In the world of gay sports a spotlight was put on Rugby in the days following the 9-11 attack when Mark Bingham, a gay rugby player, became a national hero when he and other members of Flight 93 rushed the cockpit of the plane to stop terrorists from flying it into the nation’s capital. Since then, gay rugby has been gaining in popularity, and the annual championship has been renamed the Bingham Cup in his honor.

Now San Diego is poised to join the growing list of cities with a gay rugby team. On Saturday, Jan. 10, the team held their first informal meeting for new and prospective members, with 21 people attending. The meeting was followed by a bar run that included stops at Hamburger Mary’s and Bourbon Street, where they distributed informational postcards about the team and rugby in general.

“The first thing that got me involved was Mark Bingham and reading how he led his life and how rugby affected him,” said Vince Travaglione, one of the new team’s founders. “So many of his words rang true to me, things that I was looking for in my own life and what a lot of my friends here in San Diego expressed that they were looking for as well, and so I figured it would be a great thing to bring to San Diego.”

Prior to his death in 2001, Bingham sent a letter to his teammates on the San Francisco Fog rugby team upon their acceptance into the California Rugby League, in which he said, “When I started playing rugby at the age of 16, I always thought that my interest in other guys would be an anathema — completely repulsive to the guys on my team — and to the people I was knocking the shit out of on the other team. I loved the game, but knew I would need to keep my sexuality a secret forever. I feared total rejection. As we worked and sweated and ran and talked together this year, I finally felt accepted as a gay man and a rugby player. My two irreconcilable worlds came together.… This is a great opportunity to change a lot of people’s minds, and to reach a group that might never have had to know or hear about gay people.”

In America, Rugby is not as well known as it is in Europe, and while many have heard of it, the actual play is a foreign concept. The true origin of the game is up for debate; some say it started when William Webb Ellis decided to pick up the ball and run with it during a soccer match at Rugby School in England, while historians will argue that back in the day it was considered amusement for one town to try to carry a somewhat startled young pig to another town’s village square. They would employ various methods of dodging, dashing, passing, or just plowing through en masse to achieve this. Either way, rugby is best described as a cross between soccer and football, and is considered to be the father of American football, as the object is to score more points than the other team by carrying, passing, and kicking the ball.

“I have not played a minute in my life,” Travaglione told the Gay and Lesbian Times, noting that rugby is considered by many to be a rough sport. “It’s a game. I think the quote that I heard is… it’s a physical game played by gentleman. There are a lot of unwritten rules that ruggers kind of follow, and because of that it’s not as violent as I think it’s reported to be. It’s a stereotype that I think would be dispelled if somebody went to watch a real rugby match.”

San Diego is already planning to join the International Gay Rugby Association Board (IGRAB) and has received a warm welcome from other member cities. A member of the New York Gotham Nights’ rugby team was in town this past weekend to participate in the informational meeting, and organizers have already begun developing a relationship with the San Diego Surfers women’s rugby team.

“We’re hoping to have a real great partnership with the women’s team here in town,” Travaglione said. “The head coach for the Surfers… she is known as Hoova (Carla Smith).… Her hope is to build a permanent pitch here in San Diego for the three teams that are here in San Diego. I verbalized to her that we would love to be a big part of making that pitch a reality because I think that is a great way for our team to be welcomed by the local teams. If there is any trepidation about a predominately gay team coming to town, that would be one way to dispel that sense of anxiety.”

According to Travaglione, the team is hoping to organize so that they can compete in the Bingham Cup that is being hosted by the Kings Cross Steelers Rugby Union Football Club from London this May. In the meantime, anyone interested in learning more about rugby is invited to take a ride up to Oceanside this weekend where the Los Angeles Rebellion gay rugby team will be in town to take on none other than the Camp Pendleton Marine rugby team.

For information on game time and location, to learn more about San Diego’s new gay rugby team or to sign up to be on their mailing list, visit www.gaylesbiantimes.com for a link to the team’s website.