Japan's Football History

English language coverage of American football in Japan. 日本のアメリカンフットボールを英語で報道。

Two Part History of American Football in Japan

High and Low: The History of American Football in Japan - Part 1, by Aron Harris of The Football Odyssey Podcast

Since ancient times, sports have served the purpose of allowing participants and spectators to briefly separate themselves from the inescapable austerity of the working class life. For those who play, it adds a tranquil dimension to the psychology of the athlete, allowing them the opportunity to exercise their internal anger and aggression in physical competition for the pursuit of victory and recognition. The spectators engage in the emotion of seeing those competitors play valiantly, inspiring and entertaining those that seek reprieve and reassurance that hard work, discipline and collaboration is still a recipe for success in challenging times.

Indeed, sports have broken down barriers between teammates and formed bonds between teams and fans despite different creeds and upbringings. In times of conflict and seemingly irreversible misfortunes, individuals of society look towards athletics for distractions and belonging to bridge the gap between themselves and their fellow citizen. This was the mission of Paul Rusch, an Angelical Christian minister that used the game of American Football as a method of creating harmony and understanding between Japanese and American cultures.

While American Football cannot be considered a major pastime in Japan, the altruistic roots of the sports’ presence in Japan has created a lasting impact within the Japanese community, empowering many of the citizens that have partaken in the gridiron game, especially after withstanding pushback from the highest levels of the Japanese government in the 1940s.

Dating back to the abolishment of the feudal system in the mid 1800s, Japanese athletics were predominately focused on the individual, with particular emphasis on the martial arts, such as Judo, Jiu Jitsu and Sumo Wrestling. During the Meiji Restoration period of the 1870s, team sports were gradually imported from various countries to Japan, most notably Baseball and Association Football, by way of foreign advisors who were brought to Japan to teach western ideals and to expand industrialization. In the United States, however, American Football was still in its infancy.

Many schools had their own variations of the rules, some resembling a more brutal form of soccer, while other schools played an adjacent form of rugby. It would be another couple of decades before a rulebook would be codified and universities would compete under the same guidelines that gave football a distinct identity from it’s European influences.

As the evolution of the game progressed, the greatest minds in coaching would stop at nothing to conjure up strategies, tactics and loopholes that would give their team the winning edge. These men would later be recognized as pioneers of American Football, such as Walter Camp, Lorin F. Deland, Fielding H. Yost and Glenn “Pop” Warner. One such pioneer, University of Chicago head coach Amos Alonzo Stagg, would not only create one of the most dominant legacies in the history of college football, but would also introduce the game to a foreign exchange student who saw a global potential for a nationalist game.

Born in 1891 in Fukuoka, Japan, Heita Okabe was considered by many to a natural athlete. In addition to achieving the rank of black belt in Judo at a young age, he was also recognized as a proficient boxer, sumo wrestler and tennis player. Relocating to the United Sates as a graduate student at the University of Chicago to study physical education, Okabe took an interest to the game of American Football and joined the team as a left end and tackle. The game’s complexity and aggressive style of play left a great impact on Okabe. Furthermore, Okabe was equally influenced by Amos Alonzo Stagg’s staunch belief that amateurism in sports, particularly in football, was the purest way to develop character in young men.

Once Okabe returned to Japan, he began to disseminate information about American football, teaching the game to both high school and college students, as well as publishing articles in local sports magazines that explained rules and illustrated diagrams of formations and plays. Okabe’s mission to spread American Football in Japan would be short lived, however, when he withdrew from sports for an extended period of time after being stripped of his black belt due to ideological quarrels with the elders over Judo’s place as a sport versus being a traditional self defense and spiritual art form.

Nonetheless, Okabe’s introduction would prove to be an important blueprint for football’s fate in Japan, especially amongst university students. Around the same time that Okabe was publishing works about American football, a young Christian minister named Paul Rusch would travel to Japan with funding from the Young Men’s Christian Association to provide rescue support following the devastating Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. After a couple years in Japan, Rusch had developed ties with the local Anglican churches, and despite initial consideration to return back to the United States, he was persuaded by the Bishop John McKim, chancellor of Rikkyo University, to stay in Japan as a professor of economics due to his passion for teaching and capabilities as a leader.

In his new nation, Rusch would become active in the Japanese community. Having become a passionate affiliate to the Japanese American Association, a group of influential American and pro-American Japanese leaders, Rusch’s belief in American Democracy motivated him to foster transparency and understanding between American and Japanese ideals. But as Rusch would come to find, tensions were deeply rooted in Japanese society, toward not only Americans, but also the second generation Japanese Americans.

Japanese Americans, referred to as Nisei by first generation Japanese citizens, had dual citizenship in Japan and the United Sates, but many were forced to study in Japan as a result of their parents losing too much money during the Great Depression. The Nisei would face discrimination from the Japanese, many of whom felt that if a war between the two nations would occur that the Nisei would choose to fight for the United States. Having endured prejudice in America and Japan, the Nisei were considered outsiders in both ancestral lands, often feeling like they were without a country. This anger, loneliness and hostility would manifest and be expressed in various forms of self-destruction, such as alcohol abuse, violence and even suicide. As Rusch witnessed the alienation that was occurring within the Nisei community, he felt compelled to find a way to give them not only a sense of belonging, but also a way to steer them from the dark path they were on.

Rusch heard that pick up games of American Football were being played between students of Meiji and Waseda universities. Believing that he could garner enough interest from Meiji, Wasadea and Rikkyo universities, Rusch established the Tokyo Collegiate American Football League in 1934, and secured funds to procure uniforms and equipment for the players. Hosei and Kei universities each provided one additional player to the team, creating a roster of 26 Nisei students that would face members of the Yokohama Country and Athletic Club on Thanksgiving Day at Meiji Jingu Stadium in Tokyo in 1934.

The Yokohama team was primarily composed of English and European immigrants with vast experience playing rugby. Though these men were bigger and seemingly more athletic, they had little to no experience playing American Football. In front of a crowd that drew between fifteen and twenty thousand spectators, among them United States Ambassador Joseph Grew and Emperor Showa’s Younger brother Price Chichibu, the TCAFL team displayed extravagant energy and fight as they defeated their opposition 26-0. Though not everyone in the stands understood the rules of the game, the exciting atmosphere and support was overwhelming for the Tokyo All-Star team. It was an event that Rush felt was necessary and beneficial on multiple levels, both for boosting the morale of young men that felt they had no where to go, and for the opportunity to use football to create amity between American and Japanese cultures.

The success of this game prompted Rusch to organize a series of matches with an All-American collegiate team. In 1935, in a three game contest that pit American players from West Coast colleges against the Japanese All-Stars, the Americans won handedly by scores of 71-7, 73-6 and 46-0. Though these games were not competitive, the American team had much admiration for the Japanese’s fighting spirit and willingness to learn such as physical and complex game. One year later, the Tokyo All Star Team would travel to the United Sates with funding from American beneficiaries to play against the All Southern California High School team losing 17-6, and would then force a scoreless draw against Roosevelt High School, Hawaii’s top rated high school football club.

As American Football began to gain traction in Japan, Paul Rusch continued to pursue more opportunities to increase the exposure of the gridiron game in the land of the rising sun, even attempting to persuade Chicago Bears owner George Halas to venture on an Asian exhibition tour that included Japan, China and the Philippines. But even though Rusch was trying to promote football to distract his student from the harsh realities of their circumstance, nothing could make them ignorant of the turmoil that was occurring in front of their very own eyes.

On February 26, 1936, a radical group of young Imperial Japanese Army recruits, with the aid of the nationalist group League of Blood, organized a coup to overthrow moderate government officials that were viewed as making deals that were unjust towards the Japanese military. This led to the rebels occupying the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Headquarters and the assassination of three high level Japanese leaders, including the prime minister and finance minister.

Furthermore, Japanese newspaper journalists were beginning to propagate rumors of American spies being planted Tokyo. One such article claimed that Paul Rusch and another American Football coach, George Marshall, were using football as a way to spy on Japanese students, documenting information on their body measurements and sending it to the United States for combat intelligence. Rusch denounced the article as slander, and his students stood by him as other student groups protested and demanded the resignation of the university dean should Rusch and Marshall retain their positions, leaving his disciples facing scrutiny and apprehension. It was becoming apparent that the hostility Rusch was trying to eradicate through the use of American Football had been too prevalent to overcome.

Despite the tensions and the collapse of the ideals Rusch was working towards, however, his mission would eventually come to flourish and live on in the years to come. It would only have to wait until the Second World War would come to pass.

References

1. Touchdown: An American Obsession, Chapter Eighteen: American Football in Japan, Kohei Kawashima, Musashi University, Japan, 2016

2. https://books.google.com/books?id=hCRyDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA39&lpg=PA39&dq=rikkyo+university+nisei&source=bl&ots=dv13d7p3GA&sig=ACfU3U2pqL46_ofbDbrCfsz41xNwVB6qgQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjDutK2mZbnAhXkhOAKHcxsD-cQ6AEwAnoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=nfl&f=false

3. https://repository.musashi.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/11149/2005/1/jinbun49_02_113_130_kawashima.pdf

4. https://www.fisu.net/news/world-university-championships/a-brief-history-of-american-football-in-japan

5. https://korea.stripes.com/community-news/through-eyes-player-and-coach

6. https://zappawriting.wordpress.com/2020/01/26/the-atom-bowl/#more-371

High and Low: The History of American Football in Japan - Part 2, by Aron Harris of The Football Odyssey Podcast

World War II was in full swing; Japan aligned with Germany and Italy to form The Axis Powers. The United States funded and supplied weapons to the Allies of World War II before officially joining them in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. Japanese and American soldiers would converge on the islands of Okinawa and Iwo Jima. The battles and bloodshed culminated in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Emperor Hirohito made the announcement over the radio on August 15, 1945, “We have ordered our government to communicate to the governments of the United States, Great Britain, China and the Soviet Union that our empire accepts the provisions of their joint declaration.”

The occupation of Japan followed shortly thereafter. With a pair of cities left shattered and the citizens critically injured, homeless and on the brink of starvation, President Truman appointed General Douglas MacArthur to spearhead the redevelopment of Japan’s government, economy and culture. The mission was to establish democracy, liberalize the right to religion, speech and assembly, and to disarm the Japanese military to prevent them from being an aggressive global power in the future.

American efforts to reconstruct a debilitated nation would not be swift. Since the beginning of the war, the Japanese government propagated the war to reflect a divine purpose for their actions, justifying the invasions of nearby Asian countries with the belief that they had to liberate Asia from western ideals. To reiterate the message to the public, Japanese officials banned or censored the English language and American sports from their cultures, specifically within the school system. Now that Japan had suffered a great loss at war, optimism and the belief of Japan being a sacred land had disappeared.

All hell was breaking loose. Anti-American sentiments from Japanese locals to the occupying servicemen ensued and amounted to moments of terror. Ultranationalist violently clashed with communist sympathizers and black market demands for food supply and shelter caused turf wars between organized crime syndicates that accumulated many casualties. McArthur’s mission would evidently be met with great challenges.

In order to ease these anxieties and frustrations, however, McArthur recognized that athletics were a valuable part of the culture of both countries and felt that reintroducing American sports, particularly baseball and football, would be a fine way to establish social diplomacy and improve morale on a cultural level while political and economic matters were being resolved.

Though not as popular as baseball in Japan, the gridiron game had found a niche following among the private universities in Tokyo, mostly to the credit of Paul Rusch (as detailed in Part 1) with the development of the Tokyo Collegiate American Football League. By 1938, the sport’s popularity would increase enough to spawn the creation of a new nationwide governing body of the sport to replace the TCAFL; the Japan American Football Association, with Rusch serving as it’s first chief director. Within it’s first two months, JAFA staged the first East-West Exchange game played in front of 25,000 spectators as the East won 21-0, and by 1941, three more universities would field teams and join the association.

But upon the declaration of war by the United Sates against Japan, the Japanese Empire outlawed the practice of “enemy sports,” and thus football and baseball teams around the nation were disbanded. Once the war was over, football would be reintroduced to Japan, but not for the purpose that General McArthur had intended just yet. Rather, the homesick troops that were stationed in Japan over the holiday season pleaded to their respective commanding officers to organize athletic competitions to give them the nostalgic feeling of the college bowl season that was happening in America.

In Nagasaki, Major General and Second Marine Division commanding officer LeRoy P. Hunt and Colonel Gerald Sanders organized a football game for the Marines. Sanders appointed two team captains that would attract great publicity; Angelo Bertelli, former Notre Dame quarterback and 1943 Heisman Trophy winner, and “Bullet” Bill Omanski, former fullback for the Chicago Bears and 1939 NFL rushing leader. Bertelli would captain the Nagasaki Bears against Omanksi’s Isahaya Tigers in what was to be coined as the “Atom Bowl.”

Due to the debris that still remained from the bomb, the captain’s decided the game would be two hand touch as opposed to tackle (though the soldiers till borrowed equipment from the Navy as a precaution). The game, taking place on New Year’s Day 1946, was played in front of 2000 Marines cramped into makeshift bleachers, along with Japanese citizens who watched from afar. Though the captains privately agreed to end the game in a tie to avoid a post game brawl, Omanski broke the pact once he kicked the extra point for the Isahaya Tigers win, 14-13.

Though the Atom Bowl was one of, if not, the first American Football game played in post-WWII Japan, it wasn’t impactful in the sense of inspiring the native people to adopt the pastime as their own. In an ironic twist of fate, Judo and Kendo were banned from Japanese schools for the fear that they would encourage militarism amongst Japanese youth, leaving many students longing for some sort of activity to fill the void. This observation would prompt Peter Okada, a young serviceman stationed in Osaka, Japan with the 108th Military Government Team, to introduce American Football to high school students in his free time.

Okada’s journey to Japan as a Japanese-American Nisei was anything but direct. As a young man, Okada, along with his three brothers and his widowed mother, were detained at the Santa Anita Japanese internment camp following the attack on Pearl Harbor. While detained, Okada learned of Father Edward Flanagan, an Irish priest who was offering jobs to Japanese-American captives at Boys Town in Nebraska, a non profit orphanage for disgruntled juvenile boys. Okada wrote a letter to the priest and was accepted as a landscaper. After working there for a year, Okada enlisted in the Army. He began in Military Intelligence before serving with the 2nd Marine Division for a brief time, and finally ended up with the 108th Military Government Team in Osaka, Japan to reform the Japanese education system.

Upon seeing the hindered attitudes of the Japanese youth, Okada received permission from McArthur and the local schools in Osaka to introduce American football to the students. Once granted permission from all parties, Special Services sent Okada footballs and on his days off began teaching the game to the students of Toyonaka and Ikeda high schools, including the types of formations and how to pass a football. At the end of that first year, the first high school American football match in Japan resulted in a Toyonaka victory over Ikeda, after which many other regional high schools began adopting American Football. Though Okada would downplay the significance of bringing American Football to Japanese high school curriculums, his student would honor him in 1992 with the Peter Okada Trophy at halftime of the Christmas Bowl (the Japanese high school national championship game).

While Okada was teaching football to high school students, college football in Japan was recommencing to continue the altruistic vision of Paul Rusch. As previously documented, Paul Rusch’s affinity with Japan ran deep, devoting his adult life to preaching Christianity and democracy to the Japanese people. While his efforts provided worthwhile meaning to the students he taught and the players he coached, his optimism would fade once he returned to the United Sates.

As tensions between Japan and the United Sates grew, the American Church Mission, an initiative of the Episcopal Church that funded Rusch’s missionary work, gathered for a conference in Japan and decided that they would be withdrawing missionaries from Japan. An emotional Rusch, attached to his student, university and the land of Japan, informed the Bishops that he would not be leaving, going so far as to submitting a resignation letter to the Episcopal church.

After his comrades had fled back to America, Rusch, only one of a couple hundred Americans left in Tokyo, resumed his life as an educator and football coach, but was met with much scrutiny Japanese authorities, even being the subject of secret surveillance from despite making public statement claiming that, “Japan is misunderstood by the United States.” Once the attack on Pearl Harbor had been completed, however, Rusch’s sympathetic words toward Japan would not be enough to prevent him from being arrested as an “enemy of Japan” and detained at an internment camp. He was sent back to America in the summer of 1942, and upon his return, grappled with the reality of Japan and ultimately acknowledged the necessity for war against the Imperial Army.

Having serving as a first Lieutenant for the Military Information Services to recruit Japanese-Americans into the armed forces, Rusch returned to Japan as a member of General McArthur’s staff. Once he arrived back in Japan, Rusch was pleased to see that college football was being played again. In 1947, a newspaper editor named Chikao Honda organized an East-West College Championship and called it the “Koshien Bowl,” that would become a staple in Japanese college football. One year later, American football leaders renamed the game the “Rice Bowl” and invited Rusch to the opening ceremony where he was welcomed with overwhelming applause. In his pregame speech, Rusch declared “Here we go again” and made the first kickoff of the game. To this day, Rusch’s influence remains supreme amongst the Japanese football community, being referred to as “The Father of American Football In Japan.”

Into the 1950s and 60s, football in Japan had steadily increased in popularity. More universities adopted the game and NHK (Japan’s leading broadcasting company) broadcasted more games on the radio for the public to tune in. Intramural matches between Army bases were still being played and attracted modest crowds as well.

Japan was also gaining international exposure for it’s passionate following. In 1964, Sports Illustrated columnist Arthur Myers chronicled the work of Donald T. Oakes, an American missionary that coached Rikkyo University from 1949-1952 and the influence his teaching and coaching had on his student players. Also in 1964, the University of Hawaii hosted a Japanese All-Star team to commemorate the 30th anniversary of American Football in Japan, though Japan would not measure up to the speed and athleticism of their American opponents.

The greatest exposure came in 1971 when Chuck Mills, former Utah State University head coach, made an agreement with Japanese coach Ken Takeda to travel to Japan to play a two game series against the All-Japan team, making it the first time a single university traveled to Japan for an international match. Utah State won both game without trouble by scores of 50-6 and 45-6.

Despite the wide margin, the young student athletes on both teams appreciated the value of playing against their international counterparts. After the game, Mills commented, “I think it would be a good idea for an American university team to come to Japan once every three years. It not only would help to stimulate interest in American football, but would also give the Japanese teams a chance to find out their improvement and their level of play.” Takeda was equally grateful for the opportunity to play against and American team: “They had a big impact, because we didn’t have to go over there but they came over here,” said Takeda. “And the coaches and players coached us even though they would play against us the next day or the day after. Through that experience, we were able to feel closer to American college football.”

Surely, American Football’s presence in Japan would not have been possible had it not been for the men with a passion for education and desire to provide a cathartic release for the impairing Japanese youth after World War II. Many Japanese students have maintained communication with previous coaches, telling them about how football has changed their lives, validating that the game left an impression on those high school and university students that played the it.

And soon enough, they would have the opportunity to play the game they loved after graduation.

References

1. Peterson, Matt. “The Father of Japanese Football.” The Seattle Times, The Seattle Times Company, https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=20030731&slug=japan31.

2. Nagatsuka, Kaz. “Coaches Recall Trail-Blazing '71 Utah State Visit.” The Japan Times, 2016, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/sports/2016/01/20/more-sports/football/coaches-recall-trail-blazing-71-utah-state-visit/#.XmboIy2ZOb-.

3. BRIEF HISTORY OF AMERICAN FOOTBALL IN JAPAN-2018 FISU World University Championships American Football, https://wucaf.hrbcu.edu.cn/info/1034/1259.htm.

4. Zappaomatic. “The Atom Bowl.” Zappa's Writing Archive, 26 Jan. 2020, https://zappawriting.wordpress.com/2020/01/26/the-atom-bowl/#more-371.

5. “Peter Okada Oral History Interview, Part 5 of 6, April 9, 2000.” Go For Broke National Education Center - Preserving the Legacy of the Japanese American Veterans of World War II, https://www.goforbroke.org/ohmsviewer/viewer.php?cachefile=2000OH0113_05_Okada.xml.

6. McDonald, Andrew T., and Verlaine Stoner McDonald. Paul Rusch in Postwar Japan: Evangelism, Rural Development, and the Battle against Communism. The University Press of Kentucky, 2018.

7. Gems, Gerald R., et al. Touchdown: an American Obsession. Berkshire Publishing Group LLC, 2019.