Dale Jensen Team Mate Al Resch Shares Rugby Stories

10/1/2007 12:21 PM

If we are lucky once in a lifetime someone like Dale Jensen comes into our lives. He had the unique and rare ability to make everyone around him better. When you were down on the ground he was there first and picked you up. You were never alone or in trouble when he was on the pitch he was always with you. If you needed support he carried you and was always with you and without fail was always right beside you when you needed him most.

The ability Dale had to embrace adversity and the love he had for the challenge of the game of rugby carried over in how he lived life. It should be a lesson and an example to us all on how to live.

I will never forget how he was with me on one cold icy day in February. In an Arctic Fest (UW-Stevens Point) tournament with our backs to the wall in a pitch that was slush and pure ice water. Dale the was the only one man wearing shorts and he was acting like a Polar Bear on a holiday. He was the only one still excited to be playing in overtime. 7 men take the pitch freezing and on the verge of hypothermia. Madison drives the ball to our 5 meter line. Then Otto some how some way wins the line out. Tuttle agrees to run the ball and pass as oppose to kick it for touch. In the only time Jimmy O (Oldfield) and myself ever passed the ball more than once to each other. I eventually have a break away but I am losing my balance stumbling trying to stay upright. Then I hear over my left shoulder WITH YOU! I turn and pass to the man who is smiling ear to ear and grinning at full speed. No body in there right mind should have been there.

No one and no body other than Dale would have had the stamina perseverance and the willingness to follow down field just to support a fellow rugger. But there Dale was as always. WITH ME ONCE AGAIN! I can still see Dale in my mind as he scored the winning try with a Swan dive back into the slush just like it was the 4th of July and 70 degrees.

That memory is ingrained in my mind and is my fondest memory of the game we loved and played with passion and camaraderie. We won that Arctic Fest Tournament because of one man who made 14 other men play harder longer and tougher than we ever would have or could have played with out him. He led be example rather than words and never asked for anything in return except that you gave it your all and left nothing on the field.

Because that is all he ever did. It required an effort from some but with Dale it was just second nature and ingrained in his personality.

I thank God for allowing me to the reward of playing football and Rugby and becoming friends with a man of tremendous pride an incredible unselfishness for others and a passion for life that should burn within us all. A man who graced our presence with such honor and character like few others I have ever meet or ever known.

I am a better person for having meet him knowing him and having shared the field with him. I truly know now in my heart that heaven is indeed is a better place because he is there.

I will miss you Dale but I will never ever forget you!

Alan Resch

Photo Courtesy of Scott Frosch

Filed under: La Crosse Wisconsin

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