JBER’s all-service Arctic Legion rugby team beats the odds

  • Published
  • By Sgt. Brian Ragin
  • 4/25 IBCT (ABN) Public Affairs
JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska --  Spartans from the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, teamed up with service members from across Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson and the surrounding areas to triumph in the Alaska Oosik Rugby Union State Championships in August at Davis Park in Anchorage.

Rugby, a style of football developed in the 19th century, is a game that features a combination of strength, speed and strategy to move a ball into the opposite team's territory.

It is a full-contact sport, yet players wear no protective gear. There are two 40-minute halves, a five-minute half-time, and no time-outs.

In the spring of this year, Sgt. 1st Class Donald Gum, an Alaska National Guardsman and Sgt. Tyler Vettraino with Headquarters Detachment, U.S. Army Alaska, who is also a former All-Army Rugby Team player, formed the team by inviting all service members from JBER and the surrounding areas to join.

The team competed in the Alaska Oosik Rugby Union's Division Two category.

They named their team "the JBER Arctic Legion." The team was mostly Army, but did have a Marine Corps player as well, Sgt. Jacobus Blignaut - a 26-year-old South Africa native, active duty Marine recruiter, and an All-Marine Rugby Team player.

"When I first showed up, I was just known as the Marine, and once everyone got to know me, they called me Jacobus," Blignaut said. "We are trying to get the team to have all the military branches because JBER is a joint base."

They are already planning next season.

"We had Air Force guys on other teams ask us if they could play on the team next year since [for this year] they had already been picked up by other teams," Vettraino said.

"We weren't going to limit it to any particular branch. Our idea was to make it a post team." said Sgt. Vasilos Dimitrio Zimarakos, a 26-year-old, Titusville, Florida., native assigned to Blackfoot Company, 1st Battalion (Airborne), 501st Infantry Regiment, 4th IBCT.

It was slow starting off, with primarily 11 guys with decent experience, according to Zimarakos.

"We didn't win any games during the season," Vettraino said. "A lot of games we lost by one or two points; some of the games were close and some weren't, it was a learning curve."

The team was able to gel going forward, and became quite competitive in the end.

"It was a growing pains kind of thing because guys came from no experience," Zimarakos said. "The squad turned into an actual pretty good team, probably one of the best I have ever played on."

Blignaut said he agreed.

"You could see at the end of the season that the team finally figured out the game of rugby," Blignaut said.

"One day the team just clicked. At that point, with the military's physical fitness in general, just the endurance that we have, we just started dominating teams," he continued.

Physical fitness and endurance in the waning moments were key to winning games leading up to their championship, the two said.

The JBER Arctic Legion celebrated their championship season singing rugby songs with family and friends in an awards ceremony Oct. 18.

"We have a good off-season program. We're working hard to get in better shape for next year," Zimarakos said.

"Now we have a group of guys with more experience.

"Hopefully, this win gets this team a little bit of exposure, and this team keeps going. This was a startup year of a long line of wins to come."