Portal:Main/Intro
Welcome to the USAFA Rugby Alumni wiki, the place where you can find out about the history of rugby at the USAF Academy as told by the players, coaches, and fans who made the USAFA Rugby program what it is today. This wiki was designed for you to contribute and help us collect memories of all those great times we all had while being part of USAFA Rugby. This is a site dedicated to preserving the history of the Acadmey Rugby teams.
Rugby was an intramural sport since the onset of the Academy. Our extramural history starts from 1961, as the Academy had occasion to pull from intramural rugby players to compete against visiting overseas teams. Officially founded as a club team in 1968 by Captain Alan Osur and C2C Angus MacDonald, our first matches were on 29 September 1968 where the A team ("All Blues") beat the Denver Highlanders, 29-0, and the B side ("Silver side") played the Denver University A team to a 16-16 tie. Fit and fast described play in those early years, prompting the Eastern Rockies Rugby Union President, Terry Fleener [1], to nickname us "Zoomies"... the nickname replaced "All Blues", which had lasted until the end of 1969, and continues on to this day.
Coach Osur rotated away from the Academy, but upon his return he completed the full presence of rugby at the Academy by forming and coaching the AFA women's team. The teams operated as one club until 1980 when they split into Men's and Women's. Alan's pupils have gone on to play (some at the highest levels), start many a rugby club, and coach thousands of other players at all age groups. Alan's contribution to our sport and our Academy is another story, but this website is seeded in his initiatives.... His contributions were memorialized in a video put together by a few of his women players and is worthy for all to watch to gain insight on the man who was the founder of our sport at the Academy: http://youtu.be/Bwvz7Vz0QSo
The AOG Rugby Alumni Affinity Group Board has set up a player's Honor Roll to honor those players and coaches who have distinguished themselves in our sport, as well as a site for those whose career's merit recognition in a Distinguished Rugby Graduate Honor Roll for those rugby graduates who have gone on from the confines of the Academy and the pitch to be successful in their own right. This legacy needs to be preserved as a reminder of our heritage, and of our responsibilities to maintain the long blue line. In addition there is a select Portal:Hall of Fame for those select few who have made significant rugby contributions. Click to see the history of our patches, to include the history of the alumni patches. Finally, an historic rugby tradition that fell out of favor in politically correct times was the Zulu Warrior
In the fall of 2018, the alumni hosted an alumni party: Click here for more details of that Celebration of 50 years of Club Rugby at the Academy
If you are interested in getting on the alumni mailing list, contact Harry Laws at HarryFLaws@gmail.com
Click if you are interested in gifting to the teams - gifting information
Follow the current team here: [2] Facebook page [3] Instagram @zoomierugby Twitter @ZoomieRugby UTube [4] Women's alumni Facebook page here: [5]
