At the University of North Florida, they call them the “Deadbirds.”
Numbering slightly more than 30, they’re running, passing and tackling their way up and down a field that most visitors to the Southside campus probably never even see, in a sport many of the players barely knew until arriving at the school.
“For the most part, we got pulled in the same way we pull people in,” said team captain Connor Kurrack, who estimated that nearly 90 percent of the roster was new to the sport before UNF. “Somebody sees me walking by and they go, ‘Hey, you want to play rugby?’ And here we are.”
Here they are, wearing the uniform of the UNF club rugby team, and this weekend, they’re competing to bring a championship trophy back to Jacksonville.
The club competes for the College Rugby Association of America Division 2 national championship against California Lutheran at 3 p.m. May 2 at Kuntz Stadium in Indianapolis. The game will be broadcast at YouTube.com/@CRAARugby.
A year after losing in the final, these Deadbirds — the nickname dates back to the club’s 2003 founding — are very much alive and kicking. The championship goal, for players like UNF’s Eric Kidheri, is almost complete.
“Our whole season, you would hear guys say, ‘We’re going back to states, going back to nationals, going back to Indianapolis,'” he said.
BIRTH OF THE DEADBIRDS
The story of UNF rugby goes back to 2003. Rich Alleger was there from the start, and still sees former teammates, even parents of former players around the team’s activities. For him, it’s a “lifetime group.”
“They’ve got a great energy, a great camaraderie, a very welcoming group,” said Alleger, a member of the team alumni board and also a coach for UNF rugby through the 2010s.
Word of mouth keeps the club going strong. Alleger said the UNF club’s successful track record boosts appeal for high school-age players with an interest in rugby. But when it comes to actually recruiting students to suit up in Deadbirds gear, that responsibility falls on the players.
“We’re always on the green, next to the gym, trying to recruit people to come play,” said Kidheri, whose background was in soccer before he started with the club.
The club trains nearly year-round except for summer on a roughly football-size field near the Osprey Crossings building toward the south of the campus. In the fall, there’s a short season of the fast-moving rugby sevens, ahead of the main season in the spring.
Six spring regular season games. Two playoff games. Saturday, in Indianapolis, will be the ninth.
Although UNF’s club has had the occasional student from overseas with a rugby background, members generally enter brand new to the sport. Usually, they’ve previously played competitive sports, but rugby is a whole different ballgame.
Few stoppages. Lots of running. No football-style helmets.
“It’s you, and a mouthguard, out on the field, giving it your all,” said Kurrack, who competed in baseball, football and track before rugby. “That’s probably the biggest shock and adjustment. People have seen a clip of it before or something, but they don’t realize you’re just going shoulder-on-shoulder with somebody.”
The acclimation process begins with basic instruction, something like Rugby 101 on top of their academic course load. Assistant coach Peter Murphy said it usually takes newcomers a couple of months to understand how the sport works.
“They’ve bought into whatever we’ve thrown at them,” said Murphy, a former UNF player and a Deadbird through and through, even wearing a club tattoo just above his left knee. “It’s definitely a process… But once you start playing in games, getting that motion down, it becomes second nature.”
‘WILD, WILD WEST’
Turning rugby dreams into reality isn’t easy. For Kurrack, that part is “like the Wild, Wild West.”
Unlike sports directly connected to the athletic department, club sports are largely responsible for their own scheduling and their own expenses, including travel and lodging for road trips like the one this weekend. Various fundraising efforts help the players, who buy their own plane tickets to Indianapolis, make it all happen.
UNF’s success adds one more chapter to Jacksonville’s history in a sport more often associated with countries on the opposite site of both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
The Axemen club in rugby league has operated for two decades now, the city has served as a host for Rugby League World Cup qualifying and Jacksonville welcomed the South Sydney Rabbitohs of Australia and Leeds Rhinos of England for training in the late 2000s.
In those days, Alleger said, local players and former UNF club members got the chance to work up close with the Rabbitohs, a team co-owned by Academy Award-winning actor Russell Crowe. No, it wasn’t quite gladiatorial combat. But the experience was eye-opening.
“We got to train with them for two weeks,” Alleger said. “It kind of puts you in your place. We were good American players, and then the real pros come in from Australia and it’s like, ‘Whoa.'”
Saturday means a chance at redemption. In 2025, they qualified for their first CRAA national final, but lost 29-10 to Southern California — yes, that Southern California, the school that produced the likes of O.J. Simpson, Marcus Allen and Reggie Bush on the gridiron. They learned lessons.
“We had too many guys trying to be heroes, taking the ball, not passing the ball,” Murphy said. “I think this year, our focus is that all 15 players on the field are going to be a huge part of us winning.”
Alleger, a Deadbird original, isn’t surprised by UNF’s rise to the national stage. Even in 2003, he recalled, “we always knew we could do it.” Now, it’s really happening.
“It’s exciting, it’s fun to watch, it’s a contact sport,” he said. “It’s great to have that kind of school pride with a team that’s battling big schools and winning.”
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Meet the Deadbirds: UNF rugby club chases college championship
Reporting by Clayton Freeman, Jacksonville Florida Times-Union / Florida Times-Union
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
