Rugby

SEATTLE – Members of the Seattle Quake Rugby Football Club, a predominately gay team, will quickly tell you that there were no sticky buns harmed in their production of a semi-nude calendar for 2005. While images of the 2003 hit movie Calendar Girls may rumble through your mind, reality is these are hot guys demonstrating technical and very homoerotic moves of the world sport of rugby throughout the featured months. Just in time for the holiday season, the 2005 version of the men of Quake debuts this week. 

A second year fundraiser for the Club, the calendar has garnered a number of fans throughout the country as it reaches diverse segments of the gay community.

The calendar helps offset a number of operating expenses for the club. Running an amateur rugby club is expensive, especially when the team’s practice and playing fields are rented and its league, Pacific Northwest Rugby Football Union, stretches across the state line. With league matches as far south as Bend, Oregon, a 350 mile one-way jaunt, the expenses of being a competitive rugby club for the 42 members outpaces the yearly paying dues. “We play and practice in the shadows of Microsoft because of the lack of sports fields in Seattle,” says George Froehle, coordinator of the highly successful inaugural calendar of 2004, referring to the proximity of the software giant’s campus to the home field of the Quake at a county park 15 miles east of the city in Redmond, Washington.  

Local sponsors snapped up advertising spaces throughout the calendar that will allow 100% of the revenue to go directly to support the club. “Our club enjoys incredible loyal sponsors each year and they have once again stepped up to this project,” Froehle said. “We play a unique world sport that is high-impact and challenges the stereotypes of what gay athletes are capable of doing,” Froehle explained. “So our sponsors and community genuinely want us to succeed,” he continued.

The 2005 Seattle Quake Calendar is available on the team’s website at www.quakerugby.org and in local Seattle outlets, sponsor venues, and directly from team members. The calendar retails for $10 and is available through January.  

Seattle Quake Rugby Football Club (RFC) is a non-profit, community-based, amateur athletic organization. The mission Seattle Quake RFC is to foster local, regional, national, and international participation and competition in the game of Rugby Union Football, and to create an environment where members of the community can learn the laws and practice of Rugby Union Football, thus improving their capabilities as players. Seattle Quake RFC is especially focused on providing opportunities for learning and playing competitive Rugby Union Football to communities traditionally underrepresented in the sport, including gay men and men of color 

Seattle Quake Contact: George Froehle (206) 384-9019

All photos copyright Jim Wilkinson 2004