Last Updated 2-16-25
2025: When the Indiana University Football team's brilliant 2024 season ended at Notre Dame, I could not help but recall that the first IU Rugby Team win was against Notre Dame in 1963. I am 84 years old, and I played in that game. I wanted to share the story with the rest of you, so I contacted my teammate Phil Bryant and we put together this short story, Here, of how this win occurred.
Best wishes
Ken Potocki
IU PhD Physics,1968; IU Rugby 1962-3
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2025: Ken, thanks for the memories. I attended Bloomington High School and started going to the rugby games in 1963 with my buddies. Many of us played football at BHS and planned to attend IU. We loved the announcer who called the games from the press box. We all decided we would eventually play rugby...and after high school graduation in 1964, we did join in the 1965-1966 range. This led to the start of the Bloomington boys joining the team. The first wave was Gary (Sammy Silvertooth) Gist, Ron (Pokey) Fulk, David (Zim) Zimmerman, and me. From there, a lot of locals joined. We got to play with and learn from several of the originals you named.
Gary Brown
Editor's note: I also am from BHS and joined the IU Rugby team in 1969. Evan Williams
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2025: Indiana Rugby organized in the Fall of 1962 with social meetings and a few practices late in the Fall. However, it was too late to schedule any matches until Spring. There were only five or six teams at that time in the entire Midwest region. U of Michigan (1958), Notre Dame (1961), Wisconsin (1962), St. Louis, Rambler, Bombers, abd St. Louis University (1930's). I was recruited by John Schofield whom I knew from the Phi Delta Theta Fraternity. I had just registered for Spring Semester classes and was cutting through the Commons in the Union Building and bumped into John who immediately invited me to attend a practice on Saturday morning in the HYPER Gymnasium, next to the Old Field House. That would have been about the first Saturday of January, 1963. There were no more than twenty in attendance. First Season only had seven matches that I can remember: Notre Dame away and home. St. Louis University, away and home. Michigan, away. St. Louis Bombers, home. The first match with Wisconsin was in Fall of 1963.
There are only four undergraduates in the "1963 Team Picture" Joe Wheat, John Belleno, Randy Long and me, Phil Bryant.
That should clear up your question as to why there were no matches in the Fall of 1962.
Phil Bryant
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2017: Ken Potocki seems to think IU Rugby started in the Spring of 1963. He put together a Powerpoint slideshow of pictures and info from 1963. Here is a message fom him:
To celebrate our 50th anniversary, I am developing two Power Point presentations regarding the inaugural IU Rugby Football Club. The first is attached and is entitled "Pictorial History, Indiana University Inaugural Rugby Football Club Season, Spring 1963." It is based upon photos that my wife took while taking a photography class in the School of Journalism.
The second is in development and entitled "Indiana University Inaugural Rugby Football Club, Then, and Now (1963-2013)." I will highlight the players from 1963 in a single page, two column chart describing what they did at IU and on the rugby team, and what they went on to do in their careers. There will be then and now photos of each player. I hope to have it done by the Fall (2013).
Any feedback is welcome.
Best regards,
Ken Potocki
IU Rugby 1963
PhD, IU Physics, 1968
For his Slideshow, click Here.
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Carl, Otto, & Doug
Issy at the Mic
John Healey, Tom Wacker, Pat Brown
