{In response to In Defense of Unabashed Testosterone (10/28/2010)}
I would just like to say that your article about vanishing manliness entitled “In Defense of Unabashed Testosterone” (Oct. 28), was very well written and brings up many valid points. But I have a few thing to say to sports editor Joey Bien-Kahn. He speaks of the dying breed of the man’s man at UCSC. There you are very wrong, sir. We honorable, determined, and devoted men of the UCSC men’s rugby team are actually growing in number. In your article you wrote about unabashed testosterone. We pick up a ball and run with it at full speed into our fellow men. We gather in scrums of eight men to ram each other. We tackle and maul and ruck and dip and toss and kick and stiff-arm relentlessly in 80-minute games. You drew the picture of a manly guy wearing shorts in the rain. We play in the rain and hail and mud in short-shorts. You speak of shotgunning beers as being manly… Well, we won’t get into that. If you have ever seen your fellow man vomit after sprints on a crisp Monday morning with the sun barely rising over the hills across the bay, you know what it takes to play rugby. If you want to see what men look like, come to a rugby game. If you think you are a man, come to a practice.
Dan O’Leary
UCSC vice president of men’s rugby
