Portal:Okinawa 1977-1978 Men/Intro

Team was called the Wild West Show that practiced and played most games on the grounds of Kue Army Hospital, but we were considered a Kadena team. There was a Camp Hansen team that drifted in and out of existence during the same time period. Most of our competition, however, was played against the three Japanese Self Defense Force teams on the island. The one Japanese civilian team on the island refused to play any of us US military teams because we played “football”, not rugby. Within the year, with proper refereeing by Marine Mike Malone, we got them to play a few games, convincing them US rugby teams could play rugby if properly reffed.

AF Captain Dennis Gill, Deegill, “coached” our team and essentially was considered the team’s founder several years earlier. He was still stationed on Okinawa when I left and was pretty much a fixture for the AF on Okinawa. I can’t remember the names of any of the other players, but if I do, I will send them along. I know we had another Marine major that played second row with me, a Navy 1/C PO who played one of the back row positions and spoke Japanese (married to an Japanese woman), an Army 2nd Lt who played one of the back positions and who was married to a Korean. I can’t think of any of the rest.

In the early summer of ’78, Mike Malone (MC), Dennis Gill (AF), the Navy PO, and the Army 2dLt met with the civilian Japanese team leaders and the JSDF team leaders and formed the Okinawa Rugby Union.