SLU Rugby Alumni

🏉 The Coach

Bill "Binky" Brandt coached Saint Louis University Rugby from 1989 until his passing in 2004. In those 16 years, he led his "boys" — as he called every single one of them — to four Western Division championships and nine National Tournament appearances. He didn't just build a rugby program. He built men. And he expected them to move with alacrity — on the pitch and off it.

Fr. Michael Doody, the team's faculty advisor, called him "one of the most colorful characters I've ever met in my life." He was rough with his language, direct and forthright — but underneath it all, "he was a pussycat."

🏈 The Player

Before he was coaching, Brandt was playing. A legendary prop for Iowa Buckeye Rugby, Binky was the kind of forward who made scrums feel like a philosophical argument — and won every one of them. He brought that same grit, that same love of the set piece, to everything he taught at SLU. His pack moved with alacrity because he demanded nothing less.

❤️ The Father Figure

"When you needed a ride home, Coach would drive you. When you couldn't afford the plane ticket for a road trip, Coach would pay your way." That was Binky. He knew what every one of his boys was doing — even five, ten, fifteen years after graduation.

His players became doctors, lawyers, investment bankers. But to him, they were always just "my boys." He founded Habcare Inc. in 1990, providing assisted-living services for the developmentally disabled, because caring for people wasn't just what he did — it was who he was.

⛷️ The Aspen Years

Every off-season, Binky would lead the men's rugby club on pilgrimages to the slopes of Aspen, Colorado. Where most coaches worried about conditioning drills in January, Brandt worried about fresh powder and apres-ski logistics. He was, by all accounts, a first-class cocksman on those mountains — equal parts graceful and dangerous, much like his rugby.

🍽️ The Connoisseur

Bill Brandt had strong opinions about food and drink, and he was never shy about sharing them.

His Caesar salad recipe was the only one you'd ever need — and if you questioned that, you hadn't tasted it. He bitters his steak. Always. And when the evening called for something stronger than coaching wisdom, his poison of choice was a well-curated trinity:

Fr. Doody recalled that Brandt was "a connoisseur of single malt Scotches" and had no problem inviting an entire team of ruggers to his house in Edwardsville for dinner — despite their ravenous appetites.

🏆 The Legacy

On July 14, 2004, William M. Brandt passed away of a heart attack at the age of 59. It was, as one of his players put it, ironic — because his heart was the biggest part of him.

That fall, SLU Rugby played its first game on the new intramural field at Vandeventer and Laclede, dedicated in his memory. President Biondi was there. The team played Washington University under the lights. It was everything Binky would have wanted.

He is survived by his wife Paula Roush Brandt and daughter Molly. But his real legacy lives on in every man who ever put on a Billiken jersey and heard him call them "my boy." They still move with alacrity — because Binky wouldn't have it any other way.