I am a rugger. I am also a lawyer. I realize those two statements are a bit incongruous and balancing the two seems completely impossible at times.
Indeed, work/life balance is inherently a struggle in the legal profession. A profession where success is often measured by your rainmaking/networking capabilities and whether you know the “right” people demands a ridiculous amount of time beyond that actually spent doing your job. Involvement in professional organizations is, in many ways essential to making the necessary connections that will eventually advance your career. Personally? In addition to rugby and work, I chair two different committees within the local bar association and sit on our club’s executive board. I also recently took on two pro bono clients.
Rugby, on the other hand, just about qualifies as a full time job. When I started playing two years ago, I did so with the intent of picking up a fall sport. HA! Little did I know that between the fall competitive season, spring season and summer 7’s, rugby is a year-round sport. Little did I know that I would become so vested in my team, club and the sport that I would be willing to take on a leadership position, which (of course) demands even more of my time. But I absolutely love it! So I wouldn’t change a thing. BUT it also means that balancing the demands of work and rugby are especially challenging and even now, two years in, I still don’t have it quite right. At any given time it seems as though I’m giving too much time to one or the other and this season, in particular, has been illustrative of that.
A lot of people will tell you that rugby takes precedence over your job and the rest of your life and when your team is seriously trying to qualify for – and win – a national championship I suppose that is pretty close to being true. But sometimes it simply can’t. So after assuming greater responsibilities at work this summer that kept me from making practice on time (if at all) most weeks, I had to make the difficult decision this season to put work first and rugby second; a very close second, but second nonetheless. In doing so, I felt that I was letting my team and my coach down by not making every single practice and for that I felt extremely guilty. Moreover, my decision meant that I would see less playing time, if any at all.
But it didn’t mean that I had any less commitment to my team or desire to see it succeed. And it didn’t mean that there wasn’t a role for me to fulfill on the team. And once I came to that realization, I vowed to do whatever I could to help the team succeed in the time that I had. If my role for this season was simply to run water and cheer our team on from the sideline during matches I would gladly do it. If it meant getting to practice when I could for the sole purpose of filling in an opposing scrum to our A side players, then so be it. If I could only help out on the administrative and planning side of things, then that was the void that I would fill. I have such a deep love for this team – they, after all, have been there with open arms to welcome be back into the fold each time without skipping a beat – and I would do anything I can to support it.
And that’s the point. All of those things – while not glamorous or even as direct of a contribution to winning as, say, scoring a try – are essential to producing a winning team. *Every* successful team has a roster full of players who unselfishly acknowledge and accept their role and contribute in whatever manner will best benefit the team as a whole. And this season – more than any other since I joined the team – the Angels have done that in spades.
So here we are, a few days out from Nationals. Is work still crazy? Absolutely. Have I swung back the other direction such that I’m probably spending too much time on rugby? Probably. But for this final push … towards our first national championship, my team deserves everything I have. So rugby will be first and work will be a close second until we return from Houston with that giant, first place trophy!!!
