Wheeling, W. Va. - The Wheeling University Rugby program would begin at Wheeling College in 1966 as a club sport, formed by the students at the university. Over the first 30+ years of its existence, the program would remain a club sport until 2012, when it became a varsity sport competing in the Allegheny Rugby Conference. Among the members of that first varsity team was Class of '17 alumni Pete Malcolm, who went from helping to build the foundation of the Cardinal's varsity program to where he is now as a member of Major League Rugby's (MLR) Seattle Seawolves.
"I got to Wheeling in 2012 and was part of starting the varsity Rugby team that is there currently," said Malcolm. "I was one of the first recruits that committed to the team, and we had about 25 of us there the first year. While I was there, I was part of some really good teams that got up to 10th in the nation and I finished as a collegiate All-American three times while I was there."
Malcolm was born in Frederick, Maryland and before he was even born, he had Rugby in his blood. His parent were lifelong Rugby fans that met over the sport, and Malcolm showed that same love from a very young age. He was a fan inside Rugby stadiums a couple of months after he was born, and all his family members taught him to love the game. He finally got the opportunity to play the sport for the first time at the age of 14 and was able to quickly pick up the game and carry on the family's love for the sport.
"My parents met at a Towson verse the University of Maryland Rugby party in the 80's so it's kind of in my blood," said Malcolm. "I went to my first Rugby game when I was probably two months old or three months old. All my uncles and my dad's buddies played, and my godfather is someone my dad played Rugby with. I have been around it my whole life, didn't get a chance to play because of where I lived until I was around 14, but it's been in my blood since I was born."
Malcolm's first experience playing the sport came after their move to Florida when he wrapped up his fall football season. His parents were on him to play another sport, which where he grew up was traditionally basketball. However, there was a Rugby club nearby called Trojan Rugby Club and Malcolm decided to follow in the family's footsteps. It didn't take long for him to fall in love with the sport and he took his chance and ran with it.
"When we moved to Florida there was a Rugby club 20 minutes away and I always wanted to play," said Malcolm. "My dad took me out there with his old set of boots from the 1990's and I went and had a crack at it and loved it from the beginning. I really took to it like a fish to water and at that time it was the off-season so we were only training on Sundays and that was what I would look forward to every week."
Malcolm played with the Trojan Rugby Club throughout his four years of High School while he attended nearby Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. When it came time to look for colleges, it was a connection between the Head Coach of the Trojan Rugby club and the first varsity Rugby coach in Wheeling University history, Eric Jerpe, that made Malcolm take the nearly 1,200-mile journey from Parkland, Florida to Wheeling, West Virginia.
Malcolm and Jerpe first met at Ruggerfest in Florida, a high school showcase game for local Rugby players, and the two made the connection that sealed the deal between Malcolm and Wheeling.
"(My high school coach and Wheeling Coach Eric Jerpe) had played together back in the day, they were both Pennsylvania boys," said Malcolm. "So Jerpe came down and recruited a couple of us from our Florida team when he came down for RuggerFest in Fort Lauderdale. I originally came to Wheeling for a high school all-star tournament and trained on the field. The first impression I had of Wheeling University was just how beautiful the campus is. You show up in the summer or fall and the valley is either green or gold and it's just a really hard place to beat visually."
When he began his Wheeling University career, it was he and 29 other players who stepped onto the field to embark on the first varsity season in Rugby history. During that 2012-13 season, the Cardinals had their share of ups and downs, but put together a solid 10-4-1 record. The first win in the program's varsity history came against the University of Miami, but the team composed entirely of freshmen would take their share of lumps. They went 4-9 during Malcolm's sophomore season before rattling off three straight seasons of 10+ wins.
During those early years, Malcolm confesses there were some trying times both on the field and among teammates. However, they eventually meshed together towards one common goal on their way to being one of the top teams in the country.
"You don't really understand how difficult it's going to be until you put 22 18-year-olds together with very little experience," said Malcolm. "That's difficult because every 18-year-old on a rugby team wants to be the top dog. So, there was a lot of infighting between us when we were young and there was a lot of growing, we had to do as men together to get to a point where we could be a really effective team. It took three years, until we were juniors, that we were really an effective rugby team."
"What was impressive to me was the way that Eric Jerpe really facilitated that growth," added Malcolm. "He put us in difficult situations and played us against some of the best teams in the country when we weren't ready. So, one we would lose and get some humility about us and realize that we had to get better, and that showed out. By our junior year we were up to 10th in the nation, we beat Navy, and it was really that development that we went through those three years that was important."
With the program rising, Malcolm and his teammates were starting to get more recognition in Wheeling and across the Rugby world. Malcolm had one Collegiate All-American honors in back-to-back seasons and during the second semester of his junior year, pro scouts came calling. Malcolm and his teammate Allan Hanson got an opportunity to play for the USA Under 20's in Hong Kong, China. Being there would open the door for the two Cardinals for the first professional rugby league, Pro Rugby. The two would end up signing with the Ohio Aviators and got a jump start on professional Rugby.
"Being in that environment really puts you on that short list of players to get you signed up when the pro league started," said Malcolm. "I got an entry level offer when the first pro league started, pro rugby, and that was my dream. I knew I could take a semester off and be fine academically and there was no way that I was going to miss out on that opportunity. And one of those guys that I mentioned, Allan Hanson, got to take that opportunity with me. Allan was my best man at my wedding, so we got to go and do that together and it made me so much better."
When Malcolm and Hanson came back to Wheeling Rugby, the program had gone through some changes in leadership that had the team spiraling. Using their professional experience, the two players stepped in and served as coaches for the program to keep things going in the right direction. The two worked together to help the team grow and under their leadership, the Cardinals maintained a solid 8-3 record for the 2016-17 season. Malcolm says without his pro experience, there was a chance that the program could have been lost forever.
"When we came back Allan and I were basically coaching the team," said Malcolm. "The team itself had gone through a bit of a transition with some struggles with the second and third coaches. And for a while it was Allan and I running the team. Without the experience we gained working with professionals that I have looked up to for a long time in Ohio, maybe the team itself dies because we weren't able to do what we need to do and run the club while they were getting back to a good place."
Malcolm would graduate from Wheeling in the spring of 2017, with a degree in Business Marketing, and jumped right into his professional rugby career. He had an agreement to play with the MLR's new start-up team the Austin Gilgronis and was paid to play college Rugby for six months while also playing three tours for the United States Eagles Rugby team. Along the way he has had stops in San Diego and his current home Seattle living out his Rugby dream.
When he looks back at his professional career to this point, it is the teachings of his first collegiate Head Coach Eric Jerpe that have gotten him to where he is today. He praises his leadership style and his ability to lead a team for helping him get to that next level.
"The thing I can say the most about Jerpe is he always had your back," said Malcolm. "From the time I got there he really supported us but supported us in a way that held us accountable. When you're 18 and 19 you need someone to put the foot down and we were an unruly group at times. The way that he managed us helps to create good men and good rugby players. I'll be one eternally impressed, but more importantly eternally grateful for what he did there. I don't get where I am now without the coaching of Eric Jerpe and the support of Eric Jerpe."
This past season, Malcolm reached the pinnacle of his Rugby career when he helped lead the Seattle Seawolves to the MLR semifinal game. It was the first playoff run of his rugby career at any level and represented a battle back for Malcolm. He had been dealing with various injuries over the last couple of years and he was able to once again fall in love with the sport he grew up with.
"It's difficult to explain how happy I was when we came off the field when we played the first playoff game," said Malcolm. "I had never won a playoff game in my whole career, not at Wheeling, not at high school, I had never won a game of playoff rugby. So, getting that win with Seattle against Houston, I came off the field and I was shaking. It was such a relief, such a monkey off my back and that first drink in the locker room and just sitting there with a group of men that you put six or seven months of work with and finally feeling like you accomplished something in this league. It's not a title or anything like that, but the point is to get to knockout rugby and when you finally go and win an important game was really validating."
Even throughout his pro career, Malcolm, and several of the other men he played with on those first varsity teams keep a keen eye on the Wheeling University Rugby program. They saw where the program started back during the 2012-13 season and to see it grow to where it is today gives Malcolm and his teammates a great sense of pride. They still come to several games throughout the year and are looking forward to the future of the program.
"I'm incredibly proud of the current team that we have," said Malcolm. "I came out last year and did a little bit of coaching with the guys and I'm really impressed with the quality of athlete overall. A lot of the guys that we brought in from overseas and a lot of the local Ohio and Pennsylvania kids have come in and drove the standard of getting back to where we were, and it seems like they are going to go above where we were. I have gone to see them play as well and it makes me incredibly proud. For a while there a lot of us alumni were afraid that the program was going to die and seeing the work that (Mike) Geibel has been doing with the boys and the organization that they have now is great."
Malcolm's message to future Cardinals involves getting to know where you are going and the aspects of the school. He loved the liberal arts aspect of the university and the work he put in on the field and in the classroom and it opened his eyes to the world and helped shape him into who he is today.
"What I really loved about Wheeling University was the liberal arts aspect," said Malcolm. "I really enjoyed almost being forced to learn more outside of what I was expected to learn. Because I got a liberal arts education, I was able to learn more about things I wanted to learn about. I had some history and world religion classes that really opened my eyes to my world view. I think that is something that is overlooked a lot in education, giving people a wider vision of the world because you force them to do more than just their majors. I think that is an important part of education and one of the things I really loved about Wheeling."
