A Brief History of the New Mexico Tech Rugby Football Club

By Dave Wheelock
Director of Rugby / Club sport coordinator
1998-2017

Author’s note: The earliest history of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology’s
rugby club, which turned 50 in 2023, is largely obscured by the passage of time and the lack
of firsthand accounts.
During his tenure as coach (Jan. 1998 – May 2017) the author assembled a scrapbook of
newspaper articles, photos, tournament programs, etc. that grew to four volumes, however he
was able to collect but a few anecdotes to add to his own memories as a player for the
University of New Mexico and Santa Fe rugby clubs (1973-1995). Anyone willing to add to the
lore is invited to do so at dawheelock@gmail.com.

ORIGINS & EARLY DAYS
In 1973 transfer student Timothy Franklin, who had learned the game perhaps as early
as 1969 while a student at the University of New Mexico, founded the rugby club at Tech. The
club was one of the first to form following creation of the New Mexico Rugby Club in
Albuquerque in 1969. Other early clubs in the region included Kirtland Air Force Base
Nomads, New Mexico State University Chiles, as well as teams in Santa Fe (Santos),
Albuquerque (Aardvarks and Brujos), and El Paso, Texas (Scorpions). As the years unfolded
additional New Mexico clubs came into being but have not survived, including Eastern New
Mexico University, New Mexico Military Institute, and citizen clubs in Farmington and Las
Cruces. 
Rugby union football experienced exponential growth in the United States beginning in
the 1970s, decades after an opposite trend culled scores of rugby clubs from the US sporting
scene in the early 20 th Century. As the number of new U.S. male rugby clubs plateaued
somewhat in the early 2000s, girls and women were discovering the sport, leading to a
second explosive growth period in rugby that continues worldwide to date. While the exact
date of the first women’s team at Tech has yet to be determined, a side known as the Queens
has intermittently been fielded since the 1990s.
One factor in rugby’s rebirth in the United States may be that increased travel in and
out of the country increased contact with foreign cultures and encouraged a new stateside
appreciation for novel ideas and activities. American athletes (such as the author, with
university gridiron football experience) rediscovered the joy of sport without the bullying
common among coaches they had known. Others who had avoided sports found similar
satisfaction in the less-critical atmosphere of rugby football.
Early NMT rugby teams were entirely self-coached, first by Franklin and then a
succession of leading players who in the 200-year tradition of rugby football were more often
referred to as captains. Some notable NMT captain/coaches from this era were Larry Lee,
Phil Poirer, Clint Richardson, and CharlesPuglisi. 
As a student-run organization the New Mexico Tech RFC players seem to have
constantly reinvented themselves throughout the 1970s. What remained constant was a
certain irreverence that reflected the youthful culture of rebellion of those times. Legend has it
that at one time the players called themselves the Blue Tunas but soon received a letter from

the Starkist corporation concerning trademark infringement. Considering the normal size
mismatch between themselves and teams of older players that dotted their schedule, Tech’s
players eventually settled on the nickname Pygmies. To symbolize their bruising encounters
with these teams the Pygmies adopted the black and blue striped rugby jerseys that were
worn from the 1970s until the turn of the 21 st Century. The Pygmy nickname stuck until being
changed to Miners by an institute-wide referendum in 2018.
Tech’s first non-playing rugby coach was attorney Shannon Robinson, who commuted
from Albuquerque once or twice a week during the early 1990s to give direction. Herb Howell,
an Oregonian with overseas coaching experience in Wales and England, then took up the
reins as combined sport club coordinator and rugby coach on a part-time contractual basis, as
rugby took its place in the Department or Physical Recreation’s club sports program.
Succeeding Howell in 1998 was coach Dave Wheelock, author of this account, who served
until 2017 as the NMT Club Sport Coordinator / Director of Rugby.
A women’s team, The Queens, was established under the club sport program in the
early 1990s and was initially coached by Environmental Engineering professor Dr. Clinton
Richardson. The club transitioned to Coach Wheelock’s supervision with his arrival in 1998.
Due to the relatively small female population at New Mexico Tech the team has had an
intermittent history of play.
The men’s club raised funds to successfully complete three overseas playing tours
during Wheelock’s tenure: Wales (1998), Ireland (2002), and England (2006). Each tour
included three matches against university and club-level teams as well as interior travel for
enrichment.
Following Mr. Wheelock’s retirement, Brent Nourse, a Seattle youth rugby coach and
organizer, was hired but was forced to resign after one year due to personal issues. He was
replaced by Gearoid Dunbar of Carlow, Ireland in 2019. Coinciding with NMT’s first
presidential change in over 20 years, coach Dunbar’s team met with prominent success with
national Small College championships in both the sevens- and fifteen-man codes in 2022.
NMT’s Elijah Naranjo was named Most Valuable Player of the “7s” tournament.
In 2022 Coach Dunbar was hired away by the University of Mary Washington.
Following his departure Christopher Hathaway, a former professional player in the USA’s
nascent Major League Rugby served a one-year stint in the revised role of Rugby and
Intramural Coordinator.
In December 2023 Jason Oliphant and his wife arrived from their home in South Africa
to take over rugby duties at Tech. According to a December 7 NMT news service story:
A resident of a small town outside Durban, South Africa, Oliphant’s playing career included
the Golden Lions Under 21 side, the Gauteng Falcons, and a short stint with the Old Blue of
New York. After a successful career in the restaurant business, Oliphant returned to rugby to
start coaching. He immediately jumped into coaching the junior side of Valke, a team that
features in the Currie Cup, a professional league in South Africa. Since 2017, Oliphant has
taken the reins of two different college sides – Wits University and University of KwaZulu-
Natal. In 2023, he graduated from a highly selective, 18-month long Elite Coaching
Programme run by South Africa Rugby.