By the time the phone rang at 5:30 one morning two years ago, Will Johnson was already intimately acquainted with tradition in college sports. He had stood proud at Harvard Stadium and battled the enemy in the Yale Bowl. He had played in the Game.<\/p>\n
But the voice Johnson heard through his sleepy haze was telling him that he still had plenty to learn about tradition.<\/p>\n
Johnson was being offered the chance to play in an older rivalry, one between universities that make Harvard and Yale look like expansion teams: Oxford and Cambridge. He could not turn it down, even if it meant moving to a country he hardly knew and playing a sport he had only just met.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Johnson will pull on his navy blue Oxford rugby jersey to face Cambridge in the Varsity Match, which stands alongside the Boat Race in the two universities\u2019 annual tussle for bragging rights. He called it a one-game season.<\/p>\n