Know what it means to wear the blue.

taken from the first edition of the Michigan Daily, Monday Sept. 30 1890
The nucleus of it practicing daily on the campus.

The Campus has taken on a home like look this past week. Every afternoon has
seen some of our canvas backed Rugby players tossing the ball back and forth or
trying to kick goals. It has been cold and raw, but the spectators have had
many a laugh as the boys would form an invincible V and split the wind with it,
but if they have had nothing but the wind to buck against, they have at least
been learning to stand shoulder to shoulder. And they are doing good work,
these few who are back getting in condition by tossing the ball, tackling,
breaking the line, trying the V or the gridiron, and learning the twist that
gave Ames of Princeton his celebrated nick-name of "Snake Ames."
The boys are working under Malley, who has brought back a trunk full of new
tricks and has already began to teach his men a few of them. Abbott, Trainer,
Hatch, DePont, Rathbone, Dygert, McAllister, Stone and Chadborne take them as
naturally as any canvas-back does to water. Of course the boys are all "soft,"
and short winded as yet, but if they follow the liner laid down by Captain
Malley it will be soiled meat and sand that Cornell runs up against this
year...