Juniata River Rats Men's Rugby Club

I write this history of Juniata Rugby from an assorted amount of sources. I have heard stories from alumni, read yearbooks and old Juniatians, sorted through old rugby files, and spoken to administrators. This is the story I have put together from these sources. My hope is that this story will be continually updated and changed until the facts are set straight. –Dan Healy ‘04

Juniata Rugby has existed Since the Fall of 1974. It has lasted for up until this day (assuming that the team hasn’t folded since I wrote this). There have been ups and downs, great season, and tough seasons, winning records and loosing records, battle fought against the school, the league, but through it all the team has stuck together. The brotherhood and the bond that is Juniata Rugby has endured. Here I lay down a story of Juniata Rugby from its early days, till today. I hope this serves as a reminder to those who have played, and an inspiration to those who are yet to come. Rugby is more than a game, it is a bond, an appreciation and respect for your teammates and your opponents, and in the end we are all friends. Juniata Rugby has taken these ideals to heart, and through the years has created a legacy that I hope will never die.

During the summer of 1974 a professor Charles Lerman conducted chemistry research. While doing the research, he spoke often with his student research assistants about the game of rugby which he had played in his college days at Harvard. As he talked and explained the game many of the students became interested in playing the game and so in Fall of 1974 an organizational meeting was held and practices began to teach the newly formed team the game of rugby and its associated traditions. In those early days the team played with yellow and blue jerseys they paid for themselves. The first game of the first season was held against Penn State C side and ended in a win 32-20. (back in those days a try was worth 4 points, it wasn’t until 1992 that a try became worth 5 points) That fall the team ended with an impressive 4-2 record. The spring of that year Dr. Lerman started a women’s team. At that time women’s teams were few and far between and one of their first games was played in Washington, DC receiving impressive news coverage. The women’s team only lasted a few semesters in those early years as it was too difficult to find other teams to play.

In 1981 under the presidency of JD Kiely and Brian Nadler the team was having an excellent year. Kiely restarted the women’s team which had fallen to the wayside after its initial beginnings in 1974. This was the year before the famous Skull rolling incident. This particular incident got national attention. The Juniata College Indians Rugby team was set to play the Pittsburgh Dental School team at Juniata. The Pitt team arrived at Juniata and began to warm up. In an attempt to intimidate the Juniata team some of the medical students had brought along cadaver heads as well as other cadaver body parts. As the story has been retold to me, the Pitt members began to roll the cadaver heads out onto the field, not intimidated, several of the Juniata team members picked up the heads and began tossing them around as if they were a rugby ball. Eventually a game was played (with a real rugby ball) followed by the usual party afterwards in East (Back in those days a party in east involved several kegs). During the course of the evening a fight broke out between some Juniata rugby players and some Pitt rugby players, and so Pitt was asked to leave. The Pittsburgh team’s Van was being blocked in by a car, so they rolled the car out of the way and left it laying on its roof. As if that was not enough, on their way back to Pittsburgh, they had the bright idea to glue coins to the hand of a cadaver and use that to hand the money to the toll booth operator. Not at all amused, the toll booth operator called the state troopers who pulled the van over. The incident was covered locally and then got picked up by a national newspaper. Juniata’s administration was not appreciative of that sort of press, and put the rugby team on probation.

For the next few years things went fairly well with the team butting heads with the administration on and off. Starting around 1984 the team began to grow in its skill, and by 1987 had become quite formidable. However that same year things went pretty bad between the team and the administration, in particular the Dean Arnie Tilden. Due to an incident at a party involving people having to go to the hospital, the team was put on probation and told that they were not to have parties on campus after the home games. Attempting to find a loophole in the new punishment the team decided that it would only have parties OFF campus after the home games. The next semester, the team asked the school for permission to host a tournament, which the school agreed to, under the one condition that no party would be thrown after the tournament. This tournament was like nothing the School had ever seen. There were 8 teams invited all of which where at the time regarded as good rugby teams (Pitt, IUP, PSU, Navy, Shippensburg, Bucknell, Bloomsburg, Juniata) Thinking that the loophole from their previous punishment would still keep them out of trouble, the team asked Budweiser to sponsor a party held at the spillway after the tournament. Well like I said this tournament was like no other the school had ever seen each team showed up on campus the day of the tournament with there team and a bus load or two of supporters. Needless to say we all know that rugby supporters like to tip a beverage while watching a match. 7 teams a hundred fans each and the entire Juniata student body, lets just say there was a hell of a party during the tournament. After the tournaments conclusion in typical Juniata Rugby tradition the team invited the visiting teams and all the fans to the spillway for festivities and beverages. Budweiser did not disappoint they provided a Tap truck (this thing was 30 foot long with at least five taps on each side of it!!!). Anyway to say the party was a blast would be an understatement Sunday morning after the tournament the president received a phone call from Arnie Tilden instructing that we were (Team Officers) to be in his office Monday morning 8am sharp. Feeling the team had defied them, the administration took action. The leaders of the team were forced to come before a judicial hearing to “defend themselves”, however most people agree that no amount of defense would have made a difference. The administration decided that the only options the team had would be to accept a set of strict rules concerning the actions and activities of the team, or they would have to disband. The leaders of the team met with all those underclassmen that would be returning for the next year and presented them with the options. It was decided by an overwhelming majority, that the team should in essence “*&%$ the school” and go it on their own. The first few years were tough since the school would not allow the team to practice or play games on their fields. The first year off campus the team turned to the student body for help, selling t-shirts in Baker, however they were told to stop because they could not use the name Juniata College on their T-shirts. The team had the T-shirts reprinted and so in the Fall of 1988 the Juniata River Rats were born. The t-shirts sold old due to the overwhelming support from the student body. The officers in the next couple of years were extremely motivated and found support in the form of monetary donations from many of the local Huntingdon businesses. They also appealed to Miller Genuine Draft for sponsorship and that year sported their brand new uniforms, and the colors that would define the team to this day, gold, red and black. The team eventually found a home at Captain Jack’s field south of Huntingdon on 22 where they practiced and played their games.

The team continued off campus very successfully until the mid 90’s. By this time the administration of Juniata had entirely changed from 1987 and most of the old ills between the team and the school had fallen to the wayside. Under the leadership of several of the officers from that time, including Mike Striecker, Steve Van Mader, etc………. the team began the process of reclaiming their position as a Juniata College entity. The team eventually was accepted back on campus, but retained much of its independent nature as well as its name Juniata River Rats Rugby. In fact, no Juniata Rugby team has ever played under the mascot of the Juniata Eagle. This sense of independence from the college is something many River Rats pride themselves on.

During the time of the struggle return to the campus, the team also took on another important role that it has carried out ever since. Storming of the Arch, a tradition dating back to the early days of Juniata College, had been cancelled by the administration in 1995. Many of the students on campus were very upset by this and as a form of protest the rugby players held an impromptu rugby game in the first snow of the season on Cloister lawn. Some of the most vocal of these students were members of the Rugby team. So the next year, Steve Van Mader and several of the other officers spoke with Dean of Students Kris Clarkson, attempting to find a common ground which would allow for the continuation of the age old tradition. Kris Clarkson agreed that if a safe, viable plan could be enacted he would allow the team to run Storming of the Arch. Van Mader and his officers decided to make it a charity event, in which each stormer would make a 1 dollar donation as well as each defender. A collection would be made from the crowd of observers and the proceeds would be donated to a charity. Safety precautions were implemented including the women’s rugby team defending the stairs to prevent injuries and mattress pads over the dangerous objects. Also the attack would take place in waves, each time ending when every stormer was tackled. This new format ensured the continuation of Storming of the Arch up to present time.

After several years of great teams stretching from the return to campus to the late 90’s the team suffered major losses of players graduating and with that much of the knowledge of the game was lost. The team struggled into the new millennium but began a revival. By 2004 the team had again grown into a strong brotherhood, passionate about the game, proud to be a member or the River Rats, and anxious to continue the tradition in to the future. After a disappointing 2004 fall season the Rats roared out during the spring season of 2005 posting a 7-2 mark defeating sides like Penn State B, West Virginia B, UPJ, Carnegie-Mellon, Allegheny, and Susquehanna.

Coming fresh off of an impressive Spring 2005 schedule in which the Rats defeated Penn State's B side for the first time in Juniata rugby history, the Rats took on their ARU divison schedule in the fall. The team defeated every team with the exception of UPJ. After a hard fought victory over Grove City in the playoffs, the Rats were set to play UPJ again, yet this time for the championship. On a freezing cold day in November, the Juniata River Rats defeated UPJ to win the first ever championship in the team's history.

In 1986 a long standing tradition called the Raft Regatta was cancelled by the administration due to insurance and legal liabilities. Raft Regatta was a huge tradition on campus drawing more than 800 students. Participants would build makeshift rafts out of whatever they could get their hands on, stick a keg on it somewhere and float down the Juniata River.

The majority of the campus was outraged at the cancellation of Raft Regatta. Several rugby players, who also happened to be members of the Cloister C-Board came up with the idea of having a pig roast out at Raystown Lake in place of Raft Regatta. Because they were not allowed to dig a pit, they were forced to improvise. They got a car hood from a scrap yard to burn coals, a bedspring from Physical Plant, a steel pole to stick through the pig’s mouth and some illegally acquired wood to burn for coals. The wood was burned into coals on the car hood, a 100 pound pig was placed on the bedsprings which sat on 4 cinder blocks around the car hood, and the steel pole was stuck through the pig in order to turn it.

This first pig roast was attended by approximately 300 people. It was officially or perhaps unofficially a Cloister C-Board event in its first few years, but soon was taken over by the rugby team completely. It has existed every year since and has grown into an event attended by over 1000 students and alumni.

I did not find any actual information on the origins of the alumni game, but as JD Kiely is one of the earliest active alumni I have to guess the alumni tradition started around or after the time he graduated in 1981. According to Glenn “GQ” Smith, “the first alumni game was in the Fall of '89 and was played over at Captain Jack's. We only had one alumni game a year back then. At pig roast there was typically a divisional match, I believe that the practice of two alumni games a year came some time after 1992.”

Each year the team hosts two alumni games. The first game is held during alumni weekend, which is usually early October. The second game is held at pig roast which is now traditionally being held on the third weekend of April, unless Easter happens to fall on that weekend in which case it will be held the second weekend of April.

These alumni games have become an important time for current River Rats to have a chance to speak with the Alumni and hear the stories about the teams of the past, as well as play an often challenging game against a group of alumni who, in many cases, have played rugby on a post collegiate level. The advantages of these events, to both the team and the alumni is immeasurable and the hopes are that it will continue to grow and draw alumni back year after year.