Rapid Deployment

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The Brotherhood of Rugby

The Quantico Hooligans, an amateur rugby team made up of mostly Marines and other military personnel around the Washington, D.C. area, create and maintain close bonds despite the constant loss of players due to military commitments.

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The Hooligans need a minimum of 15 players for each game, but because every person can't show up every time, nearly twice that number must commit to playing at some point in the season.

Considering how many Marines work long hours and have families to spend time with on the weekends, finding enough able bodies is no easy task, even before midseason deployments. That weighs on Jacobs's mind, so he's always searching for more players -- no matter their experience -- and he encourages his current players to recruit.

"Everyone knows somebody who's played before," he told the team at the Spring Thaw. "And everyone knows somebody who you look at and say, 'This guy could play rugby.' Help me. Help the team build some depth. Anybody can come out here and play. Anybody."

'Shared Pain'

At the beginning of each season, when newcomers to the game don't know what they're doing in practice, when passes are missed and there's no fluidity to the attack, Jacobs's affinity for the Hooligans keeps him going.

He loves the camaraderie of socials after every Thursday practice, when the team heads to Sam's, a bar in the town of Quantico.

He loves the "shared pain," of moments like the Hooligans' first night together this season, when they sprinted the length of an unlit field 12 times after what was listed as an "organizational meeting."

Most of all, he loves fostering an atmosphere that leads to stories like the one of Capt. Rob Dolan, who a few years ago, after a traumatic childhood, found a father figure in one of Jacobs's predecessors, former coach Lt. Col. Bob McCarthy.

Even now, with Dolan on a base in Yuma, Ariz., and McCarthy stationed in Iraq, their days as Hooligans tie them together. "I'll drive three hours to [San Diego], California, to see his wife while he's deployed and to see his dogs and children, to see how they're doing," Dolan said.

To Jacobs, that's the meaning of this team, and it's the kind of thing he wants advertised, especially to his superiors at Quantico.

He said the Hooligans don't have the best reputation on base -- "They think of [us as] beer-swilling maniacs," he said -- and he wants that perception to change.

Jacobs is putting together a binder chronicling the Hooligans' history, the way they organize and the myriad administrative details he takes care of. He wants to make sure it's all written down for whoever succeeds him.

After 19 years in the Marines, he has 18 months left. When it's over, he doesn't know exactly what he'll do or where he'll go. But he's sure this binder needs to be in someone's hands.