FW: What USC Rugby means to you - Mitch Morrison '75
Dominic Riebli
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In a continuation of the series, I’ve asked some distinguished alums to share their thoughts on their time at SC. Here is the second installment from Mitch Morrison ’75. Read and feel awe inspired the massive amount of talent on display in the Pac 8 during his time.
On Wednesday, November 21, 2018, 12:25:05 PM PST, Mitchell Morrison < > wrote:
USC rugby for me goes down as some of the best days of my life. I was recruited to play SC Rugby by John Callahan in the late fall of 1972. John Callahan, a provost at USC, was the former rugby coach from St Marys College of Ireland. John chose to do something no one at USC would have even attempted. That was going head to head and challenge another John…as in John McKay…who was perhaps the best coach at USC football ever. John McKay was pretty much "God" at USC back then. I am, still to this day, flabbergasted that John Callahan had the balls (it takes leather balls to play rugby) to challenge John McKay and recruit his own football players for rugby.
In 1968 USC Rugby won the equivalent of the US National Rugby championship. Back then, whoever won the Monterey Rugby Tournament was considered champs of all USA rugby. After the 1968 rugby season, McKay banned all football players from playing rugby at USC because too many starting SC football players were getting hurt playing rugby. The rugby team was now no more and was no longer even funded because of not enough participation for 4 years running. In 1972 John Callahan had mustered the courage to go into Heritage Hall football locker room and recruit USC Football Players for the upcoming Rugby season. Keep in mind the 1972 football team was playing in the Rose Bowl against Ohio State for the National Championship. Jan 1, 1973, USC defeated the Buckeyes 42-17 and set all-time Rose Bowl attendance record of 106,869 and the NCAA bowl game attendance record.
Some of us in the football program, myself included, went out for rugby anyway.
We had about five football players defect to Rugby. Other groups joined like the graduate USC football players, Scott Webber, ex USC football all PAC 8, Steve Erickson, the ex USC football captain, Mike Swiderski, USC baseball and also became a U.S. Eagles player. Dave Boulware, Pat Morris, myself came on board as well as track and swimming guys. Graduates: Ron Guss, Brown Jaynes, and Tom Reynolds was an ex-starting linebacker from Notre Dame University, a graduate student player and Tony Dawson former English full-back joined and coached the team with John. The fraternities stepped up big and we had at least 20 from the Sigs, KAs, Kappa Sigs, SAE's, Betas etc. The Delts had the most at one time as 9 Delts were on the 1st or 2nd teams. We could field two full teams back then and still had about 8 or 9 extra players. Stanford and Cal had enough players for three full teams apiece and UCLA had four full rugby sides at the time.
We practiced 5 days every week and live scrimmages four days a week. Most of us did not know the game very well in those early games. As the season went along that USC rugby team was in better shape than any team we faced all year and tough as nails because we had live scrimmages almost every day. In that 1973 season, we tied Cal 4-4 on Cromwell field. Cal, who had at least 20 football players and six who got drafted in the NFL that same year, was really pissed they tied us and the rugby after party was not so well attended by them. We lost that year to UCLA and Stanford in regulation games very badly. UCLA had Randy Cross, lock forward, on that team. Randy became the center for Super Bowl 49ers and made all pro. Dave Dalby, lock forward, became an Oakland Raiders guard, Mark Harmon (quarterback) playing inside center and others who were pretty famous. NFL all-pros, movie stars were who we faced on the pitch. Stanford, back then, had almost the entire football team playing rugby, Eric Test, the father of Zack Test (U.S. Eagle), became a U.S. Eagle. Eric was also drafted by the Oakland Raiders. Greg Zaltoski, the leading PAC 8 football punt returner, was on that team we faced.
In spite of all this, we won enough games to get invited to the Monterey National Rugby Tournament. On a cold winter day with an 8 am start time at Monterey, we defeated Stanford, who had beaten CAL and UCLA that year. It was called the biggest upset of the tournament. I think we finished 9th out of 32 teams that year.
Thus the rebirth of proud USC Rugby. John McKay was not totally against rugby he just was looking after his players. McKay went to the NFL in 1975 and John Robinson took over as the head coach. More football players joined the ranks of USC rugby after McKay: John and Phil Cantwell, Doug Hogan, Norm Lacy, Dale Logie, Bill O’Brian, as well as former U.S. Eagle player Dave Morrison (my brother), a graduate player from Stanford football and rugby.
My advice to all USC teams going forward: recruit, recruit, recruit and scrimmage four days a week and you will win them all! Fight On Forever!
Best Regards
Mitch Morrison