>>That same kid can slim down by running cross country, which doesn't involve knocking himself and someone else senseless.
Or they can avoid candy and not drink soda pop. Thing is, it doesn't seem to happen. There's a lot of good stuff in team sports that draws in even average players who might hope to score a try this season or at least take part in some wins. Compared to not a lot there for an average cross country runner.
>>BTW, while practicing golf shots (for mental health only- no improvement) I watch high school (US) football players working out. The monster linemen are picked BECAUSE they're fat and huge. No coach in his right mind would do anything that would make those monsters lose even a pound. Kids at other positions might lose weight, but not those mammoths, who need to lose it most.
Sad. Of course there's no point being a mammoth in Rugby: consider that the Japanese team (that admittedly has some imports but also a lot of petite Japanese) beat the big brawny South Africans in the World Cup. And in 2007, a band of small nimble Frenchmen knocked New Zealand out of the competition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb2M_ZO2yjs
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
