Rugged heritage

SAN DIEGO -- The late, great Dr. Thomas Durant, a Massachusetts General Hospital legend and humanitarian who hugged the whole world by helping heal refugees, would have absolutely loved this.

His son, Dr. Stephen Durant, 54, and his grandson Brian, 24, of the Boston Irish Wolfhounds, made rugby history as the first father- son duo to win a USA Rugby national championship.

In an avenging rematch of last year's Division 3 title game, the Wolfhounds crushed Mission Rugby (Palo Alto, Calif.), 55-5. When the game ended, the two generations of Durant warriors -- Steve, his helmet covering his bald head, and helmet-less Brian, his brown hair flopping in the San Diego sun -- raced toward each other and embraced.

"You were magnificent," father told son.

"I was thinking, I'm sure my father was looking down on us and that he would be absolutely ecstatic," recalls Steve, "and I'm thinking I'm not sure I deserve this blessing but I'll take it."

After the Irish songs and the ritual dousing of the coach in ice water, Brian, a clinical research assistant at MGH, kissed the bronze eagle trophy. But it was the patriarch of the family ("Just a simple boy from Dorchester -- with a passport" as Tom Durant called himself) who was on their minds and in their hearts.

Before his death in 2001, Tom traveled the world for 35 years, helping people who had no hope. He ventured to Afghanistan, Thailand, Vietnam, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Rwanda, Kosovo, Bosnia, Honduras, and Boston. He did it under the duress of incoming shelling and outgoing supplies. He did it wearing a Red Sox cap and a big smile. He did it to save lives, by any means necessary. Sometimes he did it at the expense of watching his kids grow up.

Usually, it is a father who introduces a game to his son.

But Steve Durant says he introduced Tom to rugby after the elder Durant returned from the war in Vietnam.

"He missed a little of my adolescence when I was 13 or 14 and playing [rugby] at BC High," says Steve, co-director of the MGH Sport Psychology program. "So now I'm 19 playing for Beacon Hill and he starts going to my rugby games. And the older guys love him. 'This is a men's club,' they said. 'We're going to make you president.' He said, 'Great. If I'm going to be president, I'm going to at least play in one game.'

"So we had a scrimmage at Columbus Park and I was worried for him. He was 47 and he was a small guy, not particularly athletic or strong. I said to my brother, 'I hope we don't have to take him back in a body bag.' So he played hooker, the most vulnerable position, and the scrum collapsed. Once a year, somebody, somewhere, will break their neck when the scrum collapses. I thought, 'Oh God, here we go.' "

Instead, Durant got up with a big grin on his face. But that wasn't all he was wearing.

"He had dog excrement smeared all over the top of his bald head and he was laughing and I said to my brother, 'I think he is going to be OK.' That was his intro."

From that humble beginning, Durant turned into a rugby fanatic, playing the sport into his 70th year, despite a long fight against prostate cancer that claimed him at age 73.

Historian David Halberstam called Durant "a contemporary saint" in the book "Bantamweight Archangel: The Life and Afterlife of Thomas S. Durant, M.D.," written by former Globe columnist David Nyhan. Nyhan played rugby with Durant in New Zealand in the late 1980s. He also edited the collection of memories from Durant's all-star friends.

"He inspired hundreds of friends and colleagues with his energy," Nyhan wrote shortly before his death in 2005. Durant's secret to success: "Don't make a big deal out of it, don't groan and moan. If you really want to do something, you can: Just do it."

But Tom Durant was no saint on the field, and sometimes he overdid it.

"He would play hooker and he would always cause trouble," says Steve. "So we had to bail him out because he'd cause fights and be a pain in the [butt], but it was great."

Three generations of Durants even played together in 1998. Tom Durant at 70, his body riddled by cancer, needed help from 15-year-old Brian to tie his shoelaces. But once on the field, the Old Man was a tiger.

"That was one of the happiest days I ever experienced in sports," says Steve. "We were playing on a team called the Dinosaurs who were made up of some older players, and we snuck my dad in. We actually had a play where my father hooked the ball in the scrum. The ball came out, he passed the ball to me, I passed it to my son, he passed it to somebody else, and it went about 60 yards for a score. My feet didn't touch the ground; it was three generations and one score."

Brian Durant says it was an honor to play that one game with his famous grandfather.

"It's amazing," he says. "I just feel lucky. Not many people get to do that."

Steve Durant, who co-wrote the book, "Whose Game Is It, Anyway" -- a guide to helping children enjoy sports -- was thrilled.

"The thing that meant the most, though, was I knew from the expression on my son's face that he got it," he says. "I've had teammates in the military who were Green Berets and they say you're not fighting for the flag, you're fighting for the platoon, and to take care of one another. And I would never equate sports with war, but there is that feeling in rugby that you play because you love the game but also because you really love each other."

Most Americans don't follow or understand rugby, which was eliminated as an Olympic sport in 1924 but is enjoying a revival.

On a cloudless afternoon in San Diego, the parking lot outside Qualcomm Stadium is jammed solid. The Q, which has hosted both the World Series and the Super Bowl, seats 70,000 and is surrounded by 19,000 parking spaces. But not for rugby; every spot is taken for a Jehovah's Witnesses gathering. But if you drive the perimeter long enough, you see a small sign that reads "USA Rugby." It is here, on an open field called the "Little Q" with half-filled aluminum bleachers, that the USA Rugby championships are held. And it was here, just steps away from the only frozen margarita stand in the area, that Tom Durant's son and grandson made rugby history.

Brian Durant, a halfback, directed the team flawlessly and with spirit and old-fashioned hustle. He made several passes that led to scoring attempts and a pinpoint chip kick that led to a score. He also defended a much bigger opponent. Steve, a center, made a nice run and a couple of tackles in the late going.

The Wolfhounds are a high-spirited team. Irish in name, they are open to everyone. This year, Kane Jenkins, a native of New Zealand, won the MVP trophy at the finals. The Boston Irish Wolfhounds have players from Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales and have won the national championship three of the last five years.

A huge measure of their success grew out of tragedy.

In 1991, with the Wolfhounds in their infancy, Patrick "Punter" Culleton broke his neck in a preseason friendly match on Martha's Vineyard.

Teammates and friends engaged in fund-raising efforts to help Culleton's financial needs, and the Wolfhounds joined the New England Rugby Football Union the following year. From the sideline, Punter Culleton became an inspirational leader for the team.

People of all races were inspired to be a Wolfhound.

"They become fast friends because once you're in the tribe, you're in," says Steve, who adds that the lowly public perception of rugby players is inaccurate.

USA Rugby statistics support his contention. Ninety-eight percent of collegiate rugby players graduate, and 70 percent of rugby households have an annual income of more than $75,000.

"I think people feel like it's an excuse to get drunk," says Steve. "There certainly was some of that in the '70s with the rugby boom. It was partly as a countercultural thing because there were no coaches and it was all run by the players. There was an overemphasis on the postgame party. Now any serious rugby club in America has moved away from that.

"There are literally hundreds of high school rugby teams. Boston College High School has 150 kids trying out for rugby. With high school rugby will come college scholarships. West Point is building a multimillion-dollar stadium just for cadets, so it's serious."

His father found that rugby players were similar to human rights workers. They work hard, play hard, and all have big hearts. Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Ted Kennedy all played the sport.

"Rugby is very, very special," says Steve Durant. "You can go anywhere in the world and find a home or maybe a job and a place to live because of a rugby connection without necessarily being known."

Tom Durant taught that every child is part of his tribe and worth helping. He was at home anywhere on the planet. Sometimes he would even climb into bed and hug a sick patient.

And he taught his children and grandchildren well. Yesterday, Brian Durant was scheduled to travel to Issan, in the poverty-stricken northeast corner of Thailand. There he'll score a lot more points than he did on the rugby field, teaching English in one of the public schools and working with kids to make a difference.