Rapid Deployment

As Players Come and Go, the Passion Remains for the Quantico Hooligans

As the Quantico Hooligans walk off the field, the first 30 minutes of their first spring game complete, they appear no different than any other rugby team. Maj. John Kelley is still bleeding from a gash above his eye. Capt. Todd Jacobs is sporting a makeshift eye patch after his contact lens was knocked out. Something isn't quite right in 1st Lt. Barrett Dupuy's knee, and there are two parallel streaks of blood down his shin, souvenirs from an opponent's cleats.

Even those who don't have a specific injury acknowledge the razors in their lungs from inhaling 25 mph winds on a chilly morning.

To an outside observer, the idea of the Hooligans playing another 30 minutes in this game, let alone two more in the same day, seems absurd. But any such suggestion is treated as an affront to their manliness, a foolish remark dismissed with a shake of the head.

In part, this attitude can be attributed to their sport. But even more so, it's because almost all of them are active or former Marines. They know pain, and they know not to display weakness among their teammates, especially as nearly all of them continue to get to know each other.

This unfamiliarity, at least initially, is what makes the Hooligans unique. Although club teams from every sport in the transient Washington area experience turnover to some degree, the Hooligans lose roughly 60 to 70 percent of their roster from fall to spring, spring to fall, season after season.

Because of who they are and what they do, they are stuck in a cycle that forever puts them at a disadvantage, forcing them to start from scratch twice a year. And yet, because of who they are and what they do, they are uniquely equipped to overcome such a disadvantage -- and on some days, even flourish.

This does not appear to be one of those days. The wind is picking up at the hilltop field, located deep in Prince George's County's Colmar Manor Park, just across the D.C. border. And as the Hooligans try to stay warm and tend to their wounds, it is halftime in the first game of the Spring Thaw Tournament and they are losing, 12-7.

The Quantico rugby club has been around for 35 years, and even at its best, it is not among the region's elite. The Hooligans play in Division III, the lowest in the Potomac Rugby Union, and their 40-year-old coach, Lt. Col. Jon Jacobs, said they will not move up in the foreseeable future. Division II clubs need to have an A and B team, which requires more depth than the Hooligans can hope to attain.

During one stretch in the middle of the decade, when Jacobs said "the planets aligned" and a handful of good players were able to stay on the base for multiple seasons, the Hooligans were at the top of their division. But at Quantico Marine Base, known as the "Crossroads of the Marine Corps," such things are not meant to last.

Some members finish school or training and head to another base in the United States. Some are sent on tours of duty to England or Egypt or Okinawa. Others head to Iraq or Afghanistan. Last fall, the team lost five players in midseason because of deployments to Iraq. "And four of them were key guys," said Jacobs, who also plays.

As a result, the Hooligans play a constant numbers game, which eventually leads to one of two results each Saturday: They get enough guys to play, or they don't get enough and forfeit.

To stay ahead in that game, Jacobs said he "spams" members of an e-mail list containing more than 100 names. Most are Marines, some are members of other military branches who are stationed at Quantico, and a few are civilians from the area.