We asked fans to send their USA fandom stories as part of a contest to get free tickets to USA v Australia. We got lots of good stories, and while Roger Mazzarella didn't get the tickets in the final draw, his story was one we wanted to share - with his permission. Since Saturday the USA plays Australia 39 years after those two teams ushered in the Eagles' modern era, Roger Mazzarella gives us some thoughts about a game right after that one, USA against France June 12, 1976 - the second game the Eagles every played.  

My rugby career goes back a very long ways - 1968. Tries were still three points - in fact when that law changed - it wasn't until late October that the news (obviously traveling via tramp steamer) got to Ohio. 

My first big "fan" game was the 1976 USA v France game in New Trier H.S. in Chicago, Illinois. How appropriate. France. The USA. Two hundred years after they helped win our independence. 

A couple of guys from my Bowling Green club got together with a couple guys from the Findlay RFC, led by founder Dale Pitney, and rented a windowless cargo van to make the trip up to the 2nd city to see one of the first USA Eagles internationals since 1924. 

We outfitted the van with chairs and a table for playing cards - all of it made by cases of beer. After many hands of poker, many changes of fortune and considerably less "furniture" than we started out with, we hit the big city only to be stuck in the usual I-90 traffic snaking slowly, ever so slowly, through downtown. 

Our solution to pass the time, much to the delight of the rest of the vehicle drivers stuck with us, was to walk up and down the rows of stalled traffic offering a beer anyone that wanted one. 

Finally we made to the game - and what a show the French put on. I remember a score of something in the thirties to something in the low teens (33-14 - AG).  A huge score in the days of games usually decided by penalty kicks - ONLY. I remember French scrumhalf Jacques Fouroux, all 64 inches of him (now sadly passed away) putting on a magnificent show of magical ball handling.  I remember how he walked off the field, one where players had used the previous night's rain to turn to a muddy quagmire, in his still spotless and immaculately white jersey, unsullied by the hands of the US opposition. I remember the cheers of the crowd for every long run, the "oohs" and "ahhs" of every hard tackle - regardless of who made them. 

But most of all, I remember my thoughts on the ride home that night. We had stopped in the tiny town of Edgerton, Ohio to have one last nightcap. I declined and took a seat on the curb opposite the bar. I remember thinking, over and over, "Wow, I had just witnessed the re-birth of US Rugby."

- Roger Mazzarella