Aug. 15--Sometimes an elbow in the face can do more to thaw chilly relations between two countries than diplomats sitting across a table.
At least that's the hope of Evanston rugby player Chuck Hamilton, who is among several others from the Chicago area who will travel to Cuba in September for matches against two Cuban teams.
"We're all going to bleed red should you take one on the nose," joked Hamilton, who coaches for Northwestern University's Men's Rugby Club.
The goodwill trip was scheduled after President Barack Obama announced plans to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba and will occur less than a month after Secretary of State John Kerry reopened the U.S. Embassy in Havana on Friday after 54 years.
Hamilton and most of the people who will participate in the trip Sept. 6 to 12 are players for the Thunderbird Rugby Football Club, whose members, also called "Old Boys," are alumni of Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale, Ariz.
"What they're doing is representative of the culture of the school," said Jay Thorne, the school's director of communication with the Thunderbird School of Global Management, who noted the school's international scope.
"The rugby tour is just part of the nature of this school. We certainly benefit from it and we are certainly proud of it. It's something that grew organically not something that we created with a purpose," he said.
The Cuba trip marks the fifth international tour for the "Old Boys" rugby club, who first entered the world stage when it played in Cuba in 2003. The group has since played in Argentina, Iceland and the Balkan nations of Croatia and Montenegro.
"You always feel like a diplomat," said Chicagoan David Olsen, another player on the trip. "You're representing your country. You wear a suit and tie. You want to be classy."
Hamilton said that with a lot of help from the Thunderbird School, he put together the team using alumni lists, the alumni magazine, Facebook and email blasts. He said that several people from the Chicago area are traveling to Cuba with the team and that two Thunderbird alumni living overseas also have signed up.
Though he traveled with the team to Cuba on an educational-tourism visa for the 2003 trip, the recent thawing of relations between the U.S and Cuba was the impetus for the upcoming trip.
"That signaled to us, 'Hey let's do this again,' " he said. "It's a whole new group of people this time."
Rugby does not have deep roots in Cuba, with intramural and foreign touring teams beginning play there in the 1990s and 2000s, according to online histories. Now the country boasts several club teams, both male and female.
Hamilton also said that unlike a cold diplomatic mission, the rugby tour is a chance for players from the teams to get to know each as "rugby brothers" and for the Old Boys to immerse themselves in Cuban culture.
"We going to see a country a lot of Americans seldom get to see even though it's 90 miles off our shore," he said. "Now is the time to see it before things really change. There are some concerns that with reopening, money will flow in and some of the really grand architecture that Havana is famous for could easily disappear."
He also said that rugby is a sport that celebrates camaraderie among players on all teams. He expects there will be more talk about cold beer than the Cold War, especially considering one of the Old Boys' sponsors is an Oregon brewery.
"We'll crack a few after the game," Hamilton said. "The tradition of rugby tours is that your host team throws a party after the match. Everybody goes and eats and knocks back a few beers. You leave everything on the field and you're all pals and good cheer afterward. It's a great way to meet the people. That tradition is worldwide."
Brian Cox is a freelance reporter.
