DEVIN GOLDEN 315-4476 | @DGoldnwfdn dgolden@nwfdailynews.com
Rich Rummel remembers the day he signed up for the Okaloosa Rugby Club. It was a Tuesday, the day he moved to the area in 2006.
“I was signed up by 1:30 p.m.,” he said. “I was out at practice by 6:30.”
Rugby, he explained, is a fraternity stretching across the globe, it’s brotherhood hospitable to locals and newcomers alike.
“Wherever you go,” he said, “it’s an instant family.”
But Rummel, now an assistant coach, is actually one of the few to stay for the long haul.
Adult sports clubs in a military-populated area often deal with membership struggles — deployment, reassignment and other moments-notice life changes for members who planned to be permanent players.
“By the time you groom them,” Rummel said, “they leave us.”
It’s just that the Okaloosa Rugby Club has a little more history than your regular adult club team.
Club coach and president Steve Guothro remembers playing the club — mostly civilians at the time — in the 1980s, when he played for the Columbus, Ga., Fort Bening team.
And it has been around even before that.
Started in 1972, the Division III club in the USA Rugby’s True South Union acts as a crossover for beginners and veterans — two circles intertwined on the edges where newcomers learn the sport and knowledgeable folks take to teaching.
“I want to grow the sport of rugby in the area,” Guothro, said, noting Division III is less competitive and more social than Division I or II. “By the same token, I expect guys to be committed to the game and take it serious.
“It has survived.”
But it isn’t surviving without challenges. The group has about 30 committed members — a low total for a team primarily playing 15-a-side rugby — and that’s even with members from the Pensacola and Panama City teams that folded. That’s the format used for the True South Union Division III league, which begins in November and runs through April with qualifying tournaments and matches all the way up to a possible national tournament. In the summer, it’s 7-a-side season.
“It’s tough getting guys out,” said club player Dan Corrigan, a Choctaw 2005 graduate. “In 2010, we were state champions. We went to the national quarterfinals. Since then, it’s hard to get even 20 guys out to practice.”
There were only four players in action Wednesday for practice on the sands of Okaloosa Island’s Beasley Park. Guothro had them running through passing drills, a much-needed tactic to perfect. The goal is to advance with possession of the ball to the other side of the field for a “try.” Players can advance it with backward passes or a kick. The other team’s goal is to tackle the player with the ball and then win possession via a ruck.
Those rules are the barebones of rugby. Now, before the season begins, is the best time to join and learn the specific details. The club has a Facebook group, the Okaloosa Rugby Club, which is the prime spot for potential members.
“And it’s such a cheap sport to play,” Corrigan said. “A pair of cleats and that’s all you need.”
For the club, there are dues. Then there is an annual $70 registration cost with USA Rugby. But compared to other sports, that’s on the cheaper end.
Rummel said there have been quite a few since 1972 to fall in love with rugby through the Okaloosa group. They join as beginners, move elsewhere and keep playing.
“They end up becoming team captain, main of the match, hold a chair on the club,” he said.
He and the rest of the group’s mainstays just want that cycle to continue for another 43 years.
