Gathering Old Boys on the Pitch

It's the Old Birds Rugby Club!

Armed with a Philosophy degree and Masters’ work at the U. of St. Thomas, Mr. David Heffernan (’13, Green) is Athletic Director at Cathedral High School. You can feel David’s philosophical bent when he speaks about his mission, seeking “to show the profound bridging of the spiritual, intellectual, and physical attributes of the human person and their importance to flourishing into the image of God we were created to be.”

David with his initial design for the Old Birds logo

David graduated in Western’s historic second class, in 2013. At Western, he was introduced to rugby, the sport eventually became his passion. Says David, “Our very first rugby coach was Mr. Thomas Yager. He came to us one day in class and asked who wanted to play rugby, and we all raised our hands! Though rugby didn't take full root at Western until some years later, now you have a massive squad of Varsity and JV, and you guys sweep the floor with other teams that used to beat us!”

On the right, back in 2012, we have Mr. Thomas Yager, Western's founding rugby coach, along with Josh Power ('13) and Nick O'Bar ('12)

“We’ve been talking about our Western alumni organization and getting together to see what it would look like, we thought about a rugby club, and coined it the Old Birds RFC.” It would be summer rugby. In the USA, summer is ‘rugby-sevens,’ that's 7-on-7. It's the rugby they do in the Olympics. And that's the season we can form our team to get into various levels leagues, from the really competitive or really social. We’re looking for sponsors now, at the $500 to $2000 level, for our jerseys and equipment, we need $4,500 in all, for the year.