For Ray Funderburk, an English teacher and boys track coach at Pender High School, rugby is a family affair, though it took a somewhat unusual turn to get to the rugby field.
The senior Funderburk was a nose guard and defensive tackle on the Hampden-Sydney University football team. After the football season, his college roommate talked Ray into playing rugby, and a love affair of sorts was instigated.
“I had a bit of a football injury and rugby provided a sport in which there was a little less contact so I gave it a try and just stuck with it,” Ray Funderburk said.
“In rugby injuries occur less because there’s no blocking and you don’t get cut down the way you do in football. In rugby you get hit when you are carrying the ball. I had a knee operation and decided not to go back to football.”
After college Funderburk found himself headed to Wilmington, where he found something he liked, and something he could relate to in 1974 when the Cape Fear Rugby Association was formed. That was the beginning of an association that has endured for 39 years.
“The first time I played in the (Cape Fear Rugby) sevens tournament was in 1975 and I played in every tournament for the next 25 years,” Funderburk said.
As the century turned Funderburk found his skills started to diminish with age and he became the director of the Cape Fear Sevens Tournament, which successfully concluded its 39th year earlier this month.
“I was too broken and too old to play anymore,” Funderburk said. “Cape Fear Ruby is an incorporated club with officers and my sole job is to run the tournament.”
Ray and his wife have three children—identical twin sons Riland and Luke, 25, and a daughter Sophie, also 25.
“The boys have been around it since they were very young and they started going to the sevens tournament when they were two years old,” Funderburk said. “They then participated in the children’s clinic and when they got to ECU (East Carolina University) there was a rugby club and they went out for it.”
Riland played football and soccer at Ashley High School, and Luke played soccer, but they both said their father’s association with rubgy was a drawing card.
“Dad was playing rugby with the Cape Fear club since it started, and once I got to a place (ECU) where I could play competitively it was an easy decision,” Riland said. “It was a club sport at ECU and we wound up going to the Elite Eight tournament in Albuquerque (N.M.), and it was a great experience. Once I graduated I moved back to Wilmington and played for Cape Fear. I’ve played in five Cape Fear Sevens Tournaments.”
Riland graduated from ECU with a degree in construction management and his professional life took him to Cary, where he is a Project Engineer. Work has precluded his continued involvement in rugby, but now that he is more settled he is looking to get back into the game.
Luke, who had played some football in middle school, also graduated from ECU with a degree in construction management. He lives Wilmington and is a foreman for Precision Walls. He was on the Pirates’ club team that went to the Elite Eight and has played in a few sevens tournaments.
“We didn’t get the chance to play with our dad but he coached my brother and I since we were little,” Luke said. “He was a little tougher on us than he was some of the other kids, but it was fun and it as great having him as a coach, and it was cool getting to play with Riland all the way up and at ECU. I have to admit I miss it, and I’m actually looking to get back into it.”
Ray Funderburk said he is proud of all his children, and he definitely enjoyed the fact they–like their dad–got hooked on rugby.
“It was really good that they played rugby and that they got to play together all the way through college,” Ray said. “I really enjoyed watching them play in the sevens tournaments.”
