High heat, drop kicks, random observations and points that amuse are all part of the wide, wide world of sports at the community and national levels.

A few questions are nagging at me.

Are any recent Excelsior Springs graduates playing rugby in college? Or are any current area high schoolers playing junior rugby? And if so, where?

The questions have sprung from a recent trip I took with Sharon Donat, our general manager; and Micah Dillman, our operations coordinator. We took in a Kansas City Blues men’s rugby game and part of a Patriots women’s rugby game at an athletic megacomplex in Lee’s Summit. The experience made me want to cover rugby more often.

In 30-some-odd years of working in sports journalism, I’ve covered rugby maybe twice, counting the recent Lee’s Summit trip. The other time occurred about, oh, 30-some-odd years ago. As a young stringer for a Kansas City metro area daily newspaper, I got the assignment to write a feature story on a high school student who was playing rugby. …