Gamecock Rugby Hall of Fame
In April, 2024 The Carolina Rugby Foundation inducted its first hall of fame class. The Hall of Fame ceremony recognizes the best who have worn the garnet and black and unites our rugby alumni with current members of the Gamecock team. Each inductee is presented with a Garnet blazer that includes our Hall of Fame logo. The ceremony coincides with the team’s Spring awards banquet.
Alumni and friends may nominate a member to the Hall of Fame using the form at the bottom of the page. Nominations are collected during the fall and evaluated by our Hall of Fame selection committee. Our Hall of Fame class is determined each January and made public. All living inductees must attend our Hall of Fame ceremony in April.
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Member Profiles
Sandy Frazier
Sandy Frazier was born in Philadelphia and was introduced to rugby during his service at Philadelphia’s First Troop City Calvary around 1965 at the age of 22. In 1967, he moved to Columbia and joined the Fort Jackson Rugby Club as their captain.
Very quickly, Fort Jackson’s roster became diminished due to the Vietnam War. So, Frazier turned his attention to a new pool of prospective players: The University of South Carolina. He met with administrators, attracted 20 new players, and the USC rugby football club was born with Frazier serving as player, coach, and captain.
In 1969, while competing at a 7s tournament at Duke University, Frazier met Dr. James (Jim) Wynn, a seasoned rugby player who was planning to move to Columbia. The pair bonded immediately, and Frazier invited Wynn, a fellow Hall of Fame inductee, to join the Gamecocks.
Graduating in 1971, Frazier married, moved to Memphis, and began a lifelong career as a successful homebuilder. In 1972 Frazier joined the Bulls/Old No. 7 rugby club and continued to be involved in the sport until 1991. He participated in rugby tours throughout the U.S., and in England, Scotland, Wales, Australia, and New Zealand. Frazier was inducted into the Memphis Rugby Hall of Fame in 2019.
After his death on June 17, 2024, the rugby club and Frazier family established The Frazier Coaching Fund to support our head coach’s salary and stipends for assistant coaches.
Matt Godek
Matt Godek grew up in Alexandira, Virginia and didn’t know what a rugby ball was until he enrolled at the University of South Carolina in 1966. At the time, Godek was an aspiring football player. The 5’9, 230-pound linebacker and center joined the Gamecocks as a walk-on player. After his freshman year, head coach Marvin Bass pulled him aside and told him that his chances of earning field time were slim.
Godek put away the shoulder pads and began looking for an alternative athletic outlet. He saw some on-campus literature on rugby and decided to give it a try. His first two games were against N.C. State.
“We had a great social after the game and I was locked in,” said Godek.
After graduating in 1970 with a degree in marketing, Godek joined the Army and continued to play rugby for the next several years while working part-time for Leather Balls, a company that sold rugby supplies. Affable, energetic, and good-natured, Godek was a natural salesman. In 1978, he founded his own company, Godek Rugby and Soccer Supply, and set up his warehouse store in Merrifield, Virginia.
A U.S. rugby pioneer, Godek travelled the world over the next four decades and made many friends as he built his business. Godek’s name became synonymous with service and personal relationships. And everyone in the rugby community knew him. In 2020, Godek received a lifetime achievement award from the U.S. Rugby Endowment. Last year, he was also recognized by USC Rugby with a lifetime achievement award.
Now semi-retired, Godek lives in Fairfax Station, Virginia.
Rick LeBel
The son of an Army sergeant, Rick LeBel was born in Fort Dix, New Jersey but spent time growing up in Japan, Hawaii, and Alabama.
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Rick enrolled at the University of South Carolina in Fall, 1970 where he met David Ansley while rushing for Lamba Chi fraternity. Ansley (a rugby player) invited Rick, Alan Andrews and George Fries (who would all become part of the same pledge class) to join the rugby team. They all did.
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Coached by Dr. Jim Wynn, USC rugby fielded dominate teams in the early 1970s. They compiled an incredible 37-game home winning streak and competed for national championships. A new player, Rick (a wing-forward) was proud to make the starting side on some very strong rosters, which included 45 players. LeBel also participated in the first two USA National Collegiate Rugby Championship Tournaments held in Lexington, Virginia (1972) and Davenport, Iowa (1973). Rick was also a starter on the 1973 team that twice defeated a British Naval team serving on the HMS Bulwark.
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Graduating in May, 1975 with a BA in international studies, LeBel played for Augusta and the Chicago Lions before moving to Atlanta in 1976. He played two seasons for High Country before joining Atlanta Old White.
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Rick hung up his boots in 1984 and received a 2014 lifetime achievement award from Old White. He currently serves as an advisor to the Old White Board. LeBel is a founding member of the Carolina Rugby Foundation and through the years has helped organize USC’s annual alumni games. Rick also served on a committee that helped to bring the USA Rugby Sweet 16 and Elite 8 tournaments to Columbia in 2005 and 2006.
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LeBel has been a steady champion of USC rugby for five decades. Popular and affable, he’s been a steady communication link between the team and rugby alumni from the 1970s and early 80s. Rick was a driving force behind the success of the 2024 inaugural hall of fame ceremony.
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An investment advisor with LPL Financial, LeBel and his wife, Beth, live in Marietta, Georgia. The couple have two adult daughters and two grandchildren.
Dr. Frank Walton
Dr. Frank Walton joined the University of South Carolina rugby club at the invitation of Coach Jim Wynn after Jim discovered Frank had played football for 19 years.
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Frank was drafted by the Detroit Lions in 1959 and was inducted into the John Carroll University Football Hall of Fame in 1992.
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He was commissioned in the Army in 1963 and was the leading rusher for the Army team, which defeated the Quantico Marines for the National Service Championship on national television in the Missile Bowl in 1963. In 1964, Frank was the leading ground gainer, leading receiver and most valuable player for the Army team.
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Frank played in the first rugby match he had ever seen against Davidson. Overall, he booted up nearly 100 times for the Gamecocks.
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Walton was referred to the “Big Gun” by the student newspaper in the early 70s when he was frequently the highest scorer. In 1974, The Gamecock noted that Frank was responsible for 59 of the 125 points the team scored that season.
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His wife, Kathy, may have watched more matches than any other fan. She attended most home games and traveled up and down the east coast to attend many of the away games, including the 1974 Eastern Rugby Union Tournament.
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Frank says that he enjoyed football, but there is nothing quite like lending a hand to fellow teammates on the rugby field.
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After leaving the faculty at USC, Frank was a psychologist in private practice for 30 years and was invited to teach across North America and South America, as well as in Western and Eastern Europe, China, Japan, and South Korea.
He and his wife, Kathy, have four children and 9 grandchildren, most of whom are here tonight.
Warren Muir
Warren Muir grew up in Massachusetts and entered West Point in 1965 where he played football under Paul Dietzel. After enduring his plebe year, he followed Dietzel to the University of South Carolina after Dietzel took the reins of the USC football team.
Muir was a rambling fullback who Dietzel called “the toughest inside runner in college football” in 1969, the year Muir led the Gamecocks with 969 rushing yards. By the time Muir graduated in the Spring of 1970, he had racked up 2,234 rushing yards and had been named an All-American.After a brief tryout with the New York Giants, Muir returned to Columbia where he took a job in construction estimating and project management.
But he missed competitive sports.
A friend told him about rugby, and he thought he’d give it a try. Warren showed up to his first practice in 1972 where he met then Coach (and fellow hall-of-famer) Jim Wynn. Muir told Wynn he wanted to watch. Wynn responded: “You can’t learn by watching, you have to go in there and play. I’ll let you know when you screw up.”
Compact and powerful, Warren entered the fray and fell in love with the game.During his first game, Muir rambled through several players and crashed into the try zone. But he forgot to touch the ball down, resulting in a penalty kick for the opposing team. It was the last time he made that error.
Over the next three years Muir found the try zone many times. He was one of the best players on those USC teams from the early 1970s that compiled an incredible 37-game home winning streak and competed for national championships. Muir also helped to start the Columbia Rugby Football Club and played for Olde Grey from 1975 to 1976 when he moved to Greenville to work for Michelin.Muir played for the Greenville Rugby Football Club from 1977 to 1987 and helped transform that program into one of the most feared teams in the state.
Along the way, his football celebrity brought more attention to the growing sport. In 1987, he moved to Aiken, South Carolina, retired from playing, and became a social member of the Augusta Maddogs. Muir retired in from work in 2017 and moved to Columbia in 2019 where he has remained connected with USC rugby. In 2024, the Carolina Rugby Foundation awarded him with a lifetime achievement award.
Warren has four grown children and nine grandchildren. His soulmate and wife of 20 years, Debi, passed away in 2016. They had no children.
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Dr. Jim Wynn
A native of Pennington Gap, Virginia, Dr. Jim Wynn is, perhaps, USC Rugby’s most distinguished alumni. He received his BS in Pharmacy from the Medical College of Virginia (MCV) in 1964 and his PhD in Medicinal Chemistry in 1969 at the School of Pharmacy, MCV Health Sciences Division. During this time, Wynn played rugby for teams in Richmond and Norfolk where he developed a keen intellect for the game.
In 1970, Wynn moved to Columbia and joined the faculty at the University of South Carolina’s College of Pharmacy. He quickly joined the USC rugby club as a player/coach. A natural teacher, Wynn went to work and transformed a collection of great athletes into a nationally formidable team.
Wynn’s USC-led teams of the early 1970s were the strongest in club history. They compiled an incredible 37-game home winning streak and competed for national championships. Wynn stepped away from coaching in 1975 to spend more time with his growing family and handed the coaching reins to Jean Pierre Chambas.
In 1982, Wynn left Columbia for the College of Pharmacy at the Medical University of South Carolina where, over the next twenty years, he served as a tenured professor of pharmaceutical sciences, Chairman of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Assistant Dean for Research and Graduate Education. In 2001 Wynn was appointed the Founding Dean of the South University School of Pharmacy in Savannah, Georgia.
During a three-decade career Wynn received over 50 awards and recognitions related to his teaching effectiveness, among them being named the 1994-95 "Governor's Professor of the Year" for the State of South Carolina. Throughout his professional career, Wynn remained engaged with USC rugby and regularly attended alumni games.
He passed away July 11, 2012.
Jeff Smolka
No one has given more of their time and treasure to USC rugby than Jeff Smolka, who will be inducted in South Carolina Rugby Hall of Fame April 19. A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Jeff grew up in Greenville, S.C.A 1988 University of South Carolina graduate, Smolka wore the garnet and black jersey from 1984 to 1988 playing hooker and captained the team in 1987 and 1988.
Smolka was Palmetto All State 3 years and USA Rugby South his senior year. Jeff played a decade of club rugby in Columbia, then in Greenville. Jeff has remained connected to USC’s program for five decades. He served as player, assistant and head coach. He participated in Carolina Old Boys Alumni games and served on the Carolina Rugby Foundation.
As a philanthropist, Jeff participated in the Carolina Clemson Blood Battle for 19 years on behalf of the team where USC won 14 of the 19 battles.Jeff expanded his philanthropy with the original Carolina Men’s Rugby Endowments in 2014. His passion broadened into the Gamecock Rugby Scholarship program in 2015.
In 2023, Jeff worked with the University to extend this aid to incoming freshmen, international and graduate students. This effort has advanced recruiting immensely. Today, 42 current players benefit by over $400,000 annually from their scholarships, which extends near in-state tuition to out-of-state students.
Over the past decade, 118 players have received an incremental benefit of over $1,100,000.As an administrator, Smolka has worked tirelessly to grow our sport nationally. He served as USA Rugby South Collegiate Director from 2001 to 2007 when Coach Roberts won three Division 3 National Championships. He was on the USA Rugby Board of Directors from 2003 to 2006 and chaired the Rugby Committee at USA Rugby from 2007 to 2020.
His greatest achievements were helping transition USA Rugby’s BOD to a professional board and helping USA Rugby gain recognition by the USA Olympic Committee to participate in the 2016 Olympics.Jeff was the founding member and commissioner of South Carolina High School Rugby from 2007-2009.
Smolka led an effort to bring USA Rugby’s National Men’s Playoffs to Columbia in 2006, 2007, and 2009.Jeff has a master’s degree in statistics from USC and works as a Project Manager for the State. Jeff lives with his wife, Margaret, in Winnsboro, S.C. The couple have three grown children, Meredith, Elizabeth and William.