“Flag Football, Sir”: Stories From Iowa Rugby’s First Season as Stella Calls Us Home
“So that flag football can get a little rough, I guess.” – an Iowa City ER doctor, spring 1966
Sixty years ago this spring, a group of University of Iowa students walked out onto a cold, wet pitch and played the first game in Iowa Rugby history. It was late March 1966. Nobody on that field knew they were starting something that would still be going six decades later. They just knew it was raining, it was muddy, and they wanted to play.
Earl Fitz was one of them. With the inaugural University of Iowa Rugby Hall of Fame class about to be inducted, Earl wrote to the Foundation this week with a couple of stories from those first seasons. We couldn't keep them to ourselves.
Seventeen stitches and a glorious scar
Earl played in that very first game, and he picked up another first along the way: he was the first Iowa rugger ever to need stitches. Seventeen of them, right over his right eye. “I still have a glorious scar,” he writes, “of which I am very proud.”
There was a catch. Back then, nobody was sure whether the student health program would cover injuries from a sport most of campus had never heard of. So the club had a plan: if you got hurt, you told the ER you'd been playing flag football, which was covered.
So there sat Earl in the emergency room, covered in blood and mud from a game played in a cold rain, while the doctor stitched him up and asked how it happened.
“Flag football, sir.”
The doctor was quiet for a few seconds. Then: “So that flag football can get a little rough, I guess.”
“Yes,” Earl told him. “It can.”
(For the record, Earl adds, Student Health did cover the visit.)
Pete Francis, Hall of Famer
Earl's other story is about a teammate the club is about to honor. Peter Francis, a Ph.D. student in physical education at Iowa back then, was one of the founding fathers of the club in 1966, and he is a member of the Hall of Fame's inaugural class. Earl played alongside him in those early years, including a road trip to a tournament in Champaign-Urbana. Beyond what Pete did on the pitch, Earl says, he “taught us all how to do a proper pub crawl.”
In the third game of that tournament, Pete got hurt and checked himself into the local hospital. When his teammates came to see how he was doing, the hospital had no record of him. Pete's full name is Peter Robert Francis, and he had been admitted under one of his other names. He was there, of course, and by then he was in a lot of pain.
The staff sent him for a chest X-ray. It took Pete himself, the physical education doctoral student, to point out to the doctors what they were looking at: a punctured lung.
Hurt in game three, lost in the paperwork, and still the one diagnosing himself. That's the kind of toughness this club was built on. On November 6, Pete takes his place in the first class of the University of Iowa Rugby Hall of Fame.
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Sixty years in the making
Stories like Earl's are where all of this started: a few students, a cold rain, a doctor who didn't quite buy the flag football story. What came after took six decades of work. Players coached the players who came after them. Alumni drove back for matches, backed the Foundation, and kept the stories alive. The crest changed, the jerseys changed, and the club went from that first scrum in 1966 to a nationally ranked program.
It's a big year to look back on. The first-ever University of Iowa Rugby Hall of Fame class goes in this fall, and the whole club is celebrating with it, including the 2026 team. Today's Hawkeyes get to see, up close, how far the club has come and who built it. We couldn't be more excited that this team is part of it.
Stella is calling you home
There are just 20 days left to get in on the 60th Anniversary Celebration Weekend, November 6 and 7 in Iowa City.
Friday, November 6 – Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony. 7 PM at the Iowa Memorial Union (IMU) Black Box Theater, 125 N. Madison St. Cocktail attire. The inaugural class of 2026:
- John David Ryberg
- Tyler Dailey
- Brent Hinz
- Jim Lloyd
- Kevin Froelich
- Ian Cullis
- Peter Francis
Saturday, November 7 – The “Stella Is Calling You Home” Banquet. 6 to 10 PM at Old Brick, 26 E Market St. Cocktail attire. Seats are $60 each, or reserve a table of 8 for $480 and bring your old squad back together. Proceeds support the Iowa Rugby Foundation.
Coming in from out of town? Reunion room blocks are open at the Courtyard Marriott in University Heights ($169 + taxes) and the Holiday Inn Coralville ($139 + taxes).
Buy your banquet tickets · See the full weekend and book a hotel
Every alum has a story like Earl's. Come tell yours in person. Sixty years on, the pitch, the pub, and the people are all still here. Stella!
Have a story from your Iowa Rugby days? Send it our way. We'd love to share more of them as we celebrate 60 years.
