February Alumnus of the Month: Matthew Kuriluk

Congratulations to our February Alumnus of the Month Matthew Kuriluk.

When did you play?

2001-2005

What position did you play?  

Freshman fall season I played wing and then moved to scrumhalf over the spring and stayed there for college.

What got you started? 

I was fortunate to have a robust high school rugby program that was coached by a handful of older Tradesmen (Ron Cornell, Mark Mobus, Noel).  A group of us looking to hang on to the high school football days played for the Northville Knights — continuing a long tradition of finely-bred Northville Mustangs who would go on to play at UM (Perpich, Mike “Gyro-San” Livanos, Dan “Ducky” Kuriluk, Mike “Clark Kent” LaCivita). During that season I had the chance to play against a handful of future teammates – I believe Adam “Preacher” Kelsey and Josh “Rubes” Rubin played for Ann Arbor (who we beat) and then Steve “Smo” Smolinski propped for Grand Rapids Catholic Central – to whom we lost in the state final. 

What honors/awards did you receive? 

MVP – backs, Michigan Select.  I served as Selector my Junior/Senior year – not sure if the team still does this now that there is a full-time coach, but it was sort of a quasi-captain, lineup developer role.  Prior to that, I was a publicity/recruiting chair where I unearthed such gems as the urbane multi-purpose back Aaron “T-1000” Turk and the bruising, psychotic Nick “Warpig” Warack – playing blindside flanker and wearing number 6, he had an obsession with telling people that he bore the “mark of the beast.” Aside from being great teammates and friends both of them went on to play high level rugby after helping lead Michigan teams.

What are your favorite memories/teammates? 

It’s difficult to keep this under 10,000 words, especially if I start talking about teammates and the olde boys/mens club who supported us.  I was fortunate to start at a time when the college boys had a good mix of athletes who emphasized some of the more social aspects of the sport (Livo, Scrumpy Jack, Bender, One-Up, Fever, Lenny, G-man, Marcus, Craig, Flounder, Cronin and Currie) and we had a lot of dedicated help from the men’s club (Stulie, Hagan, Perp, Tuttle, Elmo, Fisher, Masso, Salamango and the Zimmers stick out as guys who spent time coaching and yelling at us in the early days).

“Memories”-wise, international tours are the first that come to mind: Trinidad (Liming about, brushfire/goats on the field), Argentina (Practice at Belgrano- they had an immaculate field and clubhouse in Buenos Aires, social with the Mar Del Plata team, “you’ve been skyjacked”) and Thailand (see Tim Farrow’s comments about Smolandering in the thoroughfare/British Club Bangkok clubhouse), making the D2 final four and having family and the alumni come out to support us in Santa Cruz was a great experience.  

The most satisfying wins were probably against Michigan State and the first that my cohort had against Bowling Green.  BGSU had regularly beaten up on us (occasionally with their B-side) and was run by a guy who was a real reactionary; in our run-up to the Midwest playoffs we traveled down there and won convincingly (we beat them a second time during the playoffs).  I have a vivid memory of Wes “Tha Ferret” Farrow just obliterating a guy who was resetting play after a penalty – that sort of set the tone for the rest of the game. 

Running MSU off of Elbel Field during a night game is probably my favorite.  The previous fall season they had beaten us badly (63-7), compounded by the fact that we were wearing these hilarious nylon-wolverine-slash jerseys that my good friend and teammate Wes Farrow (mentioned above) had designed for us – I still use the shorts as a bathing suit.  According to a couple pals that I had on their team at the time, that MSU team expected to push us around again and we embarrassed them. 

That win, I always thought, set us up for our Midwest championship season –  our leadership (myself, Turk, Wes, Andrew ‘EZ-Money’ Finn and our volunteer coach Adam Eustace) had spent the last weeks of the 2004 summer running the team through two-a-day practices, and we had a lot of players who became super proficient from a technical perspective. Every game we played that season we expected to win, and didn’t really struggle with anyone through the playoffs until we lost to Humboldt State in the final four.

Seeing the guys who were considered the young boys when I was a junior/senior go on to have success was great as well.  Among many others, Karl “I don’t have a nickname” Seibert, Matt “Night Train/Catfish/Cat Train” Trenary, Aaron “Tex” Dodd/Dobbs, Nick “Doc” Dyrda, Matt “Russell” Russell, even my brother, all started as young weirdos who carried on the Michigan Rugby tradition of excellent running rugby and amazingly bizarre public behavior.

What have you done after Michigan Rugby? 

After graduating I played a few seasons on and off with the city team and occasionally while in law school. I coached very briefly at the University of Miami and was honored to join the Hillstreet Hooligans for a Las Vegas Tour. Eventually, I joined the army as a JAG and married my beautiful, immensely patient wife Courtney, we have two kids and live in Novi – you might have seen Ivy and Teddy running around at various OBW games.  For my day job I work as a legal advisor for an army command that handles “Consequence Management”, which is industry jargon for disaster response.  I also, along with my brother, help run a procurement and contracting consulting company – some of you may have received email, voice or fax transmissions from ALPINE CONGLOM in the recent past.  

How has Michigan Rugby affected you outside of the athletic world?  

15+ years after graduating most of my closest connections still come from rugby – there are guys from that team who I still talk to several times a week.  I’ve been able to reach out to people for help/advice in a professional context (thanks Zeb!) or link up for a free dinner when I’m travelling (thanks Wu!).  Reading through many of the previous alumni updates, I don’t really have anything new or interesting to say about the “global rugby fraternity” but am fortunate that I can count myself as a member.  I think Tex gave one of the best pieces of advice – play competitively as long as you can, you can always start a career in your 30’s.