July Alumnus of the Month: Carl Wahl

Carl, pictured front and center in the white socks and mustache, among his teammates.

Our alumnus of the month for the month of July is a forward hailing from the U.P. who played his rugby in the late 90’s and early 2000’s. Carl Wahl came to the University of Michigan with no rugby experience, and left a true Michigan Rugby man. Former teammates will tell you he is an embodiment of everything that is great about the club, and has taken those traits with him to make a difference on the other side of the globe. Read about Carl below, including some of his fondest memories of his time with the club, and what it meant to him to be a part of Michigan Rugby.

On why and how he joined the club:

I joined UMRFC on the 2nd day of class my freshman year (1994). I’ve forgotten most of my college

years, but I do distinctly remember feeling leaving Calculus 115 feeling like a poor dumb kid from Upper

Michigan who was way out of his league. As I intently studied the grass slinking across Palmer Field, this

big dude grabbed me and said something to the effect that I either needed to, or was going to play rugby,

and that I should come to practice on Thursday. At the time, there didn’t seem to be an element of choice,

so I came by with gym shorts and a jersey that Thursday, where the same guy, one David Perpich, talked

me through the rudiments of the game and got me started. My first game we played a U-Windsor team

that looked and acted like the ’76 Philadelphia Flyers; despite taking a number of boots to the forehead

and forearms, we had a great time and I was hooked.

On what position he played:

I was mostly a tighthead prop, though I moved around in the tight five depending on when need arose. I

loved playing hooker, but the dang ball always went in funny directions when I threw in on line-outs. I

never made it past the 5, though I was fast in an ursine way. Consequently, I was never quite sure what

the back line was up to, or what I should do in the open field, other to get up and get to the ball. It was

around my fourth year I first passed the ball. One last thing I want to add, I am somewhat near-sighted,

and I couldn’t wear glasses or contacts on the field. Somehow the other team managed to kickoff the ball

to me often, but I’d usually field it okay. That first kickoff and hit was always scary, but then the games

was much easier.

On his individual honors:

I really didn’t receive any, the biggest honor for me was in knowing that despite our various economic

backgrounds and questionable athletic skills, there were guys I could and still can count on and who didn’t

care about my clothes, car, money, or who my family was. Looking back though, I might have gotten stick

of the week a few times, notably when in some mistaken fury I put the tackle of my life on Tom Raboine in

the Olde Boys game even though he didn’t have the ball and knocked him out (sorry Tom).

On his favorite memories and teammates:

Oh Lord, all of them. As far as teammates go, on the senior side, some of the most important to me were

Perps (always had your back), Warpig (hardest shoulders), Sam Al-Ebrashi (who drove you hard but

drove himself harder), John Wooley (who cracked my ribs then drove me back from Ferris State), Ed

Spybrook (great teacher of props), Dan Masso (director social mores and morale officer), Coach JR

Hagerman who bore the team through some long low-victory years, Tom Stuhlberg, Rick Fish, Hacksaw,

Dale Tuttle, Elmo Pratt, Jeff Hagen, Dave Webber, and Tony Menyhart (undoubtedly the toughest and at

same time most positive man I have ever met). On the college side, there were many as well, my best

friend/roommate/fellow prop for the whole time Randall “Waddie” Walker, Mike Springs, Lee Gray, Brett

Peck, Nick Kugler, AC “Punisher” Bennet, Scott Salamango, Nick Flagerty, Ryan Gaylor, Mike McCarron,

Rico Harley, Jason Wolff, Kevin Snowden, Mike Livanos, Ryan Lafevre, Crazy-legs Chris Marineau. Brian

Francisco, and on and on, good men to the last.

As for memories, we weren’t a great team and cycled through a lot of guys for much of my UMRFC

career, having a tough time stringing together a club due to the losses. One Michigan league

championship series sticks out, though. Up in Bay City in the Spring of 1998, we went in with a patched-

together unheralded college side on one of the muddiest pitches I’ve ever seen and proceeded to play the

toughest rugby against teams that were likely more talented than we were, but it’s about the size of the

fight in the dog, right? Anyways, we didn’t allow a single try in five games, and lost on a penalty kick to a

CMU team that was on its third game of the series. Despite the loss, I remember feeling like we had

turned a corner with the team. I also remember that playing lock in that mud meant most of my face got

scraped away by the props shorts. That next Monday, fellow Yooper Corey Mather and I went to history

class with faces resembling a Canadian Sunrise and an overcooked pepperoni pizza, sitting down, and

having our fellow classmates leave the aisle. We thought it was an improvement in our looks.

Additionally, there were spring breaks to New Orleans, Daytona, all-over-Florida, etc. and trips around our

great state of Michigan; I went through the Milwaukee interregnum in 1997 where I co-captained

Marquette’s B-side and toured the great state of Wisconsin. It went on more or less like that until I graduated in 1999.

One other weird and pointless anecdote… we took a road trip to play NMU in ’96, and had a bit of fun

along the way because it was an eight or nine hour drive. Since I knew the U.P. best in those pre-cell

phone/email days, I booked us a place in the Christmas Motel in Christmas, Michigan. We were

appropriately merry when we arrived, sang a few songs, etc. The next morning, I think it was John Dine or

some other guy who could draw really well made a Michigan Rugby t-shirt out of a white t-shirt for the

owner’s kid that we all signed and gave to him before heading off to Marquette the next morning. I don’t

know why I remember that other than the kid thought we were about the coolest thing ever in our jerseys

and U-M van.

On his life since Michigan Rugby:

Rugbywise, I joined the Chicago West Side Condors on the advice of Ryan Gaylor and played for another

year up to 2003. After that, except for one OBW in 2009, I’ve played a bit of pick-up here and there, but

nothing serious, which is mostly due to location…

Since a stint in the Peace Corps in 2004, I’ve been living and working in and around Zambia, a Texas-

sized country in southern African that few have heard about as it is one of the friendliest places in

creation. Nowadays I advise and run agricultural projects oriented towards subsistence farmers in

Western Zambia for a non-governmental organization called Concern Worldwide. For anyone who ever

find themselves in Lusaka, Mongu, or Senanga along the beautiful Barotse floodplains, enjoy the kozo ya

luna a buLozi (the peace of the plains) and ask for Kelvin Limota, we’ll go after a few tiger fish, and but

likely catch us some Mosi (the drink-that-thunders).

Some additional stories and memories:

I remember much of the old rugby house at 808 Dewey St., named of course for the venerable admiral

Robert Dewey of Spanish War fame and useful, unintelligible code for telling people where our parties

were going to be at. Like all old Ann Arbor houses, it had a giant vent for the furnace in the middle of the

floor that during parties was the inevitable receptacle of potato chips, Bugles, Ding-dongs, brats, hot dog

buns, etc. The squirrels eventually invaded the place and raised an unholy racket, so someone made the

decision to dump poison in the same vent. The squirrels all perished in every inaccessible nook-and-

cranny, so whenever the heat came on it smelled like slightly decomposing and surely mummified

squirrels. Needless to say, we wore warm coats and doubled up on blankets that fall/winter.

Like most of players from the 80s, 90s, 00s, and 10s, I am indebted to Dave Perpich as he always looked

out for me when I needed work, money, etc. One job we did was tearing down the old DTW in the late

90s for a couple of weeks between 9pm and 4am. One night we ate a 1 a.m. “lunch” at a place near the

airport that I think was called the Rock ‘n Rye; the kind of all-night bar / diner that you could only imagine

being next to DTW. Anyway, Perps bet me that I couldn’t eat their ham and cheese sandwich, which I

took as an affront to my pride and my voracious Yooper appetite. Turned out the sandwich weighed about

5 lbs. or something ridiculous, but my belly matched my eyes and I took it down. The rest of the night was

horrible on the job, but I remember that night in particular as it was the only time I saw Perps momentarily,

but genuinely, poleaxed.

If there’s one thing I could say about the club, it would be the same thing I told Mike Livanos

when he was a freshman or sophomore… the guys I knew from Michigan rugby are some of the

select few that if it ever came down to it, I would want beside me in the foxhole.