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| .I discovered a gold mine Johoku Field - Hiroshima, Japan (2005) |
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| .Some of the players that I'd met at the stadium Johoku Field (2008) . |
When I first showed up at the Johoku practice field I hadn't realized that most of the players I'd met a couple of months ago at the game weren't present. I'd go on to learn their eligibility had finished because they'd lost in the first round of the national high school football tournament. Though the players were only two months into their senior year their high school football careers were finished. This was also a result of school policy. Johoku prides itself in being academically oriented so that's just the way it goes.
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What I saw before me were a dozen or so kids running around on a dirt field unsupervised. They seemed to be following a scripted menu of some sort. After watching a while I realized much what they were doing didn't seem to correlate with what actually occurs on the gridiron; they seemed oblivious and only concerned with finishing the drills as a task.
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Since I was only familiar with American cultural protocol, I kept a distance. I remember feeling compelled to return. Admittedly, I was excited just to be on the field again.
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| Johoku Junior & Senior High School - Hiroshima The practice field is the one (dirt) on the upper right |
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