BGSU rugby club's rise to national powerhouse status

Action from the alumni game at the dedication renaming the BGSU rugby field after Roger Mazzarella. Alessio DiFranco fends off Dan Leatherman while Bryce Pitney comes up in support — all are BGSU rugby grads.

Noted for its ferocious defense soon after forming in 1968, the Bowling Green State University rugby club prospered in the early days of the three-point try.

It was with the addition of ex-University of Wisconsin player Tom Haigh that the club took its first step up to the big time. Haigh was instrumental in establishing BG's alumni association, the Poe Ditch Officers, as well as the Mid America Conference Tournament.

Now 48 years old, the MAC Conference is the longest continuously running college conference linked rugby competition in the United States.

Haigh's departure in 1973 resulted in a long, slow slide into the depths of mediocrity. By 1980 the club could still boast of never having had a losing season, but just barely. The stage was set for the next step up by the club to the game's elite few.

The chief actor on that stage arrived in the form of Kiwi Bill Cotton, a New Zealand native. Having prepped at Miami University and the University of Alberta, Cotton's appointment to the position of head coach created a shakeup right to the club's very foundations and made Bowling Green the force in college rugby that it is today.

Restructuring the club's administration off the field, Cotton also established the very un-New Zealand-like philosophy of a hard running, high scoring backfield. With a playbook that was unrivaled in its complexity until only recently, Cotton made Bowling Green the standard both on and off the field for Midwest College rugby.

It was during Cotton's tenure that BG started its annual spring tour to the Southern United States. Taking on and beating some of the best the Eastern RFU had to offer, this tour became one of the highlights of the year.

Along with a stellar won-lost record, Cotton also brought home four Mid America Conference and one Ohio Collegiate championship. One prize, however, continued to elude the team — the Midwest Collegiate Championship.

It was up to Roger Mazzarella, who took over as head coach in 1985, to guide Bowling Green up to the next level. After a near disastrous start and a wild card entry, Bowling Green beat Wisconsin 7-6 to win the first of three straight Midwest Collegiate Championships.

Not only did the team earn its first berth in the final four of the National Collegiate Championship, but it was also featured in that rarest of all creatures, a Sports Illustrated article on rugby.

In addition to the four Midwest titles during Mazzarella's 23 years at the helm, the team has also won thirty-one Mid American Conference, seven Ohio collegiate and ten Michigan Collegiate titles.

With the club's tour to England in 1987, the BGSU RFC became the first Bowling Green athletic team to play outside the North America continent.

Additional tours to England were successfully completed in 1995, 2012, 2014 and 2016 as well as a tour to England, in 2000, Italy in 2018, South Africa in 2002 and 2007 and Ireland in 2005.

The Falcons have also received eighteen National Collegiate Championship bids. Mazzarella finished with a 1,285-216-47 record. Last month, the BGSU rugby field was named in Mazzarella's honor.

Like father, like son

Taking over from his father in the fall of 2008, new head coach Tony Mazzarella quickly compiled a 556-54-4 (.911) record with 13 MAC championships, three Midwest Championships and thirteen national championship appearances and won the club's first National Collegiate Championship in 2018.

"My son is an infinitely better coach than I was," Roger Mazzarella said. "I was a good recruiter, and I knew how to work the system at the university, who to talk to when there was a problem or if we needed something, but he is the X's and O's guy. There will be something named after him one of these days, too."

Mazzarella says there is a trick to finding the right athletes.

"I think the attraction is that a lot of them want to keep doing something hard core, organized, and be involved in a high intensity sport, something like they had in high school," said Mazzarrella.

He says his athletes were not just former football players, many came off the basketball court, baseball field, or were wrestlers, cross country runners, and swimmers.

BGSU has now won 40 consecutive MAC championships dating back to 1982 and had 104 consecutive winning seasons, combining fall and spring seasons and all teams within the program. They have competed in the national championships 19 times, including 12 in a row from 2008-19.

Even with an all-time record of 2,587-412-88 (.862) on the field, Bowling Green can also boast of many significant off-the-field accomplishments.

Club members have served in the offices of president, vice president, and secretary of the Ohio, Michigan and Midwest Rugby Football Unions.

Roger Mazzarella has also served as coach of the Ohio Collegiate Select Side and has held numerous offices in rugby administration including the USARFU Board of Directors.

Nine Falcons have achieved all-American honors — Chuck Tunnacliffe (1986), Tony Konczak (1988), Wes Harmon (1991), Scott Hogg (2003), Rich Hines and Nick Viviani (2008) and Rocco and Dominic Mauer (2010 and 2011) and D. Mauer and Max Narewski (2012), — and five played for the Eagles – Tunnacliffe, Vince Staropoli (1999), Kevin Mongold (2006) and Nick Viviani (2008) and Rocco Mauer.

In addition, Bowling Green players have always made up a significant percentage of the Ohio, Michigan and Midwest Collegiate Select Sides.

"With the completion by the university 20 years ago of the club's $22,000 home pitch, which now includes seating for 250 and an electronic scoreboard, the future looks bright for the BGSU RFC," a BGSU press release quips.

"Who of those original members fifty-two years ago, as they threw railroad ties over the Bowling Green sewer to get to the pitch and got ready to play in castoff football practice jerseys, could have foreseen how well their efforts would pay off?"

( — by Sentinel-Tribune Sports Editor J. Patrick Eaken and BGSU press material)