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

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!

Ask anyone in Austin, Texas what Harvard Business School is famous for, and you’re likely to get a variety of responses.

Capitalism.  Educating leaders of Fortune 500 companies.  Country club lifestyles and wine & cheese parties.

But after this past weekend, those same Austinites would undoubtedly answer that in addition to being the world’s best business school, HBS has a smash-mouth, championship rugby team that has the ability to party like rockstars.

On November 11-13, the men of the HBS Rugby Team descended upon Austin for the annual Fall Brawl Tournament, hosted by the University of Texas.  The tournament was the capstone event of the fall semester for the HBS ruggers, and featured opposing teams from Stanford, Wharton, Kellogg, Texas, SMU, and Columbia.  While the HBS team knew they would enjoy the nightlife in the Live Music Capital of the World during their stay, their main goal in Austin was to bring home the first place trophy.

Shortly after landing in Austin on Friday night, the team met up with the Austin HBS Alumni Club at a happy hour social event in Austin’s famous Warehouse District.  The southern hospitality displayed by the HBS alums made the team feel right at home and helped the team to relax and prepare for its big weekend ahead.

After a full night of cultural exchange, the HBS ruggers arrived on Saturday morning at a rugby field that can only be described as one-half scrub brush and one-half rock.  Columbia and Texas were the first opponents in pool play for HBS, and the team knew that it had to come out ready to dominate from the opening whistle.

And dominate they did.

In game 1, HBS jumped out to an early lead behind the ball-handling skills of “Mini” Maxi Rotella who was playing in his first tournament with the team.  Rotella’s passing, combined with the Australian tag-team of Bob Evans and Tom Humphrey put Columbia in a hole they could not recover from.  The HBS defense, led by Dave “D-Patt” Patterson made bone-crushing tackles throughout the game and did not allow a single Columbia point.  Final score, HBS 34 – Columbia 0.

Game 2 pitted HBS against The University of Texas, the tournament host.  The game was particularly meaningful to this correspondent because, as a graduate of Texas A&M, the only thing I enjoy as much as seeing HBS win is seeing the University of Texas lose.

The Longhorns put up a fight early and were able to break through the HBS defense on a couple of occasions in the first half.  However, the 1-2-3 punch of Derek Poppinga, Germain Chastel, and Tom Dye in the backfield wore the Longhorns down.  In the second half, Ryan “Guess Where I’m From” MacWilliam added some solid play for the team, as did Bryan “Poker Face” O’Connell.  John Deng and Evan Britten-Bozone also came to add fuel to the HBS fire, and in his first appearance with the team since last year at Duke, Sayce “Slayer” Falk punched in a couple of scores for HBS to put the game out of reach.  Final score, HBS 48 – Texas 17.

Following the first two games of the day, all the teams in the tournament were seeded according to point differential.  Thanks to its large margins of victory, HBS drew the #2 seed and was set to face off against #7 Columbia again in the last match of the day.

In game 3, HBS once again hit the scoreboard first and did not look back.  Great forward play by Chad “Made in Canada” Royer, Matt “Baby Fat” Craig, and Matt “Goldilocks” Lesniak set the tone for HBS.  “Fast” Eddie Brandler and “Double B” Brandon Bentley made their first appearance of the tournament in the second half, as did Ezequiel “Eze” Satz and Paul Coote, and HBS cruised to a 38-5 win and headed home to rest up for the next day’s semifinal match.

Sunday morning, HBS faced Kellogg, the winners of last year’s tournament and a perennially good team.  Prior to the game it was clear that both teams were worn down from a long Saturday in the hot sun and a late night under the neon moon of Austin bars.  This was to be a game of mental and physical toughness, where the team that made the fewest mistakes would come out on top.

Kellogg fought hard, but HBS jumped out to an early 5-0 lead behind solid ball movement and dominance in the ruck.  But the defending champs did not quit and Kellogg was able to put in a try and conversion just before halftime to take a 7-5 lead going into the break.  With HBS threatening to score in the second half, Kellogg was called for a high tackle penalty.  Dead-eye kicking by Poppinga after the penalty gave HBS an 8-7 lead with 10 minutes to play.  Excellent front row play by Eric Montgomery, Josh Walton, and Regan Turner helped the HBS side win several vital scrums as the final minutes wore down, and Poppinga’s kick proved to be the difference.  Final score, HBS 8 – Kellogg 7.

The championship game pitted HBS against archrivals Wharton.  Wharton was no match for the HBS side in the final.  In an extremely physical match, HBS fell behind briefly and went into halftime trailing by a score of 7-5.  The second half, however, was all HBS, as the inspirational defense of Dave Patterson and the great overall play of Jonas Akins, Fats Dlamini, Garan Geist, and Anthony Bangay led the way for the good guys.  Tom Humphrey put in a try and Derek Poppinga sealed the game with a penalty kick a couple of minutes before the final whistle.  Final score, HBS 15 – Wharton 7.

All-in-all, the team had a fantastic weekend and came out as winners in every possible way that Charlie Sheen could imagine.  Team captains Poppinga and Dlamini accepted the trophy on behalf of the school and dedicated the win to all HBS ruggers of the past, who for almost 50 years have been dominating teams and cities all over the world when they go on tour.

The team would like to extend a special thank you to our fans for their support, to Patrick Dickinson for making the trek from out of state just to cheer us on, to the Austin HBS alumni club for their hospitality, to Ray Turner for the amazing BBQ & beer, to Connie Turner for being the team mom and keeping us hydrated with Gatorade and orange slices, and to Leo & Nancy York for the breakfast tacos and rides to the Austin airport.  We could not have won without you!

In back-to-back recent weekends, the HBS rugby team was canvassing the greater New England area, putting on rugby clinics for opposing teams.  In systematic fashion, the team posted shutout victories in Rutland, Vermont over their men’s team and in Montreal, Canada over the McGill University MBA team.

The Rutland match was hard-fought from the beginning, but HBS showed tremendous defensive discipline.  An early try by Germain Chastel put HBS on the board and they didn’t look back.  Deadeye kicking by Derek Poppinga added to the HBS lead, and they went into halftime ahead by a score of 11-0 behind the stout defensive play of Thomas Masterson and Matt Craig.

The HBS side poured on the heat in the second half and proved too much for Rutland to handle.  Tanner Amdur-Clark and Fats Dlamini added tries in the second half for HBS.  Final score: HBS 23 – Rutland 0.

The following weekend, the HBS ruggers traveled to Montreal, Canada to take on McGill University.  Since it happened to be Columbus Day Weekend, HBS set out to do something as American as possible to celebrate: Defeat a foreign team in their home country by a significant margin of score.

Not only was HBS victorious in the contest, but for the second week in a row, their stingy defense did not allow a single point.  In total, HBS scored 15 tries in the contest and ran away from McGill from the opening kick.  Scoring their first tries for HBS were Evan “Don Draper” Britten-Bozzone, Kemper “Four-out-of-Ten” Pierce, Tom “Lumberjack” Masterson, and “Aussie” Bob Evans.  Germain Chastel added four tries for HBS, while Garan Geist, Paul Coote, Matias Sueldo, Regan Turner, and Derek Poppinga also added to the total.

Following the game, McGill joined HBS at the bar for beers and rugby songs before the HBS men went into the city for a taste of the local nightlife.  Making a special appearance for the post-game festivities was Jake “Sorry for Partying” Cusack, who flew in all the way from Washington, DC to join the team on its postgame pubcrawl.

This coming weekend is a special one for the team, as it will host its annual alumni weekend on October 28-30.  Always one of the highlights of the year, the alumni weekend will see former HBS ruggers of all ages fly in from all over the world to reunite on the pitch and at the bar to relive their glory days.

The festivities will kickoff with a mixer at the Harpoon Brewery on Friday, October 28, and will be followed the next day by the annual alumni vs. current players match on Saturday, October 29.  The entire HBS community is invited to attend Saturday afternoon’s game and to join us at Tommy Doyle’s afterward for a celebration of almost 50 years of manly contest (aka rugby) at HBS.

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

Despite the tour plan calling for the team to drop by a local salon for styling and manicures, followed by attending the local ballet, and then spending a quiet evening practicing Bikram yoga at their five star hotel, fate reared its ugly head and sent the team crashing into downtown Austin. Before Austin knew what had hit it, rugby alumni legend Patrick ‘PDiddy’ Dickinson was leading the ruggers straight for the infamous 6th street strip where team captain Sayce ‘Rocky’ Falk led the team in rousing rounds of rugby song which echoed off the Beaux Arts style architecture. Dressed in sharp orange tour t-shirts in honor of the host UT team, the HBS ruggers were soon warmly welcomed by the local crowd and proceeded to entertain throughout the weekend.

Despite a wild first night, the HBS Rugby team was here in Austin to make a statement and defend the school’s honor. Thanks to unconscious play from Fats ‘Mr.Versitile’ Vusumuzi, and ferocious tackling from Kohei ‘Painkiller’ Umakoshi, HBS held their own early in the tournament. At the end of the day, the HBS ruggers found their backs against the wall in an elimination game against the deep bench of the host squad from the University of Texas. Despite fielding one of the lightest front lines in recent memory due to key injuries, the HBS rugger’s front pack led by Anson ‘Bearcat’ Fredericks brought the heat and had the large Texas squad on their heels most of the second half. After several minutes of back and forth action early in the second half, Yemi ‘Cannon Ball’ Owolewa’s hard running resulted in a try to put HBS on top. With fifteen minutes to go in the second half HBS scored again on a breakaway rumble by Tom ‘Fast and Furious’ Fast and strong finish by Fats Vusumuzi. That was followed up by a quick outside try courtesy of Craig ‘UT-raider’ Baum which put the game on ice. The final score was enough to vault HBS into 1st place in the tournament after day one.

While some of the teams (aka Wharton) iced their bruises and slept, the HBS team again chose to dominate the local 6th Street nightlife. After the first night’s festivities, most of which cannot be printed here to protect the innocent, the Mayor of Austin consulted with the Department of Homeland Security to raise the rugby threat level to Red/Severe saying “their orange shirts are not reflective of their partying risk.” Accordingly, the team broke out their crimson Harpoon Brewery social jerseys and headed for the strip. When they arrived, the mayor had already posted cops on horseback at both ends of 6th street to keep the peace. However, despite their ferocious appearance and many battle scars from the day, the HBS ruggers believe in making love not war. In the end, all the law enforcement officers were needed for was containing the hoards of fans that flocked to get autographs and see the ruggers performing at their best. By midnight, fans had gathered from all over town to watch Ed ‘Wharton’s Favorite’ Brandler dance and be entertained by Warren ‘Tank’ Anderson’s singing Taylor Swift’s latest hits.

The team chose to decide their last game in Austin the following day with a beer chugging boat race and is now back enjoying the cold Boston weather and gearing up for a strong Spring season filled with wild tours. Practices will be held twice a week throughout the Spring and the team encourages all able bodied HBS gentlemen to join the winning tradition.

Please feel free to visit Tom’s online memorial page.

So fair, so fast, so free
He toyed with gathering cloud
And banked hard to give us show
As we marveled all aloud

Unleashèd passion for his country
Fueled by youth and daring mind
Bright ribbons pinned in glory
Could not stay his mortal climb

A deeper blue now beckons
Not to dust of gloomy earth
But to a thousand sunlit contrails
That celebrate his worth

We cherish his love of birthplace
Steadfast to family and to friend
Godspeed, O noble wingman
May you guide us to our end

In honor of our teammate, our friend, our brother…

Thomas M. McLaughlin

From his Band of Brothers
The Harvard Business School Rugby Football Club

December 10, 2010

-Michael Rush ’72

Tom McLaughlin, MBA ’77, was diagnosed with liver cancer last November.  He died Sunday night in the company of his wife, Sally, his three sons, Thomas, Brian and Chris, and a few close friends.  They were reminiscing when he peacefully closed his eyes and stopped breathing.  Tom had requested a rugby singsong the Saturday before and 20 of us, in person, and another 6, via cell phone, participated with great volume if not great melody.

Over the last two months, we’ve been sending out updates on Tom’s condition, and have been adding to the list regularly.  I know that we haven’t included everyone; this is our way of reaching out to those we have inadvertently missed.

The ceremonies for Tom are as follows:

• Wake:  Eaton & Mackay Funeral Home at 465 Centre St., Newton, MA on Thursday Dec. 9 from 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM.
• Funeral Mass:   St. Ignatius, 28 Commonwealth Ave., Newton, on Friday, Dec. 10 at 10:00 AM.
• Reception:  following the service at The Country Club, 191 Clyde St. Chestnut Hill.

We are putting together a book of remembrances and pictures.  Please send me what you have, particularly if you are unable to attend.  We would love to hear anecdotes, or get digital copies of pictures to include.  We’ll provide a bound book for Sally and the family, as well as posting it for the rest of us.

If you would like to send a card to Sally and the lads, their address is:

9 Woodman St.
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467

Thanks,

Steve Watson ‘77
stevencwatson[at]earthlink[dot]net
scw1949 | skype
781-334-4741 | office
617-359-3181 | mobile

Photo:

Tom was Time’s 1966 “Man of the Year”, the under 25 generation.  Tom garnered some acclaim, and medals, as a pilot in Vietnam.  He piloted a “suicide” mission to (successfully) destroy a bridge near Hanoi, was shot down, escaped and made his way to the South.  He was a wonderful representative of our generation and a true gentleman.