Rugby is returning to colleges around the country, and it’s worth keeping an eye on New Mexico, where young Head Coach Gearoid Dunbar running growing men’s and women’s programs.

Dunbar’s appearance at an engineering school is a bit ironic in that while he comes from a family that studied various forms of engineering, and Dunbar himself studied that also, he became something of a black sheep of the family by pursuing a career in coaching.

Hired to run the new NMT rugby programs, the Irishman has worked his recruiting talents, bringing in former Namibia and Uruguay U20 internationals, and a few transfers to bolster the on-campus rosters. 

He has also worked hard on funding the program, garnering support through a golf tournament and approval of some scholarship money from the school as well as a new field and weight and HP training equipment (see photos).

New Mexico Tech, which has a popular program in Mining Business and also has programs in Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Petroleum Engineering, Geology, and Mining, to name just a few, attracts a certain kind of student, and often those students can get additional scholarship money based on academics.

(Note—whenever we ate GRR talk about Scholarships we urge you to remember that rarely is a scholarship a full ride, and in fact most scholarships are a minority percentage of tuition, and that room and board are extra.)

“The school offers some really great areas of study and engineering students are really coachable,” said Dunbar. “A lot of them are new to organized team sports but they really embrace it, are very organized, and I enjoy coaching them.”

As NMT builds its roster so other teams are looking to get back on the field. Right now that means 7s, not 15s, as roasters are small. But it’s rugby.

This coming weekend marks a year from the time that rugby halted because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also marks the return of collegiate rugby in the Land of Enchantment with New Mexico Highlands and New Mexico State sending their men’s teams to NMT’s rugby field in Socorro, NM, and New Mexico State’s women also coming to play.

New Mexico Tech will get a chance to show off its new turf rugby field and new High Performance facility, and perhaps also engineer some victories.