Congratulations to our March Alumnus of the Month, Ted Pixley!
When did you play?
2002-2003 in high school. 2003-2007 for the UMRFC. 2009-2016 Men’s club
What positions did you play?
I played #2 for the first half of my career and throughout all of college. Once my lower back problems got more chronic, I transitioned quite seamlessly to #6/7 on the Men’s Club where I played for the rest of my career.
What got you started?
I played soccer my whole life growing up. The summer between my junior and senior year in high school a bunch of us were playing pickup soccer at the school fields, and we saw a couple of seniors/recently graduated guys throwing a rugby ball around on the next field over playing touch. Once we wrapped up our soccer run around, a couple of us wandered over to see what that oddly shaped ball was all about and was hooked about 2 minutes later.
Flash forward a year to the summer before my freshman year. Our high school team was traveling to Toronto for a 7s tournament. In between games, I saw a bunch of dudes from the UofM team standing around on the sidelines re-hydrating and timidly went up to introduce myself and let them know I was going to come try out for the team this fall. I wanna say it was Craig Williams who shook my hand, pulled me in close, and told me “You’re already on the team. Welcome to the best club in the world” and handed me a cold soda.
What are your favorite memories/teammates?
Oh man… where do I start? The first time I met Karl, he jumped out of a second story window – little did I know that crazy weirdo with a foot high green mohawk would go on to officiate my wedding 8 years later…
That first road trip up to Marquette my freshman year, what little I remember of it…
Being the club’s second ever freshman social chair (a distinction held previously solely by Kevin Barlow) with Scrumpy Jack teaching me everything I know about how to have a good time…
I subleased Sam Weiman’s room at 928 Church street my freshman summer (‘04). I was privileged to call Kurt Klein, Steve Smolinski and Steve Selinsky my roommates. Adam Kelsey and I would go to work every day digging holes for Doug Fraleigh Landscaping, surviving all summer on PBR and dollar slices from Jimmy Sargent Pepper’s. Dave Perpich supplemented our incomes with Saturday morning union wage construction gigs. My girlfriend (now wife) Alissa was into sports and the Detroit Pistons were starting round one of the NBA playoffs. We tried watching the games inside but the living conditions on the 2nd story of that house were insufferably nauseating and Alissa refused to spend any time inside that house due to the stench, so Kelsey and I went out and got a 100’ aux cable and ran it out the living room window to watch the Piston’s playoff games on the front porch. As the Pistons went deeper into the playoffs, more and more people would start to congregate on our porch to watch the games every night. Everyone was in town that summer – Kyle Geralds, Mike Livanos, Wes Farrow, Nick Warack, Sultan Sharrief, Jeremy Borsos, Kevin Barlow, Matt Rosales, Craig Williams, Matt Kuriluk, Bob Dindoffer… the list of incredible humans goes on and on – and we ended up having pretty wild Pistons parties 2-3 nights a week all summer long. The night they won the championship was so insane that the fire department had to intervene. I vaguely recall there being some Molotov cocktails burning in the intersection of Church/Oakland… must’ve been the frat guys across the street…
The day before fall break my sophomore year, Kelsey, Karl and I were heading to the IM building to lift and there saw a huge pallet of perfectly good sod that was being thrown away on Hoover street. We borrowed Dan Cronin’s pickup truck later that evening and loaded it all up. Once everyone at the rugby house on 707 S. Division was asleep, we sprung into action taking all the furniture out of the living room and putting it out onto the front yard. We sodded the entire living room, laying down touch lines and goal posts and everything – it was a dream come true. If only someone could dig up the pictures lurking on an old hard drive somewhere…
The first year the college boys went to the CRC (2014) was probably my favorite Michigan Rugby weekend of all time. Traveling with over 100 alumni to cheer the boys on to a Cinderella upset performance weekend – playing in the alumni match versus Dartmouth and receiving a pass from a USA Eagle – the win over Ohio State – being the loudest most raucous fans ever – bumping into billionaire and IU alumnus Mark Cuban – the cheese steak hoagie competition…
What have you done since Michigan Rugby?
After graduating I joined the New York City Teaching Fellows and taught 2/3/4th grade special ed for a year. As it turns out, I was a pretty terrible classroom teacher but had a knack for working with cognitively impaired populations. After coming back to Michigan, I went back and got my masters in Occupational Therapy. I had a string of pretty crappy dead end jobs for the first 5 or 6 years of my career before branching out and doing my own thing. Nowadays, I’m gainfully self-employed and operating my own private practice with patients who have been injured in motor vehicle accidents. I work exclusively with patients that have traumatic brain injuries in their homes, working with them to regain their independence with everyday life. I credit working for Jeff Hagan and Tom Stuleberg for all those summers as the inspiration for being my own boss and blazing my own path in my career.
I stopped playing rugby competitively in 2016. I was 31 years old and playing the best rugby of my life on the Men’s club. I had the honor of starting the Olde Boys game in 2016, playing 6/7/8 alongside Cole Van Harn and Sequoyah Burke-Combs. I played the first half with two 22-year-old professional rugby players – probably the best and most intense 40 minutes of my life – and then promptly got knocked out cold with my 3rd major concussion of my life the next weekend in a men’s club match. I most definitely had post concussive syndrome, and my neurologist told me I should probably stop before I turn my brains into mashed potatoes… it’s funny how I work with clients with traumatic brain injuries for a living now. It took me a few seasons of soft retiring before I finally hung up my boots for good. I helped Tex with some assistant coaching of the high school boys for a couple seasons before COVID hit. Nowadays I’m down to once a year OBW friendly matches.
My wife and I have two beautiful daughters, Emilia (7yo) and Lenora (10months). It’s been incredible raising our daughters alongside all of our best friends and their growing families – Tex, Karl, Nate Schafrick, Nic Bishar, Rich Dama, Davey Hamilton, Tom Serbowicz, Matt Trenary, Max Mikulic, Kyle Geralds, Ray Govus – everyone has kids and we’re (mostly) all on the Northside of town.
How has Michigan Rugby affected your life beyond rugby?
Michigan Rugby has permeated every facet of my adult life. I’m still hanging out with the same group of guys that were my teammates 20 years ago – I just recently celebrated my 40th birthday and there were 3 generations of UMRFC alumni there! Growing up in this amazing community has been paramount to who I am as a human being. I would not be the man I am today – married to my beautiful wife Alissa… being my own boss and running my own private practice… the father that I am to my children – if it weren’t for each and every one of you and the time spent with Michigan Rugby.
Thank you to the best club on earth.
Congrats again to Ted Pixley on Alumnus of the month.
