Rugby

Syracuse Hammerheads to celebrate 45 years of club rugby in October

Forty-five years ago, a bar-side meeting of two Syracuse University graduate students gave life to what has since become one of the most successful club sports teams the school has ever seen.

It was this alcohol-infused conversation that led to the inception of the SU Hammerheads club rugby team, which celebrates 45 years this October of passion for the sport and the culture it promotes.

On one side of the table at Lee’s on Westcott Street was the relative elder John Mauro, a 25-year-old graduate of the University of Notre Dame and a two-year Army veteran. Opposite Mauro sat Peter Baigent, an Englishman, first-year graduate student and Dellplain Hall resident adviser. The two men met at Lee’s to share a beer and discuss what had brought them together in the first place: a furious passion for the sport of rugby.

“Rugby is more than just a sport — it’s a whole philosophy of living,” Mauro said. “It’ll draw you if it’s for you. It’ll find you.”

Mauro himself was found by the sport during his undergraduate tenure at Notre Dame, when the university formed a club team during his freshman year in 1961. When he decided to enroll part-time at Syracuse’s University College to earn his MBA in 1969, he was disappointed to discover that rugby hadn’t reached SU.



Undeterred, Mauro took out an ad in The Daily Orange calling for his fellow students to come out and form a club of their own, regardless of any rugby experience. After a week, he received just one lone response, but Baigent turned out to be all the team would need to get on its feet.

Using his connections as an RA, Baigent assembled a team composed mostly of students living in Dellplain Hall and reserved some practice time at Hendricks Field. Meanwhile, Mauro focused his efforts on finding competition, eventually setting up contests with teams from the University of Rochester and State University of New York at Buffalo.

After a winless first season, Baigent and Mauro decided to enlist the help of Bob Wilson, an Englishman one year younger than Baigent. They lured Wilson with an RA position and the allure of American women, whom Baigent promised would soon fall head over heels for him.

With Wilson aboard in 1970, the team quickly improved. In 1972, Baigent and Wilson took the team on an English tour, where the squad faced off with talented programs that gave the Hammerheads a new perspective on rugby. They won the Upstate Tournament the next season, setting the tone for the future success of the program.

Forty-one years after that first championship, the majority of the present-day team’s players come to college with little to no rugby experience. Captain Angus Bishop estimates a 75-25 split between those like Mauro who stumble upon the sport and those who come to college looking to participate in rugby.

“That’s one of the things that makes the Hammerhead culture so great,” Bishop explained. “We try to be as inclusive as possible. No matter what you are or what you be, everyone is accepted. We’re always going to be welcoming you with open arms. It’s the more the merrier.”

The team that’s won six New York state championships since 1998 also bonds on international tours every two years, cross-state road trips for games and boisterous post-match parties that often include the opponent.

“You may not see somebody for 10, 20 or 30 years, but when you do see them, it’s like it was yesterday,” Mauro said. “You start telling the same old stories that you made together.”





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