Former Aztecs Hope to Become Rugby Champions Once Again : Rugby: Ex-SDSU players are nucleus of Old Mission Beach Athletic Club team.

Back in the mid-1980s, there was a place on the San Diego State campus where frustrated young jocks went to uncork their aggressions. It was a sanctuary for those college athletes who had been deemed Division I rejects.

Aztec Bowl had become a refuge for those who were too slow afoot or too slight. It was an end-of-the road club for guys whose varsity careers had reached a dead end.

They joined the Aztec Rugby Club and met each night the under the lights of the old stadium to learn how to play a new game. At the same time, they were trying to forget an old one.

In 1987, the Aztec Rugby Club, that collection of castoffs, became the rage of SDSU. They went 30-1, and on May 4 that year they beat Air Force to win the National Collegiate Rugby championships.

Four years later, some of these same “lost” jocks have become national champions a second and third time as key members of the Old Mission Beach Athletic Club. Not only that, some have become giants in their new sport.

OMBAC will try to make it three U.S. titles in four years when it plays host to the Steinlager/USA Rugby National Club Championships today and Sunday at Robb Field in Ocean Beach.

Chris Lippert, Sean Allen and Dennis Gonzalez, all members of the 1987 Aztecs, are each being considered for spots on Team USA for the World Cup of rugby this fall.

Today they will try to help OMBAC win the national title on its home field. The championship is a final-four event that starts with semifinal a game between the Midwest champion Chicago Lions and the East champion Washington (D.C.) Rugby Football Club. OMBAC, champion in 1988 and 1989, is playing for the first time at home in the 13-year-old championships.

OMBAC, winners of the Pacific Coast Rugby Football Union, will face the West region champ Dallas Harlequins at 2 p.m.

Lippert, 30, a 6-foot-1, 245-pound ex-football player at Point Loma High, never expected to be here. Yet, of the three former SDSU players, he is the one who figures to have a lock on a spot on the U.S. “Eagle” team in the World Cup.

“After I became an All-American at State, and we won the national championship, I thought I had accomplished all I could,” Lippert said. “So I retired for a year and coached, and it drove me nuts. I had to get back out there. Within two months (of returning), I was with the national team. I credit that to the coaching at SDSU and working in the OMBAC program.”

Gonzalez joined SDSU’s rugby team during its championship season hoping that it would help him live with his a decision to quit playing baseball. He left Aztecs baseball team and, thus, ended a boyhood dream of playing in the major leagues.

Gonzalez, 26, has become quite comfortable with that decision. OMBAC Coach Bing Dawson says the 6-1, 195-pound Gonzalez is the best player in the country at the loose-forward position.

“I still wonder what it would be like playing professional baseball in the minor leagues right now,” Gonzalez said. “It didn’t quite work out, but rugby’s taking me in the right direction. It feels good to be successful and the best in the country at something.”

Dawson, 46, who played football under Don Coryell at SDSU, said he hopes the strong ties between SDSU and OMBAC continue.

“We’ve gotten some exceptional players from SDSU, five or six all-Americans,” he said . “We really went out of our way to get (players from the 1987 team) here, because they immediately gave us depth in the program that helped us to get to the national level.”

OMBAC picks up top players from other college around the Pacific Coast, but before fly half Steve Forster was lost to a severe knee injury last July, five of OMBAC’s 15 starters were ex-Aztecs. Forster is back and fully recovered but has lost his starting job. Forster, however, was the tournament MVP during OMBAC’s 1989 championship and he scored every point for SDSU as the Aztecs defeated Air Force, 10-9, for the national title.

Allen, 23, like Lippert, Gonzalez and Forster, was an all-American at SDSU. He also could be the youngest OMBAC player to make the national team. Dave Crist, a member of the ’87 team, and team captain Mike Saunders, 31, another World Cup hopeful, also played at SDSU.

Rugby Notes

Steve Forster’s father, Fred, founded one of the final four teams: Washington. The elder Forster, 56, still plays rugby for the San Francisco Rugby Club, which he also started. He, too, attended SDSU. . . . OMBAC’s first-round opponent, Dallas, went undefeated in against regional opponents and won, 26-0, in its Western Rugby Union final. OMBAC is 27-1 and 18-0 in non-tournament games. Tournament officials don’t know the Harlequins’ record but some are saying OMBAC and Dallas are the best two teams and the championship, for all intents and purposes, will likely be decided today at 2 p.m. . . . Saturday’s losers will play a consolation game at noon Sunday. The championship game will follow at 2 p.m. . . . General admission bleacher seating will be provided. Tickets are $7.50 per day or $10 for the weekend and may be purchased at Robb Field, Bully’s East, the Beachcomber or the Pennant. . . . Parking is limited at Robb Field. Spectators are urged to park their cars at Fiesta Island on Mission Bay and take a free shuttle to the park. The parking area is at the corner of Sea World Drive and East Mission Bay Drive. The shuttles will be continuous from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days.