Dynamic! I can't come up with a better word to describe the game. Since I picked up that oddly shaped stick at two years of age, hurling has been part of my life. It's barbaric, graceful; strategic, frenzied; rough, yet I recently overheard an American journalist say, "Doesn't that hurling thing look like, you know, almost balletic?" It's all-consuming.
Having begun my journalism studies at DCU, I was proud to accept a hurling scholarship. At DCU players are directly involved in talks about coaching methods, fitness and successfully combining hurling with study. The atmosphere is refreshing.
When I entered the dressing room for the opening freshers' training session, there was enthusiastic banter. Some of the fellas were cursing continuous assessment and exchanging cramming tips, while others lied about girls and planned their next trip into town. For three weeks we threw ourselves into the preparation for our first championship match, which was to be against Trinity. We were disappointed when they gave us a "walk over". But we had a grindstone to get back to - a semi-final showdown with an all-star line-up from DIT. We played simple hurling in that semi-final - maybe we couldn't have played it any other way - but the DIT students couldn't match our efforts. Near the end of the game we scored one of the most dramatic goals you'd ever hope to see; a sizzling ground stroke to the top corner of the net from 30 yards. The underdogs had won. For a few minutes after this bruising merciless struggle there was real emotion coming from 19-year-old students - a rare thing indeed. A lad from the hurling-starved county of Longford approached me and said, "James, this is going to be me first Leinster final".
We hurled like a clan of warriors with attitude. This is what greatness is all about in sport - players transcending their usual standards, playing not to the gallery of press, cameras or the cheers of the crowd, but giving their all for each other and their cause. A fortnight later, while playing for my club - St Martin's near Wexford town - I collided with another player. My collar-bone was broken. I lay there in pain and in fear - pain, because my clavicle had just been shattered, and fear because I didn't want to miss the Leinster final which was one week away.
I had been performing as player-coach at midfield, but now as they were battling Athlone IT in Parnell Park, Dublin, I would be lying in bed. We were beaten by a couple of points, and now the lads had experienced both the highs and lows of the ancient game. A few weeks later we sat our exams. We had learned something, however, from our Leinster campaign that we could never have absorbed in a lecture hall. We had learned the finer arts of competitiveness and teamwork. Our squad comprised players from all over Ireland who trained and played fiercely for each other and themselves. We celebrated and commiserated; we had fun.
It was a respite from the more serious Fitzgibbon Cup. The pressure of the universities' senior hurling competition is intense and scholarship students are supposed to perform, in addition to coping with course work. Helping out in the GAA office, writing a few PR posters and match reports, and organising the hurling club's social events is also part of being on scholarship. The stereotype, however, of the impoverished student subsisting on pasta rations doesn't really apply to me because of the financial perks of the scholarship.
At DCU, the restaurant, library, playing fields, and state-of-the-art gymnasium are all within a few yards of each other. The environment is nearly, dare I say the word, professional. (Can open, worms everywhere).
Universities are the academies of hurling - the schools of excellence. I can see a time when they will operate as minor leagues for pro hurling. Young talented athletes, who have chosen the Gaelic route, are now sensing a revolution. Winds of change? We have nothing to fear! Mar a deireann an seanfhocal: "Is olc an ghaoth nach seideann maitheas do dhuine eigin".
