Dartmouth College. Dartmouth Rugby Football Club
Biography
The Dartmouth Rugby Football Club (or DRFC) was founded in 1951, and competes in the Ivy Rugby Conference against its traditional Ivy League rivals.
The DRFC also plays against D1AA competition and the USA Sevens Collegiate Rugby Championships.
The Dartmouth rugby team comprises more than 60 students and often fields more than three sides on a given weekend during the fall term.
One of the strengths and strongest traditions of the club are the Annual Tours, the first of which occurred in 1951 when the DRFC toured Bermuda. The former team was the first U.S. college rugby team to invade England (one English newspaper describing the event as "the nastiest upset since Bunker Hill"), and Sports Illustrated covered the 7-game tour in its January 19, 1959 issue. In 1962 DRFC toured in Ireland, and in 1964 the team toured both Germany and Scotland. Since 2000, the teams tours have included trips to England, Ireland, Italy, Spain, South Africa, Argentina, and Uruguay.
Dartmouth has enjoyed great success on the national stage. In 1965, the first XV was undefeated and was declared the unofficial national collegiate champion. More recently, since 1980 Dartmouth has twice reached the finals of the US national collegiate championship and has reached the semi-finals three times. In 2018 and 2019 Dartmouth clenched the D1AA Spring Final Championships.
Found in 1 Collection or Record:
Dartmouth College, Dartmouth Rugby Football Club records
The collection contains correspondence, memoranda, names and addresses of players, lists of officers, and game schedules as well as books, magazines, and pamphlets about rugby plays and rules and some information about equipment and uniforms. Material relating to the tournaments in which the team played as well as oversized photographs, scrapbooks and newspapers are also included. The material documents the organization and activities of the Dartmouth Rugby Football Club.