1966 Mizzou Rugby

The Missouri University Rugby Club was founded in Columbia in the fall of 1966 by William K. “Chip” Maxwell of Creve Coeur — who served four years in the United States Air Force as a drill instructor, played football at Missouri Valley College before coming to Mizzou to study psychology, and had played with the Rambler Rugby Club in St. Louis — and Warren Sutton of Auckland, New Zealand, a mathematics doctoral candidate at Mizzou who had been one of New Zealand's top rugby referees. The first officers were Maxwell as President, Gino Tutera as Vice-President, Wilson Beckett as Treasurer, and Mike Rigg as Secretary (succeeded by Iain Christison), with Sutton coaching and Joe Bowen — a former Cornell footballer who picked up rugby in Africa with the Peace Corps — captaining the “A” team.

The club's first full playing season came in the spring of 1967, and the new side posted a remarkable 5–2–2 record. The highlight was the April 7 defeat of a strong Harvard University side in Columbia; the Black & Gold also beat both Iowa and Kansas, and fielded two full teams at the St. Louis Easter Ruggerfest in March.

The Spring 1967 schedule as the club printed it. Individual match results were not recorded — what survives is the 5–2–2 season record and the note that the “A” team's wins included Harvard, Iowa and Kansas.

From “Missouri University Rugby Club — The First Years, Fall 1966–Spring 1969” by Dan McGuire, written for the club's 45th anniversary and presented at the inaugural meeting of the Mizzou Rugby Alumni Association on October 28, 2011, together with the club's Spring 1967 program and the St. Louis Easter Ruggerfest program of March 25–26, 1967.