Perseverance puts former St. Cloud State football player on U.S. rugby roster

RIO DE JANEIRO – There is a game that kids used to play, a game with a name so politically and otherwise incorrect that it must be referred to here as Kill The Guy With The Ball.

Garrett Bender played that game as a kid, and loved it. The ball gets tossed to one player and everyone else tries to catch and pummel him to the ground. It's closer to hazing than sport, but then, sometimes so is rugby.

So when Bender went to St. Cloud State to play football and it didn't work out, he went back to playing the game most like Kill The Guy With The Ball, the game his buddy introduced him to as a freshman at Washburn High School. Rugby. That didn't work out so well for him, either, at least not at first.

Bender played for the Youngbloodz in Minneapolis and thought he had landed a spot on the U.S. national team. He bought a one-way ticket to join the team in San Diego, showed up, and was told his services were not required.

"I got asked to come down and train," Bender said. "There was a miscommunication. There wasn't a spot for me to train. I was stuck. I had to make a decision: Go home and try to pick everything back up or stick it out down there so if an opportunity came up I'd be there and be close?"

Every morning, he would look for a job. The local rugby club helped him get a gig as a bouncer at a bar. He slept on teammates' couches and scoured Craigslist for a place closer to the national team's practices.

"After a couple of months the coach hit me up and asked me to come in and train," Bender said. "I was in a very inconvenient place without a car, so I had to take three buses and two trains to get to training. I'd stay the night on a friend's couch Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and then bus back and work Thursday through Saturday. I did that for a few months."

The payoff was making the Rugby 7s squad and traveling to Rio for the first Olympic rugby competition in 92 years. Play begins with games Tuesday against Argentina at 11 a.m. and against Brazil at 4 p.m.

"Somehow, it all fell into place," he said.

A childhood friend named Lucas McCabe was a senior when Bender was a freshman at Washburn. McCabe introduced him to rugby. "I loved the fact that everyone got to run with the ball and tackle," Bender said. "Positions weren't specialized like in football."

Still, he went to St. Cloud State to play football, and returned home, frustrated and adrift, after one season. Rugby became his obsession and perhaps his salvation.

"I didn't want him to play rugby," said Mike Bender, Garrett's father. "He was such a good football and baseball player. Turns out he was going to baseball practice and then heading from there to rugby practice without my knowledge.

"Then he made the squad and I went out to see him and fell in love with it. Once you understand the 7s, it's such a fast, exciting game."

It suits his son, who feels "humbled" by the struggles that led to him becoming an Olympian.

"It's something I never imagined I'd be able to do," Bender said. "It all fell into place. There were times when it felt like rugby was the only thing I had.''