Marshall, Ferris to receive Black Jackets
SARANAC LAKE — The Saranac Lake Mountaineers Rugby Club, annual hosts of the Can-Am Rugby Tournament, will induct Doug Ferris and Greg Marshall into its Black Jacket Hall of Fame on Friday at 7 p.m. at the Hotel Saranac.
Black Jackets are awarded to members of the Mountaineers Rugby Club who have made significant, long-standing contributions to the organization through their involvement as a player on the team, officer of the club and volunteer for the Can-Am Rugby Tournament.
The tournament itself begins Friday morning and concludes Sunday with championship matchups at the North Country Community College bowl. More 100 sides will participate on 13 pitches in Saranac Lake and Lake Placid from Friday through Sunday.
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DOUG FERRIS
Ferris, of Plattsburgh, began his rugby career while a student in the early 1980s at Clarkson University in Potsdam. By his own admission, Ferris’s career had an undistinguished start. But as the years ensued, he achieved the ability to balance family, profession and sport.
“Some people get the award for their player accomplishments, contributions to the club and/or tournament and volunteering, but in Doug Ferris, he exemplifies what the Black Jacket award is given out for,” said former Mountaineer fullback John Morgan, now its marketing coordinator. “From player to club president to development of the youth program and now a referee, he has done it all.”
Ferris was a member of the Morris (N.J.) Rugby Football Club from 1981-1985, served as captain and coach in 1984-1985, and was a member of the committee that started and held the first Jersey Cup state club championship in 1982.
He received the Most Improved Back Award in 1982, the Leather Balls Award in 1983, Most Valuable Player in 1985 and played on the Morris team that won the Division II Metropolitan Rugby Championship in 1985.
“I really learned to love the game and the people involved in it during this time period,” reflected Ferris, who carried the classic rugby nicknames of Douger the Rugger, Dougie, Dougie Fresh and Hammer.
Ferris stepped away from the sport from 1986 to 1993, the result of marriage, parenthood and an international assignment in Columbia with Exxon Research and Engineering. Upon his return, he played sporadically with several clubs, including the Mountaineers. But after starting his own business in 1993, Ferris resumed his rugby career as he said, “with a vengeance.” He played for Burlington, Vermont, in the fall and the Mountaineers in the spring and summer, earning another nickname: The Assassin.
“Doug loves nothing better than a pastel colored fruity beverage after the game,” remarked 2012 Black Jacket inductee Stacey Annis, a member of the Mountaineers women’s team. “He continues to be one of the more colorful players to watch. And not content to leaving it at playing, and founding and coaching our high school program, he’s now a referee.”
Self-effacingly, Ferris called himself “the worst social secretary the club ever had and one of the worst presidents the club ever had.” But he is credited with starting the Mountaineers youth program in 2006 and coached youngsters for several years thereafter. Ferris has also helped kids at the Can-Am tournament for the past 13 years, and had time to become a rugby referee.
“I’m very proud that after years of effort, with the help of Mountaineers president Jay Annis, the Can-Am board, and area businesses, along with North Country Community College, we had the first ever Quad Rugby Bracket in the 2013 tournament,” Ferris said.
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GREG MARSHALL
Immediately upon walking up to receive his diploma from St. Lawrence University in 1978, Greg Marshall was approached by Jan Plumadore, the founder of the Mountaineer Rugby Club and its top recruiter.
“I had no idea why he wanted to see me,” said Marshall, a Malone native. “But that moment would change the next 25 years of my life.”
At 6-foot-2 and 250 pounds, Marshall was a perfect target for the attorney/judge. After graduation, Marshall was headed home to take a physical education position and later coach his high school alma mater’s football team. But a week after leaving SLU, the former football lineman was playing prop and second row for the Mountaineers. It was the start of a career that extended until 2002.
“I met more people playing rugby than anything else I could have done in life,” Marshall said. “But most importantly, it was the camaraderie that I liked most about the game. You would go and beat the hell out of each other and then after the game, would have some beers like your opponent was your best friend.”
Marshall was Malone’s head football coach from 2000 to 2018, and its softball coach the past 10 years. He officially retired from the school system recently.
“If you played rugby in Saranac Lake, you knew that at every practice and every game, you would see Greg Marshall play. No injuries. He was never MIA (missing in action). He was there like a pillar of stone, a very powerful player,” said Tom Sciacca, long time Mountaineer and Black Jacket inductee. “He might have more games played than any other forward in Mountaineer history.”
“During our playing days, I was closer to Greg than most because I had my arm around him more times than I can remember playing next to him in the second row,” added 2018 Black Jacket inductee Bill Decker. “Despite having to travel from Malone to be there, Greg was always on time for practices and games alike.”