The University of Tennessee has fielded a rugby team since 1970. The Vols compete in the Southeastern Collegiate Rugby Conference.
Tennessee’s first official rugby match took place Oct. 31, 1970 in Huntsville, Alabama against the Redstone Rugby Club, winning 8-6. UT finished its inaugural 1970-71 season with a 13-3-3 record.
Over the years, Tennessee’s football program has worked with its rugby team in providing an audience in helping fill roster spots.
“Under Butch Jones (2013-17) we were always welcomed to walk-on tryouts and had an opportunity to address the 50-60 guys after the session to tell them about rugby,” Tennessee rugby head coach Marty Bradley told Vols Wire. “We would get three or four guys to give rugby a try each year.”
Under Jeremy Pruitt (2018-20), Bradley mentioned walk-on’s were handled one-on-one with the former head coach, preventing the rugby program of having a platform in recruiting to the team.
Since Josh Heupel has been hired as Tennessee’s head coach, the rugby and football programs have not worked together during the early stages of his tenure.
Redshirt sophomore Matthew Salansky has served as Tennessee’s long snapper since the start of the 2020 season. He redshirted in 2019.
Salansky’s dad played rugby at Tennessee Tech and was teammates with Bradley.
“Matthew came out to watch a bit of practice last year because he was going to give rugby a go, but then he became the long snapper,” Bradley said.
Greg Amsler played running back for the Vols between 1987-90.
Bradley mentioned Amsler is the most notable football player to also play rugby at Tennessee.
“I guess the most notable player to play rugby was Greg Amsler,” Bradley said. “He played while preparing for an attempt at the NFL.”
Most recently, wide receiver Brett Parisi (2012-13) and tight end Dakota Summers (2010-13) played football and rugby at Tennessee.
“When my senior season ended, I joined the team to play 15s in the spring,” Summers told Vols Wire about playing rugby and football at Tennessee. “I’m so thankful I did. Rugby is an incredible sport and UT has a great program with great player and coaches. I don’t think I’d say one is more physical than the other, it is just a different kind of physicality. There is a big difference in making a tackle with a helmet and shoulder pads on versus a t-shirt and shorts.”
Summers started out playing as an inside center for Tennessee’s rugby team. He played a few games there and then moved to left lock.
“I enjoyed both positions, but being in the scrum on the second row was so much fun,” he said.
Summers also discussed playing tight end in football, in comparison to his rugby positions he played with the Vols.
“You could say inside center is comparable because it’s a big body guy who is more out in space,” he said. “As for lock in comparison, an even bigger body, who is more of a blocking tight end type of guy.”
Jonathan Kongbo played defensive end and linebacker for the Vols from 2016-18. Kongbo played rugby growing up before becoming a highly-touted recruit in football.
“He was a heck of a high school rugby player in Canada, but I could not get him out for obvious reasons,” Bradley said of Kongbo playing rugby at Tennessee. “He was a U19 player in Canada and could probably give it a go for their national team if he ever picked it back up.”
Heupel played for Mike Leach at Oklahoma.
Leach served as the Sooners’ offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach in 1999 and recruited Heupel as his starting signal-caller.
Leach did not play football in college. He played rugby at BYU.
Leach joined the show “Football Two-A-Days” and discussed his time playing rugby and the similarities between the two sports.
“There’s some similarities, allegedly football was taken from rugby kind of, but it is different,” Leach said. “I was coming off of an ankle injury. I had a broken ankle my senior year in high school. As I was coming off of that, running to bring that back, I started playing rugby. I had it for a P.E. class, then they recruited me to be on the team after that. I was pretty fast back then, so it was a great deal for me. We went all over the country playing rugby, to Canada, all over the place. BYU was a really good team.
“I really enjoyed my time playing rugby. Football is very much a game for specialists. Rugby is kind of a game for a guy that can do a little bit of everything because everybody touches the ball. Everybody tackles, everybody passes, everybody kicks, all those things.”
The entire show with Leach can be listened to here or below.
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