After 12 years of petitioning and myriad delays, the Dartmouth Rugby Football Club may finally get its own clubhouse.
The rugby team have recently held a symbolic groundbreaking ceremony with players, alumni and College administrators. Although construction has not yet begun, club officials are "cautiously optimistic" that work on the clubhouse, sited at Garipay Field on Route 10, will start this summer, according to Richard Akerboom '80, who serves on the rugby team's Board of Governors.
The 6,500 square-foot Corey Ford Rugby Clubhouse -- named after team organizer Corey Ford, who willed his estate to build a rugby clubhouse when he died in 1969 -- is slated to hold both men's and women's locker rooms, Akerboom said. Blueprints also call for a training room, trophy room, coach's offices and a large social "clubroom."
Club officials indicated that the rugby team would contribute over $1 million to the project with money obtained from the Ford endowment and various alumni gifts.
The College agreed to pay the remainder of the construction costs.
Club officials estimate that actual construction will begin in mid-June.
College President James Wright, Athletic Director Josie Harper and representatives from Fox Sports World were among the attendees at the groundbreaking.
Fox Sports representatives filmed clips of the ceremony for broadcast on the network's syndicate show "The Rugby Clubhouse," men's rugby coach Alexander Magleby '00 said.
Magleby said he expects the construction of a new rugby clubhouse will help DRFC augment its current reputation as an elite collegiate rugby institution in the United States.
"It's a base for us to continue to build and provide a quality program for future generations of Dartmouth rugby players," Magleby said.
Women's rugby team co-captain Erin Garnett '06 said she was excited about the imminent groundbreaking at Garipay Field because the clubhouse promises to exemplify her image of Dartmouth rugby.
"I haven't played another sport where after a game, rivalries are set aside and teams can come together united by their involvement in the sport of rugby," Garnett said. "I think the clubhouse is a physical construction of this sense of community."
Men's rugby captain Erik Richardson '05 said that he hopes a clubhouse will help create a varsity-like atmosphere around what is now a club sport.
"The clubhouse is great for the DRFC. Symbolically, it'll legitimize the sport a little more," Richardson said. "We don't normally get as much exposure and perks as many teams."
Magleby speculated that Fox's coverage of the event attests to the quality of the College's rugby program.
Akerboom and Magleby both described the rugby team's path toward a clubhouse as a frustrating period for the organization.
As recently as this past fall, the team's action plan anticipated that construction at the Garipay Field site would actually begin Saturday, May 8. However, Akerboom said that the tangible groundbreaking was pushed back because the club has had difficulty obtaining all the necessary permits from the town of Hanover.
The rugby team decided to stick to the original May 8 date for the ceremony because the club wanted to hold the groundbreaking while Spring term classes were still in session, according to Akerboom.
"If we did it in June, all the students would be gone," Akerboom said.
Due to bureaucratic red tape, the team's building application did not even reach the town's building authorities until May 14, Hanover officials said. The town of Hanover is legally required to review and respond to a building proposal within 60 days of submission.
Construction of a clubhouse in different Hanover locations has been deferred and blocked by the local community many times in recent years.
In the fall of 2000, a delay in the approval of a land exchange between the town of Hanover and the Dresden School District halted construction of the clubhouse only days before construction was scheduled to begin.
"We were three days away from breaking ground," Akerboom said.
Magleby said that he believes the Hanover community has been hostile toward the rugby team's past attempts to build a clubhouse because of misconceptions about the sport of rugby.
Many people have negative perceptions of rugby because the sport was once an "anti-establishment booze-fest" at the collegiate level, Magleby said.
"We've moved beyond that as a sport now, however," Magleby said. "The clubhouse is not another fraternity at all, it's an athletic facility."
Corey Ford, who the clubhouse's name honors, was a Columbia graduate who worked as an author and magazine contributor. Ford moved to Hanover in 1951, according to a College biography, and his connection with Dartmouth "lay mainly in his relationship with students."
In addition to actively organizing the rugby team, Ford reportedly advised the now-defunct Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity and several student publications. He also allowed undergraduate boxers to train in a gym in his home. Ford was named an honorary member of Dartmouth's Class of 1921.
At present, the team expects to settle the current issues relating to building permits and commence construction by summer.
"We have all our permits in place except for the building permit," Akerboom said.
