Sport is a great way to break down social and cultural barriers and many of Delft’s student societies have sports teams that are open to non-society members.
Delftsche Studenten Corps (DSC) has twenty-two sub-clubs, including the Delftsche Studenten Rugby-Club (DSR-C). Two of DSR-C’s 56 members are international students: South African Jurie Loots and Spaniard Alberto Ruiz Luca de Tena.
Jurie Loots is from Stellenbosch in South Africa and came to TU Delft to work on his MSc thesis in civil engineering. He is also talented rugby player, having played the game since he was eight-years-old. He joined the Delftsche Studenten Rugby-Club (DSR-C) immediately after arriving in Delft, a move that he describes “as the best decision I ever made!”
Alberto Ruiz Luca de Tena is from Galicia, in northwest Spain, and started playing rugby when he was 17-years-old. Having finished his BSc degree in Barcelona, he first came to TU Delft as a six-month exchange student, but soon thereafter decided to stay and pursue his MSc degree in industrial design engineering. Part of the reason he decided to stay at Delft was that he was really enjoying student life here, and a big reason for this was the great fun he was having as a DSR-C rugby player.
Both Loots and Ruiz Luca de Tena were extremely satisfied with the training program DSR-C offered them when they initially joined the DSR-C team as first-year players: once or twice a week they took part in a special training and coaching program, which was set up especially for new team members.
Founded in 1918, DSR-C is one of the Netherlands’ oldest rugby clubs. The coach of DSR-C is also the coach of the Netherlands’ national rugby team and last season DSR-C enjoyed a very successful campaign: the team won National Beker (Cup), beating Bassets, a team from Sassenheim, in the National Rugby Stadium in Amsterdam.
This great Cup victory was celebrated with a lavish team dinner in a ‘Dispuut’, a special dining room in the ‘Phoenix’ student society building, which ten former members of the DSR-C team also attended. During this celebration, the rugby players also enjoyed a ‘Kroegjool’ as a special reward for their victory: The DSC bar was open to all of the society members that night and each member was allowed to drink as much as they could for free for the first 32 minutes that the bar was open. But why 32 minutes? This number was chosen because the DSR-C team had won the final match by a score of 38:6.
‘Made-in-Delft’
For both Loots and Ruiz Luca de Tena, DSR-C has offered them much more than just sports. “We have many social events in this club, like dinners, parties and trips,” Ruiz Luca de Tena says. Last season the team traveled to Barcelona, where they beat an English team and won the ‘Barcelona Sevens’ tournament. Naturally, victory was followed by an all-night celebration and, the next day, a decidedly hung-over bus tour of Barcelona.
The DSR-C team trains every Tuesday and Thursday evening. Training sessions are usually followed by social activities, like Delft bar tours. Every other Thursday all the players have dinner together around a big dining table in the ‘Dispuut’, afterwards drinking beer in the ‘Phoenix’ bar and chatting with other members of the society and other clubs. What’s more, during one weekend every February a big party, called the ‘FeCo Feest’, is held for the team, usually in a secret location nobody knows beforehand. “Once I joined DSR-C, my weekends were always full of various activities,” Loots said. “During one five month period, I only had two weekend days to myself.”
During last season, Loots and Ruiz Luca de Tena were also housemates. DSC helped find them a lovely house in Delft center, which they shared with four other Dutch guys, two of them DSR-C teammates and the other two DSC society members. The house was nicknamed ‘MTV’ by the guys, who, after a long day of studying on campus, would return home to eat dinner together like a family, sharing the shopping, cooking and washing-up duties.
The housemates also enjoyed regular ‘house weekends’: One housemate was an expert sailor and owned a yacht, so the six guys would go sailing. One such trip was a three-day roundtrip journey from Kampen-Urk-Enkhuizen-Kampen. On the way to Enkhuizen they stopped and bought a ukelele, which they played to the accompaniment of funny songs that they made up about each other.
“I got to know quite a lot of friends by playing rugby in DSR-C,” Ruiz Luca de Tena said. It is by sharing this common interest of rugby in DSR-C that Loots and Ruiz Luca de Tena were totally integrated into Dutch student life. “I’m jealous of Alberto, because he gets to spend another year in Delft,” said Loots, who has since returned to complete his university studies in South Africa. “I had such a great time in Delft.”
Ruiz Luca de Tena however promises Loots that he and the rest of the team will be visiting him in South Africa soon: “DSR-C hopes to take a three-week rugby tour to Jurie’s rugby club ‘Majuba’ in Stellenbosch.” How wonderful it will be if these two ‘made-in-Delft’ friends meet again some day on the rugby fields of South Africa.
Jurie Loots and Alberto Ruiz Luca de Tena (Photo: Yang Yang, Msc, China)
img:englishmainarticle_37_27
Jurie Loots is from Stellenbosch in South Africa and came to TU Delft to work on his MSc thesis in civil engineering. He is also talented rugby player, having played the game since he was eight-years-old. He joined the Delftsche Studenten Rugby-Club (DSR-C) immediately after arriving in Delft, a move that he describes “as the best decision I ever made!”
Alberto Ruiz Luca de Tena is from Galicia, in northwest Spain, and started playing rugby when he was 17-years-old. Having finished his BSc degree in Barcelona, he first came to TU Delft as a six-month exchange student, but soon thereafter decided to stay and pursue his MSc degree in industrial design engineering. Part of the reason he decided to stay at Delft was that he was really enjoying student life here, and a big reason for this was the great fun he was having as a DSR-C rugby player.
Both Loots and Ruiz Luca de Tena were extremely satisfied with the training program DSR-C offered them when they initially joined the DSR-C team as first-year players: once or twice a week they took part in a special training and coaching program, which was set up especially for new team members.
Founded in 1918, DSR-C is one of the Netherlands’ oldest rugby clubs. The coach of DSR-C is also the coach of the Netherlands’ national rugby team and last season DSR-C enjoyed a very successful campaign: the team won National Beker (Cup), beating Bassets, a team from Sassenheim, in the National Rugby Stadium in Amsterdam.
This great Cup victory was celebrated with a lavish team dinner in a ‘Dispuut’, a special dining room in the ‘Phoenix’ student society building, which ten former members of the DSR-C team also attended. During this celebration, the rugby players also enjoyed a ‘Kroegjool’ as a special reward for their victory: The DSC bar was open to all of the society members that night and each member was allowed to drink as much as they could for free for the first 32 minutes that the bar was open. But why 32 minutes? This number was chosen because the DSR-C team had won the final match by a score of 38:6.
‘Made-in-Delft’
For both Loots and Ruiz Luca de Tena, DSR-C has offered them much more than just sports. “We have many social events in this club, like dinners, parties and trips,” Ruiz Luca de Tena says. Last season the team traveled to Barcelona, where they beat an English team and won the ‘Barcelona Sevens’ tournament. Naturally, victory was followed by an all-night celebration and, the next day, a decidedly hung-over bus tour of Barcelona.
The DSR-C team trains every Tuesday and Thursday evening. Training sessions are usually followed by social activities, like Delft bar tours. Every other Thursday all the players have dinner together around a big dining table in the ‘Dispuut’, afterwards drinking beer in the ‘Phoenix’ bar and chatting with other members of the society and other clubs. What’s more, during one weekend every February a big party, called the ‘FeCo Feest’, is held for the team, usually in a secret location nobody knows beforehand. “Once I joined DSR-C, my weekends were always full of various activities,” Loots said. “During one five month period, I only had two weekend days to myself.”
During last season, Loots and Ruiz Luca de Tena were also housemates. DSC helped find them a lovely house in Delft center, which they shared with four other Dutch guys, two of them DSR-C teammates and the other two DSC society members. The house was nicknamed ‘MTV’ by the guys, who, after a long day of studying on campus, would return home to eat dinner together like a family, sharing the shopping, cooking and washing-up duties.
The housemates also enjoyed regular ‘house weekends’: One housemate was an expert sailor and owned a yacht, so the six guys would go sailing. One such trip was a three-day roundtrip journey from Kampen-Urk-Enkhuizen-Kampen. On the way to Enkhuizen they stopped and bought a ukelele, which they played to the accompaniment of funny songs that they made up about each other.
“I got to know quite a lot of friends by playing rugby in DSR-C,” Ruiz Luca de Tena said. It is by sharing this common interest of rugby in DSR-C that Loots and Ruiz Luca de Tena were totally integrated into Dutch student life. “I’m jealous of Alberto, because he gets to spend another year in Delft,” said Loots, who has since returned to complete his university studies in South Africa. “I had such a great time in Delft.”
Ruiz Luca de Tena however promises Loots that he and the rest of the team will be visiting him in South Africa soon: “DSR-C hopes to take a three-week rugby tour to Jurie’s rugby club ‘Majuba’ in Stellenbosch.” How wonderful it will be if these two ‘made-in-Delft’ friends meet again some day on the rugby fields of South Africa.
Jurie Loots and Alberto Ruiz Luca de Tena (Photo: Yang Yang, Msc, China)
img:englishmainarticle_37_27
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