07-23-2021, 04:03 PM
(This post was last modified: 08-07-2021, 02:03 PM by Tesla. Edited 1 time in total.)
This is an in-character follow-up from the the press release I posted for this week's point task. Should be right around 1000 words. Hopefully people enjoy it!
Getting to spend two weeks in Japan this offseason with my teammates and the guys from Bondi was easily one of the coolest experiences of my life! It’s right up there with getting drafted. I spent two weeks in France and Germany the summer after high school, but I think this was better. For one thing, I actually got to play some football on this trip! We were planning some scrimmages, but at the last minute the league announced that we would actually be playing an official preseason game against the Buccaneers in Tokyo! It was Week 1 of the preseason, my first game as a pro, and it was amazing! It was effectively a home game for Bondi; they’ve been doing these Japanese outreach trips for a few years now, so they have a pretty big following there. They sure got a big pop from the crowd when they took the opening kickoff 99 yards to the house! That was obviously not the best start, but we kept it close until the very end even if ultimately we didn’t pull out the win. It was still some of the most fun I’ve ever had on a football field. There were certainly more mascots than I’ve ever seen at a football game before! Apparently costumed mascots are a huge deal in Japan, which I had not known before. I saw bears, cats, penguins, cartoon fruit, and some just plain weird creatures interacting with the crowd and even goofing around with players on the sideline. (I high-fived a cartoon panda when we scored our first touchdown!)
The football camps themselves were really fun! I haven’t really done any coaching before, and I was worried about the language barrier, but football really is kind of a universal language. There were some Japanese X-League players there who spoke pretty good English and could translate, and most of the kids knew at least some football terms. A lot of them were pretty talented! We had a lot of fast runners and quick cutters, and no real surprise. Tatsu Nakamura is incredibly popular in his home country, so just about every kid wants to be a running back. Bondi Beach Buccaneers gear and Nakamura Outlaws jerseys were far and away the most popular items of clothing we saw at any camp! No one showed up with Seawolves gear, unfortunately, but we gave away plenty of shirts, hats, and water bottles to try to fix that!
We kept everything light and fun; we were trying to teach real football skills, but mostly we just wanted to make sure all these kids had a good time, and I feel confident saying we succeeded. All of them were really enthusiastic, and it was infectious! They went hard every drill, and they were always clapping and cheering for each other. The most talented player I saw was probably a kid in Nagoya who I’m absolutely convinced is going to be an ISFL punter about 10 years from now; he had a crazy-strong leg for being 12 or 13, and he was accurate with it! It was pretty amazing to watch. In Tokyo too there was one really tall kid who had quick feet and could throw hard. He’ll at least be a quarterback in the X-League here someday if he wants to be, and with some effort probably at a higher level than that. He has the natural gifts for it! It was really rewarding running through drills and watching how fast all these kids could learn and improve.
Outside of football camps, our own practices, and the preseason game, we still had plenty of time to get out and do the tourist thing. I am still in awe of Tokyo. I knew it was the world’s most populous city, but until I got to go there I didn’t really understand just what that meant, because it’s indescribable. I’ve been to New York and Chicago, but Tokyo is like an order of magnitude more crowded even than that. I was very glad that we were always in a group and had a translator with us; on my own I think I would’ve gotten lost as soon as I left my hotel room! The highlight of Tokyo was going up the Tokyo Skytree, the second-tallest structure in the world! (Somehow I had never heard of this building before!) It’s absolutely astounding up there. Thankfully we had a beautiful clear day, with an incredible view of Mount Fuji, and a sea of buildings all the way to the horizon. There’s also a glass floor up there too, with an absolutely insane view more than 1000 feet straight down!
The other cities we went to weren’t quite as crowded as Tokyo, but could still be overwhelming at times. I definitely got some culture shock being so far from home, but it was all fascinating! In Nagoya we saw Nagoya Castle, an absolutely beautiful building with huge stone walls and amazing moats and gardens. It was tragically destroyed by American bombing during World War II, but it’s been rebuilt exactly as it was before. We also went to a baseball game between the hometown Chunichi Dragons and Yomiuri Giants. Baseball is the most popular sport in Japan, and you can really tell, the atmosphere was awesome! Osaka has its own castle, even bigger than Nagoya’s. Apparently it was the biggest castle in Japan when it was built a few centuries ago. Osaka also has one of the world’s biggest aquariums, which I’m a sucker for, so I loved going there. Kobe was the last city we went to, and probably my favorite. It’s a beautiful city with a harbor surrounded by mountains. It also has Nunobiki Falls, a beautiful nature spot practically in the center of the city, just a short hike from a subway station. And of course we had to try some of the famous Kobe beef! Bar none, the best steak I’ve had in my life!
This was pretty much the trip of a lifetime, and I feel so lucky to have gotten this opportunity and to be playing professional football at the same time! I’ll never forget it; hopefully I’ll have a chance to go back someday. I’m really grateful that Bondi invited our team to help them out with their Japan camps this offseason, and it was great getting to know some of their rookies as well as bonding with my own teammates. After that I'm really heading into the season on a high!
Getting to spend two weeks in Japan this offseason with my teammates and the guys from Bondi was easily one of the coolest experiences of my life! It’s right up there with getting drafted. I spent two weeks in France and Germany the summer after high school, but I think this was better. For one thing, I actually got to play some football on this trip! We were planning some scrimmages, but at the last minute the league announced that we would actually be playing an official preseason game against the Buccaneers in Tokyo! It was Week 1 of the preseason, my first game as a pro, and it was amazing! It was effectively a home game for Bondi; they’ve been doing these Japanese outreach trips for a few years now, so they have a pretty big following there. They sure got a big pop from the crowd when they took the opening kickoff 99 yards to the house! That was obviously not the best start, but we kept it close until the very end even if ultimately we didn’t pull out the win. It was still some of the most fun I’ve ever had on a football field. There were certainly more mascots than I’ve ever seen at a football game before! Apparently costumed mascots are a huge deal in Japan, which I had not known before. I saw bears, cats, penguins, cartoon fruit, and some just plain weird creatures interacting with the crowd and even goofing around with players on the sideline. (I high-fived a cartoon panda when we scored our first touchdown!)
The football camps themselves were really fun! I haven’t really done any coaching before, and I was worried about the language barrier, but football really is kind of a universal language. There were some Japanese X-League players there who spoke pretty good English and could translate, and most of the kids knew at least some football terms. A lot of them were pretty talented! We had a lot of fast runners and quick cutters, and no real surprise. Tatsu Nakamura is incredibly popular in his home country, so just about every kid wants to be a running back. Bondi Beach Buccaneers gear and Nakamura Outlaws jerseys were far and away the most popular items of clothing we saw at any camp! No one showed up with Seawolves gear, unfortunately, but we gave away plenty of shirts, hats, and water bottles to try to fix that!
We kept everything light and fun; we were trying to teach real football skills, but mostly we just wanted to make sure all these kids had a good time, and I feel confident saying we succeeded. All of them were really enthusiastic, and it was infectious! They went hard every drill, and they were always clapping and cheering for each other. The most talented player I saw was probably a kid in Nagoya who I’m absolutely convinced is going to be an ISFL punter about 10 years from now; he had a crazy-strong leg for being 12 or 13, and he was accurate with it! It was pretty amazing to watch. In Tokyo too there was one really tall kid who had quick feet and could throw hard. He’ll at least be a quarterback in the X-League here someday if he wants to be, and with some effort probably at a higher level than that. He has the natural gifts for it! It was really rewarding running through drills and watching how fast all these kids could learn and improve.
Outside of football camps, our own practices, and the preseason game, we still had plenty of time to get out and do the tourist thing. I am still in awe of Tokyo. I knew it was the world’s most populous city, but until I got to go there I didn’t really understand just what that meant, because it’s indescribable. I’ve been to New York and Chicago, but Tokyo is like an order of magnitude more crowded even than that. I was very glad that we were always in a group and had a translator with us; on my own I think I would’ve gotten lost as soon as I left my hotel room! The highlight of Tokyo was going up the Tokyo Skytree, the second-tallest structure in the world! (Somehow I had never heard of this building before!) It’s absolutely astounding up there. Thankfully we had a beautiful clear day, with an incredible view of Mount Fuji, and a sea of buildings all the way to the horizon. There’s also a glass floor up there too, with an absolutely insane view more than 1000 feet straight down!
The other cities we went to weren’t quite as crowded as Tokyo, but could still be overwhelming at times. I definitely got some culture shock being so far from home, but it was all fascinating! In Nagoya we saw Nagoya Castle, an absolutely beautiful building with huge stone walls and amazing moats and gardens. It was tragically destroyed by American bombing during World War II, but it’s been rebuilt exactly as it was before. We also went to a baseball game between the hometown Chunichi Dragons and Yomiuri Giants. Baseball is the most popular sport in Japan, and you can really tell, the atmosphere was awesome! Osaka has its own castle, even bigger than Nagoya’s. Apparently it was the biggest castle in Japan when it was built a few centuries ago. Osaka also has one of the world’s biggest aquariums, which I’m a sucker for, so I loved going there. Kobe was the last city we went to, and probably my favorite. It’s a beautiful city with a harbor surrounded by mountains. It also has Nunobiki Falls, a beautiful nature spot practically in the center of the city, just a short hike from a subway station. And of course we had to try some of the famous Kobe beef! Bar none, the best steak I’ve had in my life!
This was pretty much the trip of a lifetime, and I feel so lucky to have gotten this opportunity and to be playing professional football at the same time! I’ll never forget it; hopefully I’ll have a chance to go back someday. I’m really grateful that Bondi invited our team to help them out with their Japan camps this offseason, and it was great getting to know some of their rookies as well as bonding with my own teammates. After that I'm really heading into the season on a high!