Harvard Business School Rugby Club

Connell
Crichton
De La Guardia
Dietemann
Ferrara, Ray
Hannes
Herbert
Juviler
Rauw
Sinta
Stumpf

Remember your days on the Kresge pitch and the Harvard playing fields — wearing the crimson and white, singing and toasting your brothers in the manly sport of rugby! Calling all rugby players from HBS to return to your rugby roots for the October 4 through 6 weekend at the 50th anniversary gala. Formal reunion dinner, rugby games, merriment and liniment available! Help us find your rugby brethren and let us know where you are!

Contact Mike Rush ’72 at michaelrush4696@comcast.net or 781-842-4696

Note the date is 2013 so mark it down now and plan ahead!

APPLEGATE
ASHTON
AVERY
BARRON
BARTCZAK
BENSON
BILANICH
BOYER
CAREY
CARROLL
CAUGHEY
CHIOFARO
COLLEN
COOPER
FERRARA, BOB
FITZGERALD, J
FLANNELLY
FORBUSH
FRASER
GRUNDLEGER
HAMILTON
HILL
HOLA
JAMES
JARRETT
JOHNSON, DAVE
JOHNSTONE
LAUZEN
LEESE
LEYEN, JEN
LILLY
LIU
LOYA
LYNCH/HALLER
MANLY
MAST
MCINNES
MCLAUGHLIN, SALLY
MENDEZ
MERRIFIELD
MILLS
MOORE
MORAN
MURPHY, M
MORIARTY
NORTON
O’NEILL
PALONE
POLITO
POTTOW
RUBY
RUSH
SCOTT, S
SHAFIR
SKOWRONSKI
SNOWDEN
STUCKEY
TEELING
THOMPSON, LEE
TURNER
WATSON, I
WATSON, S
WHITE

Winter weather got you down?  Sign up for an ALL-INCLUSIVE, warm-weather vacation with your fellow Old Boy Ruggers for some sun, fun, rum, & rugby in the Bahamas! Whether you come solo or bring your family, you’ll be making new connections and catching up with old friends who share the tradition of HBS Rugby.

We’ve lined up an INCREDIBLE RATE for an all-inclusive beach resort in Freeport to host our players, families, and assorted groupies: US$115 per adult per night, double share.  Kids 3-17 are $30 per night; Kids 2 and under stay free.  See attached brochure and resort website:

http://www.wyndham.com/hotels/FPOVF/main.wnt

This rate includes:

• Accommodations (incl. taxes, gratuities)
• All meals
• Unlimited standard beverages (alcoholic and non-alcoholic)
• Non-motorized sports, with complimentary lessons
• Kids club for the non-adults

Examples of what IS NOT included:

• Premium beverages (such as non-house wine)
• Premium water activities such as SCUBA diving and deep-sea fishing
• Golf (courses are off-resort)
• Excursions to town or Lucaya National Park
• Airport transfers
• Gambling losses (casino is off-resort)
• The inevitable Bartczak visit to the Freeport hospital (hospital is
  off-resort)

Tour dates are Thurs-Tues April 12-17, but feel free to come for as many days as you can fit in.

Rugby match(es) likely to be Saturday afternoon.  Local opposition will be organized to match ages with what we bring – our goal is to have two full sides representing the younger and older alums, but we’ll mix and match as need be. The Old Old Boys will be honoring the late Alan Bater’s long association with the club with a picture for the club house.

Airport code for Freeport is FPO – please do NOT fly into Nassau (Chris
Deets)!

Your deposit of $100 per adult and $20 per child is needed by January 25th.  This includes money towards tour charges (Ground transport to/from rugby match, presentation to opposing side, tour swag) and is refundable until February 29th.  Please send deposit checks with names of attendees to:

Mike Rush
1100 Salem Street #47
Lynnfield, MA 01940

Payment of the remaining balance to the resort will be your responsibility, with instructions to follow in February.

Any questions/requests should be directed to DD at:
derek.mendez (at) gmail [dot] com
+1 617.271.8441

You couldn’t ask for worse weather conditions as the young boys turned out in the driving rain to face a mixture of 10 Old Boys and some mercenaries on the pitch. Despite the handling conditions, both sides managed a try and after a period of perpetual knock ons, the referee Jerry Shafir, ordered all to the Tennis Center for his chili and crackers. Gene Skowronski managed to keep from torching the Center as he was able to back his van up to the porch and create his magic brats and chicken delights for the hungry crowd. Thanks to Harpoon for the UFO and IPA refreshments and the crowd agreed that, despite the rain, rugby lived on in the hearts of its alumni. With a rousing celebration of Norm Bartczak’s birthday, without a Stolat in Polish, the crowd moved on into the snow falling on cedars and the Dartmouth/Harvard football game.

The final sing along at Tommy Doyle’s saw a few Old Boys show off their diving form to the floor after some courageous Bum Titty…set your sights on October 6, 2012 to indulge your senses!

On April 15, the remains of our good friend and classmate Tom McLaughlin were interred in Arlington National Cemetery, surrounded by the white headstones marking the graves of other of our nation’s foremost military heroes.

Most of us were aware Tom had served with the armed forces in the Vietnam War, but I’m reasonably certain none of us knew the full extent of his exploits until the days leading up to his death.  Punctuated by a photo of Tom in his flight suit standing out front of his F-4, his obituary in the Boston Globe took up most of a full page.  Reading it, I learned that Tom, a Captain in the United States Air Force, has been one of the most decorated veterans of the conflict.  Awarded the Silver Star, the Distinguished Flying Cross and Four Oak Leaf Clusters (meaning he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross five times) and many other awards and citations, Tom’s exploits, let alone courage, defy description.  In fact, my view is that had we known the stories about Tom, some of us might have had difficulty striking up a conversation with him.

Which is my guess why Tom never mentioned a word about any of it.  To anyone—apparently even Tom’s wife Sally and his children were only told necessary details.  It was not until his doctors had told Tom late last year of his deteriorating condition that he had mentioned to Sally that there was a wooden box full of things from the war he needed to talk to discuss with her.

The evening before the ceremony at Arlington, Bobby and Mary Haft, Martin and Diana Hannes and Bill and Mary Schleyer hosted a gathering at the Hafts’ home in Washington, D.C.  Together with Sally, Tom’s three sons and several members of the family, a host of Tom’s Section A classmates and their wives in many cases—John Bunce, Bobby Haft, Martin Hannes, John Hauge, myself, Doug Martin, John O’Donnell, Billy Schleyer and Dan Shypula—as well as several additional members of HBS Class of ’77, including in particular a dozen or more HBS Rugby Football teammates, spent hours celebrating Tom’s life and reminiscing.

The next day at Arlington under a clear blue sky, escorted by an Air Force color guard and a full military band, Tom’s flag draped coffin was laid on a caisson and pulled by mounted soldiers, one horse rider-less, down Marshall Drive to Tom’s grave site.  After a brief ceremony in which the band performed Nearer My God to Thee, followed by a bugler playing Taps and a twenty one gun salute, the head of the color guard presented Sally with the Stars and Stripes, and we said goodbye to Tom in his final resting place under a willow tree.

*****

I was close to Tom, not just because we were both members of Section A, but also because we both played rugby, first for the Harvard Business School Rugby Football Club, and later for the club’s alumni affiliate—the Harvard Olde Boys.  And we played both conventional rugby, and something we found more exciting:  “Seven-a-Sides.”  In Seven-a-Sides rugby matches, the teams have only seven players, not fifteen as in conventional rugby, meaning the game is much quicker.  And grueling.

My fondest and most admiring memories of Tom were when we played together for HBS in Seven-a-Sides rugby matches.  Due to their taxing physical demands, Seven-a-Sides matches are shorter, and therefore are played in a tournament format.  The lucky teams win and move on, but watch out what you wish for:  keep winning and you must play multiple matches—in a single day.

My poem about Tom for Sally and the McLaughlin family is about one of those days:

A Life

Three seven-a-sides; three seven-a-sides today.
A life of days.
I am alone: the locker room door slamming, my mates long gone.
Chilled: slumped on a bench, my head flattening against the cold metal cabinet.
Stained: the grass and crud ground into my knees and elbows, the smell packing my nostrils.
Crusted: salty sweat caked on my face and eyelids.
Crushed: my throat scratching, my lips cracking.
Wracked: the pain penetrating the marrow of my bones, shooting up my spine, breaking my ass.
Loose: my joints popped, my soul as easy as the torn athletic tape hanging from my wrists.
Content: my heart humming.
Proud: no one else could survive this.
Triumphant: I can do it again tomorrow.
At peace: the drip, drip, drip of the empty shower like the beat of my life.
Lord, I pray: don’t let them find me here.

For Tom McLaughlin
Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
December 2010

By John D. Kuhns