How USMC rugby started
From Robert Wolf, MG, UCMC (ret): When I was helping the Royal Marines coordinate their trip to Wright Patterson to play our Combined Services Team and later the The All Marine Team in Quantico, I found an article involving the Royals Marines and US Marines playing a match, around 1927 in Shanghai, China. I had Matt Godek create a perpetual trophy to commemorate the match in Quantico, 1987. I understand the Brits still have the trophy.
When I met Harry Laws [[1]]and Colonel Battock [[2]], around 1984, they asked me to put together an Under 23 Combined Services side. As we were discussing the status of the Interservice Championships, the conversation focused on the point the Marines and Navy had to combine a team in order to compete in the Interservice Championships. At the time Coast Guard was dominant. As I watched the Combined Service Championships in Fort Sill. I was able observed Marines from the different clubs. I happened to have a friend who was the Sports Director for the Marine Corps and was a Rugby Player, Tom Ochala. He was able to work permissive TAD orders for a roster I put together and then he organize Marine Corps Air support to bring the team to Ft. Hood in 1985. It was the first time, I believe, we had an authentic All Marine Team. The Following year I asked and was assigned the billet of Sports Director of the Marine Corps (1986). It was also that year I was able to lobby and establish Rugby as a Varsity Sport. I had dropped Tennis and Handball from the varsity sport program and received some grief from senior officers and Staff NCO's, but doing so we were able to establish All - Marine Championships a week prior to Combined Service Championships. That year the Interservice championships were at Ft. McNair and USMC finished first. The following year I lobbied the Armed Services Committee to recognize rugby and as an Armed Services sport. Unfortunately, it did not happen on my watch. The next couple of years I had selected Lewis Bumgardner to Coach USMC Rugby and eventually nominated him to take my billet as the Sports Director for USMC (1989) as I accepted my orders to report back to the fleet in 1989.
(It was Brigadier General Jim Joy, USMC (Ret.) the Director of the Marine Corps MWR, who approve the request. He thought rugby was a great sport for Marines to play. Requiring little equipment, he liked it as a tough and physical game that could played anywhere.)
