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| The "Guys from Fukuoka"
During the summer of 2008 four high school kids (front center) accompanied by four of their teachers, and one 26 year old beginner who just wanted to play, traveled three and a half hours by bus from Fukuoka just to practice with my six players.
Our guests from Fukuoka treasured the opportunity to suit up and compete. They enjoyed themselves thoroughly and displayed lots of heart, holding their own against my former team members in a scrimmage. The kid in the white t-shirt had tremendous heart and ability to match. He caught everything I threw, too far, too high, too low, he came up with all of them.
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A couple of months prior we'd gone down to Fukuoka to combine our few players with theirs and practice. The site was an elementary school parking lot in a rural town just south of Fukuoka. The parking lot was half full of cars and had an adjoining vegetable garden. The highlight of the day was when the same kid in the white t-shirt caught a 40-yard bomb from me over the shoulder, on the dead run in the garden among the daikon radishes. You can't make this stuff up.
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Fukuoka is located on the southernmost of the main islands of Japan, Kyushu. There are no high school football programs in all of Kyushu, or Shikoku.
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| .The teachers from Fukuoka (white) waiting to "lay the wood" on the students. Sometimes you don't realize how good you have it until you meet someone who is thriving on less. |
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| .Me (left) in the huddle with the high school players It was good for my six players to see the enthusiasm displayed by the four visitors who'd happily gone through so much trouble to practice with us. |
.We played good old fashioned half offense vs half defense.
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| .The "guys from Fukuoka" happily going through our regimen |
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