At 11.01pm on Friday, 12 men were informed of their selection to represent the USA in rugby sevens at the Rio Olympics. Perry Baker, the lanky “Speed Stick” from Daytona Beach, Florida, was among them.
An email from coach Mike Friday confirmed Baker had achieved the goal he set when taking up rugby full-time three years ago and had since worked brutally hard to meet, traveling the world with the USA team and training like crazy at the Olympic centre near San Diego. For the next two days, though, he had to keep the news to himself. It wasn’t easy.
“I was so overwhelmed with joy,” he said on Monday, still on the delighted side of ecstatic. “This was the reason I chose to play rugby, to play in the Olympics.”
Baker grew up with football, shone in college and signed for the Philadelphia Eagles as a wide receiver. Injury meant his NFL dreams slipped away. He played arena football, then picked up the other kind of oval ball and set his sights on the Games. He is a crossover athlete, a species longed for in US rugby and feared round the rest of the world. His try-scoring success, though – he was the only American selected for the 2016 HSBC Sevens World Series Dream Team – has been of a greater order than many other former football players.
“I played football all my life so I was always working hard to be something and be successful at what I was trying to do,” he says, “but when I decided to play rugby I gave it my all, because I never knew what rugby was, I had to learn the game. It wasn’t like I took it up at 18. It feels good to be at this point now.”
Baker, now 30, was speaking on a morning of interviews on behalf of a sponsor, the Milk Life campaign – not the kind of thing many American rugby players have done before. But the Olympics are just over two weeks away and the Olympians are known: at least until men’s final day in Rio, 11 August, the men and women of the US sevens squads will be under the spotlight as never, ever before.
“It’s been all morning, all interviews, but I’m enjoying it,” Baker said. “I’m having a blast of a time now, just soaking it all up.
“I’m excited to be a part of Milk Life on this journey here. The way that we train, we need the nutrition – I need to help my body break it down and refuel, and I get that from milk. I get my protein, I get my essential nutrients that my body needs because the training that we do is real hard. So I’m honoured to be part of Milk Life.”
Drink milk, kids, and you too could play rugby at the Olympics – if not in Tokyo in 2020 then at four-yearly gatherings to follow, presuming the sport stays in favour. American success in Rio and a boost for ratings in the States would help.
The US men and women both finished sixth on the World Series just gone; both are drawn to face leading teams, Fiji for the men and Australia for the women, in the first round in Rio. But such is the closeness of elite sevens competition, both squads have genuine medal hopes.
It is time for final preparations: honing the extreme fitness required, strengthening the bonds that will matter most in the lung-burning torture of a gold medal game.
“We have a couple of days off to get ourselves together after six long weeks of work,” Baker says. “On 26 July we go down to Florida for a scrimmage with the New Zealand All Blacks, and then 5 August we leave for Rio. Kick-off is the ninth, we play on the 10th, the 11th.
“I’ve been visualizing it so much – the big moments, things happening, standing on the podium, putting a gold medal on our necks. If every one of us is thinking like that then anything can happen.”
The consensus is that gold would be huge for the American game as a whole, which now has a nascent professional league, Pro Rugby, and, under the former All Blacks coach John Mitchell, burgeoning ambition in 15-a-side internationals. It’s a big chance for those who will go to Rio – and it means big pressure, too.
“You’ve got to enjoy the attention,” Baker says, “but you’ve got to not let it take you off course – you’ve got to stay focused. If you think about it, all the success we’ve had came from the team. We beat New Zealand for the first time, we won in London. It’s just team success all over, I’m just having fun doing it in the team.”
Nate Ebner is now part of that effort. The New England Patriots special teams player took a leave of absence from the NFL to pursue an Olympic place in the sport in which he grew up, succeeding where the likes of Jarryd Hayne (Fiji), Quade Cooper (Australia), Bryan Habana (South Africa) and Liam Messam (New Zealand) did not. Predictably, much US press attention has focused on Ebner’s unlikely journey.
“I’m glad he came when he did,” Baker says of Ebner, who played two World Series events this year. “I’m glad he didn’t wait till 13 June to come when the Olympic camp started for us. I’m glad he came earlier to be on the circuit with us, because of the chemistry we have. We’ve been together for three years, all of these guys have, and it’s great for Nate to come in.
“He knows what it’s about, he’s a Super Bowl champion and it’s just great to have him aboard. He’s worked really hard to be where he is, he hasn’t stopped yet, he keeps walking the line and he’s been a leader since he was here.”
The American men’s main leader, though, is Friday, a highly respected former England and Kenya coach. Nicknamed “Geezer”, he has a notoriously extreme London accent that must sound odd on the baking training fields of California and Florida.
Baker laughs. “He always has these little phrases that he uses, you know? You can understand him, but sometimes I talk to Madison Hughes, our captain” – who was raised and schooled in England – “and I ask: ‘What did he just say?”
Happily, the Hughes translation service remains in working order.
“Mike’s a great guy,” Baker says. “He’s all about winning and that’s what he always tells us. He came in to win and to make us be the best we can be. That’s why he drives us so hard. He always reminds us: ‘Guys, I’m going to push you and I’m going to drag you, because you guys deserve that.’ When you have a coach like that you’ll just run through a wall for him.”
In Florida, scrimmaging with the mighty All Blacks, Friday, Baker and the 11 other Olympian men will put their final foundations in place. Then it will be on to Rio, and the rugby adventure of a lifetime.
- Perry Baker was speaking on behalf of the Milk Life campaign
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