May 4, 2000

Nihongo Fellow Ruggers,

Words of my death have been highly exaggerated. The Happy Hooker is back, and I'm ready to enlighten and exasperate you with "the Hooker's Tale." We're approaching almost 2 months since my last rant, so for those of you who like them - I'm sorry, and for those of you who just barely tolerate them - you're welcome!

Let's see if we can use the Reader's Digest version to get you caught up on what's been going on with the Happy Hooker. St. Patrick's Day we attended an All Jesuit High School Rugby Tournament. The easy winners: the defending National Champions, Jesuit of Sacramento. They cruised to an easy 60-0 victory literally carried by their center, who's bigger than any one of my teammates on a Div. II Men's Club. After which, we went to Duke University to the FUQUA School of Business MBA World Rugby Championship Tournament. I can't even recall who won that tournament, but I do remember all of the behind-the-scenes competition for which team had the most sponsors. In this .com world, each team's jersey was literally adorned with no less than five sponsor logos. In the end there was more embroidery on each jersey than there was actual jersey! The moral of that story is: Have an MBA student in charge of fund raising for your team.

After the Durham trip, it was time for Hooker Inc. to step back and invest some sweat equity back into the company. We are now the proud owners of the Largest Hooker Brothel this side of the Mississippi. To pull this rolling store we also purchased a family truckster. So just call me Pat, driver of the Winnebago. We then, geared up the half-finished rolling store and plodded our way down to El Paso (same state, but 12 hours away) for the Western Rugby Championships. 8 teams from Div. I and 4 teams from Div. II were all vying for berths in the Sweet 16 National Rugby Championships. If you can put aside the Wizard of Oz-esque dustbowl, the El Paso Scorpions have one of, if not the, nicest pitches in North America. What makes that even more amazing is that there is very little grass in El Paso. The playing surface actually reminded me of a VERY FLAT PGA quality fairway. Accompanying this fabulous pitch is a 5000-seat stadium. It's amazing to find a rugby haven in such a small outpost of our country. The Gentlemen of Aspen won the Div. I bracket over the Austin Blacks, and Ft. Worth, RFC narrowly defeated their rivals from the South, Woodlands, RFC. All in all, there was some very good rugby played. I, for one, am looking forward to more of the National Championships.

If you can get an opportunity to see some games, I highly recommend that you make the effort. Probably the best opportunity will be that hosted by Amoskeag in Manchester, NH. Amoskeag has the privilege of hosting the Final Four of Div. I as well as USA vs. Canada. The following week, they'll be hosting USA vs. Ireland. For more information, go to http://www.amoskeagrugby.com. I would like to wish the new Eagle Coach, Duncan Hall, all of the best success. I had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with Mr. Hall at Westerns last weekend. It is very exciting to have a new professional coach in place.

Cheers,

Pat Laczkowski

Hooker Rugby Supply