Tupouniua of Tonga Heads Harvard Rugby

In the Tongan Islands, rugby is the national pastime and Sione Tupouniua -- Harvard's new rugby captain -- is the national hero.

Sione loves rugby. He's loved rugby since age four, when he began playing the sport with coconuts and oranges in his southwest Pacific jungle home. He will eagerly reconstruct every game since then with juice glasses in the Eliot House dining hall at the drop of a fork.

The sophomore captain's major criticism of American rugby is that it is too savage. "Good rugby is a gentlemen's game," says Sione. "Most American players confuse it with football -- and that's the wrong attitude. Rugby is fast-thinking and fast-action, and if a player thinks more, he can be less agressive."

Try Teamwork

Since the Harvard Rugby Club does not have a coach, the job of instructing new players -- most of whom have never played before -- will fall to Sione. "My main problem will be teamwork," he says. "Our players want to run until they're tackled -- we've got to pass the ball more. I'm going to concentrate on fundamentals like accurate kicking."

Sione first saw a rugby ball six years ago when he began high school in Tonga. He made the varsity as a freshman, and was team captain as a sophomore. His team went undefeated both years. "I was the smallest man on the team," says Sione, who stands 5-11 and weighs 210 pounds.

Edward Dodd '30 met Sione on an anthropological expedition to Tonga. He realized the young rugby star's intellectual talent and sponsored Sione's way through the Putney School in Putney, Vermont.

Shoes Slow

The next time Sione played was at Harvard's first practice last year, where he ran barefoot over the Crimson's finest scrummers. He started the first game -- after his teammates persuaded him to wear spikes to prevent injury -- and has been a starter ever since. "I still haven't gotten used to shoes," Sione says. "They slow me down -- and I can't drop kick as well with them."

Sione finds life much more hectic in the United States than it was in Tonga, and he feels this attitude carries over into American sports. "I play rugby just for fun and exercise," he says, "and for a good glass of beer afterwards."

Last season, Sione took rugby leisurely enough to lead the varsity in scoring as a freshman. This season, he suffered a shoulder separation in the Crimson's first practice and was lost for much of the schedule. There is a gaping hole in the middle of Sione's big smile because, as he explains, "I was down two yards from the goal and someone kicked me in the teeth. I didn't score -- it really made me angry."

After every Harvard win, Sione leads the team in a Tongan victory dance. The players circle him chanting "fai'akoe" and leaping into the air while he answers "mata'usi" -- fun lies in store this night. "It's a dance my ancestors used to do," Sione explains, "before eating someone from a neighboring tribe."