I wrote last week about the upcoming 50th anniversary of the New Mexico State University rugby team.
The event was last Thursday, Friday and Saturday and I have to say it was a spectacular success. It was put together by a bunch of rugby players (men and women) who I suspect most people would have seen as beer-chugging derelicts who played a rough, oddball sport in their college days and had questionable futures after graduation.
What made all this happen was the unlikely establishment of a rag-tag team in a cowboy college in the Chihuahuan desert by a lifelong friend. He learned to play rugby at a boarding school in Australia while his father worked as a Lutheran missionary in nearby Papua New Guinea and carried a lifelong passion for the sport. I was a tag-along member of his vision, acting as a volunteer coach for the team for about 12 years.
Joel Diemer, whose roots are in Iowa, had established a team about 10 years earlier at Iowa State University during his college days there. After receiving his PhD and securing a position at NMSU’s College of Agriculture (now the college of Agriculture, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES)), he wanted to establish a rugby team at his new university. Fifty years later, you have to conclude his efforts were wildly successful.
At the opening reception Friday night, on the rugby pitch on campus Saturday and at the banquet that evening at Fulton Center, there were literally hundreds of people who attended. I have to admit I didn’t know a lot of them, especially the younger men’s rugby alumni and the women who participated in an equally successful program.
The alumni rugby players are held together through a social media platform that didn’t exist in my days of coaching. (All we had were typed or hand-written rosters with no longer useful phone numbers and addresses.) Somehow, all that information got transferred into the social media universe and everyone has remained connected.
When I looked over the large crowds at the rugby pitch Saturday afternoon and at the banquet that evening, I asked Joel how proud he must have been about seeing such success from starting that single team 50 years ago.
His response was that he was more proud of the fact that these men and women had the desire and knowledge of how to keep the program growing long after he and I had retired from his role as founder, faculty advisor and my role as coach.
I have to say that I’m exceptionally proud of the young men (now mostly in their 50s and 60s) who I coached. Most (if not all) have become responsible members of society, with meaningful contributions through work, their families and their communities.
And again, it all started with the planting of a single seed by my great friend Joel 50 years ago. It’s an example of how a little thing can grow into something much bigger.
I know there are more significant things you can start or support — cancer research, saving endangered species, the environment, helping the poor and hungry, etc. But the rugby program was a platform that I honestly believe helped teach young men (and women) responsibility while having a darn good time in college.
So here’s to another 50 years of rugby at New Mexico State University, when I’ll be long gone and won’t be able to cheer them on from the sidelines of the pitch.
The men and women have established an endowment at the New Mexico State University Foundation to help pay for future team needs — like equipment, coaches’ stipends, player financial support, etc. Here’s a link to the alumni website with information about how to financially support the program through the endowment at the NMSU Foundation.
https://www.nmsurugbyalumni.com
Joel and I were recognized at the event for our contributions to the program. Here’s a photo of me receiving a plaque with a vintage Chiles rugby jersey from two of my most influential players and great friends from my late 1980s squad, Jaye Irwin and Brent Jaquess.
