TIM DIVIS

Tim Divis was one of the original players to don the UNL jersey during the spring of 1973 and played scrum half, wing and fullback with the club until 1980 as a grad student.  Little did he know that this experience would lay an extensive foundation rooted in rugby that would take him all over the world both to play and to work.  

He played with Lincoln City between 1981 –’85; however, during the 1982-’83 seasons, he found himself in Germany studying Law in Dusseldorf.  There he played with the Dusseldorf Dragons alongside British military members as well as Aussies, Irish, Germans, and Japanese players.  He recalls watching the Five Nations rugby tournament on TV at the British Army Club which provided further education into the sport!

Upon moving back to Lincoln, the late John Boehm (another fellow rugger) helped him get a job with the Nebraska Attorney General and he worked with the Banking Department. He received an offer with the FDIC in Chicago in 1985 and moved to the Windy city where he played with the WestSide Condors for many seasons.

He worked as a Regional Attorney in Chicago working with bank examiners, primarily on enforcement actions against banks and bankers and was eventually promoted to Regional Counsel in 1997 where he was in charge of all legal matters for the FDIC throughout the six-state Chicago region. In 2000, he went to Russia to advise the Russian Central Bank on deposit insurance and bank failures. He did visit the Kremlin, but we had “no opportunity to collude with Mr. Putin. Honest!”

He toured with the Bustard Eagles from Brisbane, Australia alongside the late Jim Cunningham and fellow UNL rugger, Bill McVicker. The team played in San Diego in 2005, Christchurch, New Zealand in 2008, and Honolulu in 2012. The team had players from all over, but it was primarily Aussies. His favorite rugby memory was the Bustard Eagle trip to New Zealand where “eight or so Nebraska guys played together in the ruby capital of the world!”

After working through three bank crises, he retired in 2019.  He and his wife Claudia continue to live in Chicago and have one daughter and twin granddaughters.  And for the record, he played his last game during the 2018 Alumni match where he, “…caught the ball, rucked, passed, tackled, got tackled, didn’t screw up, and didn’t get hurt.”  It was at this time he figured it was time to hang them up.