“Towards the back of the field…there is the regional final!” – Regional tag rugby project and championship – IC MAKES IT FOUR MILES “G. Falcon”
Rugby is a sport with a truly unique history. His name is linked to the town in the county of Warwickshire, England: here, on November 1, 1823, about two hundred years ago, seventeen-year-old William Webb Ellis, perhaps bored of being in goal during a school football match, suddenly took the ball with his hands and started running towards the back of the field. To the probable amazement of his opponents and the certain irritation of his companions, a new game was born which was soon considered, in England and in other parts of the world, an antidote to immorality and a cure for discipline.
A few years later, in 1827, the sporting and social success of rugby was responded to by a very young Giacomo Leopardi who, in the “Operette morale”, stated: «the body is man», and continued: «everything that makes noble and alive life depends on the vigor of the body, which, without that, has no place. Anyone who is weak in body is not a man, but a child; actually worse; because his fate is to watch others live, while he can, at most, chat, but life is not for him. […] Among us, for a very long time, education has not deigned to think about the body, which is too low and abject: it thinks about the spirit and, precisely, wanting to cultivate the spirit, it ruins the body; without realizing that by ruining this, you ruin each other, including the spirit.”
Two centuries later, in Italy, the limits of a pedagogy that does not know how to combine the well-being of the body with that of the spirit have been largely overcome and the IC RENDE QUATTROMIGLIA, always in step with the times and with the needs of the new generations, strongly wanted to create a tag rugby sports project and undertake a regional championship which is proving to be a real success.
We have just won the access match to the regional final and, after the first moment of indispensable euphoria, we are already working on the athletic preparation for the final match which will be held in Crotone on April 23rd. If we manage to get through the regional final, the next goal is to participate in the national tag rugby championship which, this year, will be in Campania, from 20 to 24 May.
We are competitive, but we are competitive because we believe in our choices and work, with commitment, to achieve these results. Coordinating the tag rugby project and the motor education teachers, who worked in the various classes and sections of the IC RENDE QUATTROMIGLIA, was an exceptional athletic trainer: professor Salvatore Mazzei, who seems to be the guarantor of our school to be able to win them and win them all regardless of the game or sport or discipline involved.
For many years now, the teacher has passionately followed the kids and brought them, punctually, to the podium. The victory of the national Duathlon championship in Porto Sant’Elpidio, in the Marche region, dates back only to 2019. In the case of the tag rugby project, however, the initial preparation involved both male and female students of all classes: the boys responded with enthusiasm and immediately attempted to learn the rules of the game through lessons frontal and in practical training, favored by the beautiful green spaces which surround each complex of the institute.
These training sessions clearly served not only to experiment with a new activity, but also to learn different things together and to learn them while having fun, also and above all, to put together the team that then undertook the various regional championship matches: one victory after On the other hand, with enormous satisfaction, we qualified for the regional final. The emotion involved the entire school community and is already a source of pride for the entire Rendese area which strongly believes in these kids.
The choice of rugby might seem unusual, but, among many sporting activities, it is a highly educational game: it is essentially based on the concept of advancement and conquest, every centimeter is important and therefore you play to gain space, you work on resilience, on stubbornness, on determination. Then there is the support: the most advanced player is the player with the ball, he cannot see what is happening behind him, but he hopes that there is always one of his teammates to help him.
Some will object that it remains an aggressive sport, but if those who are close to the kids are able to make them aware of what fear is and how it feels to be in fear, rugby becomes an opportunity to face it and to give the unmissable opportunity to grow and grow well.
Barbara Gagliardi – PRESS OFFICE IC RENDE QUATTROMIGLIA
