The Denver Highlanders are a Division II men's rugby club located in the Mile High City - Denver, Colorado. During the summer of 1968, three Kansas City Blues rugby players - Tim Mcnally, Jerry Arni, and Neil Turner - decided to move to the Mile High City and start a new team. The three ruggers didn’t waste much time naming the team. Being from the flat lands of Missouri, it only made sense ...
The Denver Highlanders are a Division II men's rugby club located in the Mile High City - Denver, Colorado. During the summer of 1968, three Kansas City Blues rugby players - Tim Mcnally, Jerry Arni, and Neil Turner - decided to move to the Mile High City and start a new team. The three ruggers didn’t waste much time naming the team. Being from the flat lands of Missouri, it only made sense to call the team the Denver Highlanders.
The Fall of 1968 saw the new Highlanders begin their first season against the Zoomies- USAFA. The most influential element of attracting recruits was our new mantra “You may beat us on the pitch, but we will NEVER lose the party." This new mantra attracted some of our best players and partiers. New recruits like Art Sands (our first captain), Sunny Schreiner, Gary Heise, John Kingman, and Larry Kobilca became the nucleus of the Highlanders. With this extra influx of players and new resolve we won the Coors Cup in 1972 and finished with a tie for first place in our second appearance at the Aspen Rugby fest.
