A little GTRFC history from Dr. Dan Papp

In the beginning, there was no rugby at Georgia Tech.

Pre-club Activity

In 1973, “Rugby Joe” Langley still played for Georgia, and there were only two rugby teams in Atlanta, the Atlanta Rugby Football Club (ARFC) and the Atlanta Renegades.  

I came to Tech in the summer of 1973 and joined up with the ARFC because their shirts were uglier.  In Fall 1973, a work study student in my department (at the time, Social Sciences) introduced me to the guy she was dating, Duffy Matson.  He said he was bored just being a Tech cheerleader and was looking for something interesting to do in addition to cheering.  I suggested rugby.  

Duffy started coming to ARFC practices in mid-Fall ‘73.  By Winter/Spring of ‘74, we had about 8 or 10 Tech students playing for the ARFC – Duffy, Glenn Bunker, Bob Carswell, Ralph Fitch, Steve Frost, Chris ‘Freak’ Carville, Tom ‘Goose’ Sharrer, Doug ‘Mabbet’ Moss, Chris Ratcliffe, and a few others.  Dr. Wayne Book came to Tech in Fall ‘74 and joined on with the ARFC.

By late Fall ‘74, we had enough Tech-types playing with the Atlanta Rugby Club to field an all-Tech side.  Our first all-Tech game (but still as part of the ARFC) was against Emory in November or December ‘74.  We did pretty good.  Emory didn’t score, and we scored about 50.  During Winter-Spring ‘75, we fielded several all-Tech sides playing the B or C side games for Atlanta RFC.  

GT Rugby begins

In Fall ‘75, we split off to become the Georgia Tech RFC.  The first year, we played all of the other Atlanta sides – by this time, in addition to ARFC and the Renegades, Old White and High Country had formed as well as playing Emory, Clemson, UGA, Pensacola Naval Air Station, NC State, Hilton Head RFC, and a bunch of others, too.  We won almost all the matches. 

Tech RFC’s first international trip was to Nassau in Fall ‘76.  Most of us flew down commercially, with a long layover in Miami where Duffy’s brothers met us in a limousine with several coolers full of fogcutters.  No one remembers the flight to Nassau – except for Mabbet, who flew his own plane down and got lost in the Bermuda Triangle – he eventually became an Air Force test pilot!  We won both games in Nassau, stayed at the James Bond house that was featured in the movie “Thunderball” (owned by former Tech rugger Jim Mosko, who had graduated in 1975 and moved back to Nassau), and went out on the Mosko’s 80-foot yacht, with open bar.  No one remembers much of that, either.

Burger Bowl

Our first field was – you guessed it, the Burger Bowl, which got its name because shortly after we started playing there, Burger King opened on Hemphill directly across the street from the field (currently spot is the GT Police Department building). We also played at O’Keefe, and on a couple of occasions, sneaked onto Rose Bowl Field… what Pepper Rogers and the AA didn’t know didn’t hurt them.  We lost O’Keefe when Tech turned it into a parking lot, and when Bill Curry came to Tech, word filtered to him that Rose Bowl was getting some unauthorized use.  He very diplomatically asked us to stay off, so we did.  And as Alex Hawkins said, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

Credit to Dr. Wayne Book for suggesting this missive!