1974 Mizzou Rugby

The defending Big Eight champions opened the fall of 1974 on the road against Kansas City's River Quay club and kept on winning. On September 21 the Tigers came from behind to beat St. Louis University 14–10 — Jim Myrick banged over the winning try with five minutes left and Kevin Vogler added the conversion — while the second side shut down UMSL in the day's other game. A week later the still-unbeaten club hosted the Rolla Miners at Reactor Field.

The first defeat came in early October, when the St. Louis Bombers — one of the strongest clubs in the region — ground out a win on a rain-drenched Reactor Field, breaking the game open in the final minutes with former Mizzou rugger John Brandt sealing it for St. Louis. The Tigers regrouped and closed the fall in style on the weekend of November 16–17, beating the Arkansas Razorbacks 20–6 and Wayne County, Iowa 19–10 in a glorious mud bath that left the season record at nine wins and five losses.

The Missourian's end-of-season photo essay captured what made the club special off the field, too: the Friday-night bus tour of Columbia's bars with the visiting Arkansas side, post-match beers with the opposition, and captain John Tarpoff's own invention of “Macedonian rugby,” in which the offending team had to chug a beer on the sideline before a scrum could be set. The club still received no University funding — players paid their own dues, bought their own uniforms, and covered their own travel.

In the spring the Tigers went back to the Big Eight tournament and won it again, taking a second straight conference title to go with the inaugural one they had claimed at Reactor Field in March 1974. Missouri had now won the Big Eight rugby championship in both years of its existence. The scores, the venue and the team sheet from the 1975 tournament have not yet reached the archive — if you played in it or watched it, we would like to hear from you.