The UTMSH Rugby Team in action

A chapter in the history of The University of Texas Medical School at Houston has to include the formation of the school's Rugby team in 1976.  A small band of medical students from the entering class of ’75 and ’76 called an impromptu meeting to determine the level of interest in starting a rugby football club at UTMSH.  The club’s self-appointed leaders, David Calvo and Bob Schmidt had attended a “clinic” put on by the Welsh National Rugby Club to teach the finer vagaries of the eloquently violent sport and predecessor to our beloved American football.  There was an overwhelming enthusiasm for forming a club and the leaders went to work on the details. 

Dr. Trueman Blocker, President Protem, of the UTHSC, Houston was a sympathetic ear since he was a huge rugby advocate at the UTMB prior to joining our university.  Next, Calvo and Schmidt went to work on the finances and lobbied many of the medical center businesses for donations.  Enough money was collected to pay for the entrance fees and all of the jerseys, shorts and socks for the team.

Next was a coach; since no one except John McNeely had ever played the game before, we drew on the expertise of Australian, Alan Broughton, M.D., Pathologist faculty.  Later we had assistance from Brian Rowlands, M.D., Surgical faculty and John Talmedge, M.D., Psychiatry faculty.

We had an inordinate number of elite athletes enrolled at UTMSH during that era and it became apparent that their talents easily transferred to the “new” sport.  McNeely was a bruiser of a guy and had a keen understanding of the game so immediately became the on-the-field leader of the motley bunch.  We were blessed with speedsters like Tom Parker and Dave Holden (from track and field, bruisers in McNeely (football and Rugby) and Dan Scott (former TCU fullback), Lance Kirkegaard (Crew at UCLA) and Schmidt and Calvo (football and track), wild and crazies like Doug Gurley, Steve Slade, Mike Paddock, Denny Maher, several of the staff from the research animal department and our official photographer, Rick Sabo.  The team competed in local tournaments including the “Lone Star Tournament”, a national event held on the Rice University Campus.

Regretfully the UTMSH Rugby team’s story was a short one.  After about a year’s time, a fractured tibia suffered by Gurley, a ruptured spleen by Paddock, a broken clavicle and pneumothorax by Maher, and a concussion by Steve Slade the dean mandated the team be disbanded.  The injuries were too many, especially since class enrollment was only about 60 students.  So ended the story of the first and last medical school Rugby team.

Written by David Calvo, M.D., graduating class of 1978