial and useful.  I learned quite a lot of the Australian surf culture as well as some necessary skills to really improve on my surfing capability.  It fascinates me that I live on the east coast in New England back in the United States and I never see people surfing.  When you go to the beach here, rain or shine, there are always people out surfing, even if the waves are terrible.  This new surfing skill that I picked up is definitely something that I am going to bring back home with me and maybe I can start a trend and turn surfing into a popular sport in my hometown and maybe even eventually open up a surf school.

Week 1 of school, first Australian sports experience

After being in Australia for two full weeks I still had not seen a minute of any sporting event and was beginning to go through withdrawal.  For me this was a big deal considering that I watch sports every day at home.  I am a huge baseball fan but also love college basketball and professional football.  Coming to Australia I was well aware that the sports that I was accustomed to at home would not be broadcast here any I was excited to broaden my horizons in the sports world. 
On my third week in this magnificient country, week one of school, I made a spontaneous decision to learn to surf so I purchased myself a brand new 7' 4'' surfboard.  Never in my life did I expect to own a surfboard but I am glad that I can now call myself a surfer.  My first experience in the water on my new board was not a huge success.  I was able to stand up a few times but immediately was knocked to the ground.  I went surfing three times that week with my other friends who also bought boards and by day three I was actually able to stand up almost at will.  In no way was I prepared to paddle out and catch large waves but I was slowly getting the hang of things.  It is now my third week of surfing and I am actually doing what most people would consider surfing.
Friday March 11 was the home opener of the Rugby League for the Sydney Roosters.  I made the half hour bus trip to the game to experience rugby for the first time in my life.  I had no idea what any of the rules were, how the scoring worked, or any of the players on each team.  With that being said, I talked to a person behind me about the same age as myself who took his time to explain the rules while the game was going on and I now have a decent understanding of how the game is played.  The Roosters beat the South Sydney Robbitohs, a team owned by Russell Crowe.  Needless to say I had a blast at the game and plan on attending many more games throughout the season.

First field trip, nippers

On the 13th of March for my sports in Australia class we went on our first field trip of the semester and paid a visit to Maroubra Beach.  All that I knew before going to Maroubra was that it had a reputation for having some tough kids but also as being one of the better surfing beaches in the Sydney area.  I got this information from a documentary that I was informed about through one of my friends who was here last semester, Bra Boys.  Needless to say I was excited to go to this famous beach and possibly encounter one of these many surfing legends.

The real reason that we were headed to the beach was to witness a program called "nippers."  Nippers is a program in which children between the ages of five and fourteen learn to become beach patrollers.  The main focus of the program is not always on rescuing people but a major portion focuses on learning beach safety and learning about the surf, rip currents, tides, etc.  The picture to the right of this paragraph is a picture of the nippers competiting in a race in which they had to run around adults in the ocean and then sprint in the sand back to their original starting point.  This provided a lot of entertainment and laughs for these young children. 
Later in the day I headed over to Bondi beach with a few of my friends and I saw a young boy probably about five years old wearing a Bondi Nippers shirt.  I stopped and talked to him for a quick second and he was ecstatic when I showed interest in his nippers program.  As I was walking away the boy was still smiling and it made waking up at 7:30 a.m. that Sunday worth it.  If I had not taken my sports in Australia class I would have never stopped to talk to the young boy at Bondi and would have never had any idea what an important part of the beach community this program is.