JEFF HUNTER

After playing rugby in high school for three years for the Omaha United Club, rugby was the first thing that Jeff “Baby-faced Assassin” Hunter sought out at UNL. He recalls, “The guys like Smid, Brady, Chicken, Kaleb, Dustin, Irish, Christian, Zac, DC, Trevor and many more were very welcoming and immediately made you feel like part of the team, and I have some very fond memories of that rugby house my first semester.”

Unfortunately, that also meant he had a rough semester academically transitioning from high school to college so he had to take a break from rugby in the spring to get his grades in order, but came back the following summer and played the rest of his time at UNL between 2006-’11.

Jeff said, that he can’t overstate how much he appreciated Coach Russo, JP, Tommy, and Woody as they helped him grow as a person and into a formidable front row rugby player in the limited time he was able to call them his coaches. He reminisced “So many teammates over those 5 years had a major impact in my life but there are too many men to name off here, many of which are still some of my closest friends no matter the distance between us”

He would also earn several monikers throughout his playing days such as “Bud White” or simply “Bud.” Bud became the name for the alter ego that came along with “Evan Williams” as he liked to wander off at the worst times, rough house with his buddies, and often got himself into trouble. Lee “The Opossum” Schneider had his own special nickname for Jeff that apparently earned during a trip to San Diego.  Jeff did not elaborate…we can only all imagine.

After graduating, he decided to move to NYC on a whim and while there joined Old Blue Rugby. After couch surfing for a month he was very lucky that a room opened up in the apartment of a few of the team captains (Murphy, Murray, and Luke Hume) and he was able to move in with them.

He earned “Man of the Match” after his first game on their D2 side which got him bumped up to their D1 ARP side for the remainder of that fall season and even had a few starts as Prop.  He left NYC after only four short months and had to say goodbye to Old Blue, but the club, “holds a special place in my heart for how welcoming they were and how professional the program was run” said Jeff.  He continued, “I was definitely in the best shape of my life out there and probably at my peak as a rugby player.”

Upon returning to Nebraska, he took a year working toward his teaching certification and helped out coaching the UNL club for a semester or two in 2013/2014. He then played with the Omaha Goats for a few years until a knee dislocation put the kibosh on his playing career in 2016.

Some of Jeff’s favorite memories include:

The squad took a “spring break” tour in 2010 where they drove to Texas and had a week filled with matches against University of Dallas, TCU, Rice and a few others. Here the “Texas Two-Step” was born and according to Jeff, “lots of memories from that trip were had – A run in with a Jaguar, meeting Shooter Mcgavin, and the fabulous beaches in Galveston.” Of course the Jackalope Tournament each year. Then VEISHIA: “I don’t need to say much more than that.  If you know, you know!” The San Diego Invitational he says “was a great experience where I was introduced to the world of 7s and learned that it is not game suited for my limited skill set.  This was home to my Zulu in the Pacific Ocean on a chilly February night!” and then there was the Big XII tourney in Norman, where the team finished 3rd losing a tight game to a tough Texas A&M squad.  Jeff remembers this tournament fondly as “This is where I had the pleasure of spending an entire weekend under the tutelage of Niko for the first time.”

He recalls, “Another Honorable mention memory would be the Ruggerfest tournament in St. Louis, in 2008 or 2009. We took a beefy squad down to St. Louis in a combined trip with the UNL Women’s Team who was also competing. We mopped up some solid competition in bracket play before taking on Metropolis’ D1 squad in the final or maybe a semifinal. They definitely underestimated us as they got very chippy and irritated when we had a lead and they were on the ropes before some questionable calls from the ref and an untimely injury let them squeeze out a victory.”

 However, The Missing Tooth Story which was shared a few weeks back by Erwin Schmidt is a must:

“Thanks to Smidy for bringing it up, the most absurd, is when my tooth was knocked out. We were playing ISU at home on a Friday night and my front tooth was knocked out during the game. The day prior, a dad of a local high school senior had reached out to me about his son debating between attending UNL or a school out in California but rugby was a big deciding factor for him and he wanted to check out a game of ours – call it an unofficial visit!

So we arranged for him to join our squad on the sideline for the ISU game that Friday night. Now it just so happens that the dad was a dentist at the UNL Dental School on East Campus.  So after the game concluded (we won) it’s about 9PM on a Friday night, so no chance of doing anything about the tooth until Monday, I had stashed it in my shorts pocket for the rest of the game and Niko is of course delighted that we were now twins (there is a photo somewhere from that night) but it was then that I recalled that the dad of the high schooler visiting was a dentist. So I call up the dad at 9PM that night still at the field and ask the odds of getting in to do something about the tooth.

He hesitated a bit but proposed that I meet his resident med student at the dental school and he will sneak me in to do a temporary repair job. The problem was that everybody else was headed to the after party as we were hosting ISU, so my only ride available was from one of our favorite women’s team members (who shall be unnamed because she was heavily under the influence) but she agreed to take me there.

The resident looked less than impressed when we arrived, likely because he was called in to do dental work on a Friday night. But he led us into the office cranked on the lights and started gluing things on my teeth to hold the busted tooth in its spot, but he was solo and needed a dental assistant to hold the UV light to cure the glue and the little vacuum thingy, so the “influenced” friend became a very giggly Dental assistant for the night.

He couldn’t get us out of there quick enough, but I was all set to return to the after party with what were now basically makeshift braces on my teeth. I later would find out that the trauma also damaged the other front tooth so both teeth would be removed and surgery done for implants which meant almost a year of playing with no front teeth which made for fun interactions on the pitch and the drink ups after pitches as well, the little temporary retainer with two fake teeth on it became quite the popular party trick.”

Jeff is a social studies teacher and football coach at Elkhorn South High School.  He and his amazing bride Angela have been married for seven years and have three ornery children; Lincoln (4), Ellie (2), and Rory (7mo).

Angela played on the Women’s team at UNL and spent several years as the club president.  After graduating, she also worked as a team coordinator for USA rugby for the women’s IRB 7s tournament in Atlanta a few times. She is now the broker for Redfin in Nebraska, Iowa, and South Dakota.