History
Providence RFC was founded in the fall of 1969 by several local athletes with rugby experience and players from the Brown University rugby team.
The club got its start in 1969 thanks, in part, to the efforts of Dave "Ace" Zucconi, a Brown Alumnus who learned the game while serving in the U.S. Air Force overseas. Zucconi drafted several Brown Alumni to play on Sundays and in the first year (’69–’70) the team won all of the thirteen matches they played.
P.R.F.C.’s first official season was the spring of 1971. The club was recognized by the New England R.F.U. after an organizational meeting by five of P.R.F.C.'s founders - Mike Diffley, Jay Fluck, Bob Hoder, Bill Mullin and Hal Wilder. In its first season P.R.F.C. posted an 11-4 record, including a second Guinness Championship. Since then, the club has won the annual N.E.R.F.U. championship twice, 1975 and 1990, two championships at Saranac Lake, 1976 and 1977, plus several successful tours to England and Scotland in 1976, Ireland in 1979, and to England, Scotland and Ireland in 1987.
In more recent history, the Providence Rugby Club has continued to build upon the ways of the club’s founders.
The 2005 season saw the club make the National Sweet 16's for the second time in club history, doing so by virtue of hard fought wins in the North East Regional Playoffs against Union, NJ and a highly regarded Hartford team. Unfortunately the successful campaign of 2005 led to a number of retirements, which, when combined with injuries to key players, left Providence with a disappointing 4-4 2006 season.
After finishing just out of playoff competition due to tiebreaker criteria in the fall of 2004 Providence placed second in the Spring NERFU. In 2002, PRFC captured the regular season New England Division II championship by virtue of a 7-1 record.
Following a trip to the National Round of 16 in 2009, Providence underwent a brief rebuilding process that seems to be coming to fruition. With a mix of local and international talent, PRFC has shown to be advancing back to the top of New England Rugby once again.
This past season saw the club achieve a 6-3 record while playing some of the areas toughest competition. The collective club efforts culminated in a 50-0 victory over rival Newport to retain the Rhode Island Cup; which had been housed in Newport for the past two years.
Providence continues to field highly competitive and successful summer 7’s teams. The team has used the summer to foster strong relationships with returning local college players and as a stepping stone to successful conference play in the fall season.
In addition to the product on the field, PRFC members have developed and facilitated a youth program this past spring with YMCAs in south west MA., a goal the club hopes to further advance to the Providence area in the near future.
Read more about this topic: Providence Rugby
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—Derek Wall (b. 1965)
“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)