Our June Alumnus of the Month is Keith Stone.
Keith was a prop and hooker for the club from 1974 to 1989. He played for the Michigan select side in the Midwestern Select Cup. In the ’90s, he started the high school rugby team in Brighton, MI and coached it for about two decades.
How did you get into rugby?
I started in 1974. I owned a shop in Ann Arbor and a woman who worked for me had a husband who played college football at Nebraska. He was like, “you gotta try this rugby thing out,” because I had played college football as well. I ended up practicing for one week and then ended up playing Iowa at the Big Ten championships that weekend. The rules back then were different. You were allowed to high tackle and guys would be trying to break your fingers going into a ruck. You would just smash into them in a scrum. Coming from a smash-mouth football background, I really enjoyed that.
Tell us about some of your favorite memories as a player.
A great memory I have is against Iowa in the Big Ten Championships. We were playing at Northwestern and their fields are right on Lake Michigan so it was very windy that day. Coming out of the half, we were tied 3-3 and ended up getting a penalty right in front of the goalposts. An Iowa guy had gotten hurt and they brought an ambulance onto the field. So they made us rotate the field perpendicular and then instead of having the wind at our back we had to make the game-winning kick with a 25 mph crosswind. We made the kick and won!
The best game ever, though, was the Mid-American Cup, which was the midwest championship. There’s a team in Chicago called the Lions, and they were the number one team in the midwest and everyone hated them. We were seeded last and we had to play them in the first game. This was late in the spring so a lot of the college kids had left for the summer and we had a lot of guys playing out of position. Since we didn’t like them, it was a bloodbath. They had a second-rower who was suspended so many times for dirty plays. Our number 8 was Tony Menyhart and he was a great player. Tony caught their second-rower not looking and split his eye open. Their player was looking for someone looking to kill after that! We were up 11-9 towards the end I think. The referee was from Chicago, and it felt like he just kept the game going after it should have ended. We knew this because there were eight other games going on in the tournament at that point and they had all ended, so we had like 16 other teams cheering us on on the sidelines because they wanted to see the Lions lose. I mean, there were hundreds of players on the sidelines. Finally, Dave Weber scored a try to finish the game off and the ref finally blew the whistle for full time. Dave got up from scoring the try, looked over at their scrum-half, and threw the ball right in his face. The ref couldn’t do anything about it because the game was over. So then the second-rower that Tony had kneed earlier started trying to choke me. I rolled him over and pounded him on the eye before I got dragged off of him. We got special treatment for the rest of the weekend because all of the other teams were so happy we beat the Chicago Lions.
Tell us about your club in Brighton.
At one of the Olde Boys games, my friend told me that they were starting a high school rugby league at Huron HS and Pioneer HS (in Ann Arbor) and that my son and his friends should come down and play. This was in the ’90s. My son and his friends played for Huron for a season. At the end of the season, they decided to start their own team in Brighton. My wife kinda looked at me and was like, “you’re gonna have to coach it.” I asked a professor at Michigan’s School of Public Health, Alan Tate (who played as a back for Michigan), to coach with me because I didn’t know a thing about how the backs work.
What are you doing now?
I’ve been retired since 2007 and I’m just living life. I stopped coaching full-time at Brighton in 2016. I will come in part-time because my son–who currently coaches there–said that they needed someone to come in and “be mean and yell at the players.” So I said, “Okay, I can do that.” I have a cottage where I can go fishing and spend time with my grandkids and dogs.
Again, congratulations to our June Alumnus of the Month, Keith Stone! Keith, thank you for everything you’ve done for Michigan Rugby.
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Stone was an all time great front row for Michigan. As a Center I got very pumped up when Stone, Rose, Chapman would pinch the opposing front row high into the air during put-ins, leaving the hapless other front row dangling in the air as our pack walked them onto the heals of those still touching the ground. No whistle, just incredible ball from Weber with half the other other team scrambling for footing and their backs demoralized at the sight, realizing it was to be a long 80 minutes for them. I think the call for that pinch play was “Nosebleed.”
For a Michigan back it was some of the sweetest moments of our rugby careers.
Stone was a mild mannered, stoic gentlemen in his retired years when I first met him, which is a fun departure from his legend as a stoic enforcer and select side player.
I played against Keith’s boy and Tate’s boy in high school with Northville/Novi Knights during our inaugural season in 97. Both were stand up lads and great players. I remember hosting young Tate after a match when he played for State. Stone’s legacy runs deep deep. Cheers to a legend!
Keith was a puzzle to me in that when I met him in 1977,he was already married! Who gives up single-hood at such a young age? Sandy was a keeper though.
Keith was a player of few words,but when he spoke,I knew the opposition had got his attention and he was gearing up for a battle. He was tough as nails.
Now long-retired,he’s as mellow as a 20-year-old Macallan.
Cheers,Keith.
Keith was a great player and a great guy. He was one of the “older” guys, playing with us young undergrads. We both began about the same time. He was a great representation of U Michigan rugby. He commanded and deserved the respect he got. He was almost as serious about the whole thing as me (very serious). Teammate for life!
I joined in 84 and Keith was one of a group of fantastic mentors for all the newbies. Many a match during inclement weather with almost frozen puddles of water in the middle of Mitchell Field and, as Dale said, if you were lucky as a back to have Keith in front of you then the ball was going to come out – a lot! And you best be fit and able so as to not embarrass yourself.
Good choice for alum of the month! (I just want to see the centerfold!)
Evil
I think the player on the right of the Free Press photo (on Keith’s left) is Dave Pankratz. 1980 would have been Dave’s senior year at Michigan.