Things learned, observed in Pacific high school spring sports season Week 9.0
Published: April 23, 2012
Off-base venues continue to make their case for hosting future Far East high school sports tournaments. Case in point: Last Friday’s visit by three DODDS Japan soccer-playing schools to Kuga Park, a turfed-field facility some 30 to 45 minutes northwest of Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni.
The question being, in this climate of budget cuts threatening everything from weapons systems to personnel benefits and – yes – DODDS high school activities, might the brakes be put on such thinking, shifting to how we can keep these tournaments alive to begin with?
Off-base venues have long been an attraction to Far East tournaments and those who host them, as well as regular-season events.
E.J. King and Robert D. Edgren have run DODDS Japan cross-country meets off base, out in town at Sasebo and Misawa. The 2007 season-ending Korean-American Interscholastic Activities Conference tennis tournaments were held at Duryu Park in south-central Taegu, South Korea, a facility that features 11 spotless courts plus a stadium court where Far East tournament gold-medal matches could easily be held. Far East tennis tournaments in 2005 and ’06 were held at the Guam National Tennis Center in Hagatna and also at Tiyan.
Last Friday, coaches from all three schools were discussing the merits of having a Far East soccer tournament at Kuga. The facility is inexpensive to rent, about $1,000 for a whole week plus chalk for lining the fields (you do that yourself, plus clean up afterward) and for use of lights for night matches. All of that could come out of tournament entry fees, plus whatever cost savings DODDS is still realizing from ticketing teams for air travel through off-base vendors.
Billet the participants at Iwakuni, bus them back and forth Make sure you don’t use the meeting rooms. Plenty of room for teams to stake out their own spots to kick it between matches. Plenty of drink vending machines. Pristine setting, surrounded by mountains with deafening silence. Only drawback: People would have to bring their own picnic baskets, since there’s no eatery close by.
But these days, the rumour mill has spun wildly with speculation over the future of Far East tournaments and activities, which have increased exponentially over the last three years.
Those, along with about 60 other agenda items, are being discussed at this week’s DODDS Pacific Far East Athletics Council meeting at Mendel Elementary School at Yokota Air Base, Japan. This may be the most important FEAC meeting in decades, given how Congress and the current administration have targeted the Defense Department for hundreds of billions in cuts. An obvious target would be DODDS schools and their activities, which had been the case in 1981 and 1986.
Most certainly, any talk of creating an expanded high school football schedule including inter-conference regular-season games between Division I and Division II teams is being looked at closely. Will the plan get off the ground as discussed, will it be enacted in bits and pieces or will it be tabled altogether?
Also seeping out of the bottom door rim has been talk about making Far East tennis, cross-country, baseball and softball tournaments biennial, as tennis and cross country had been since their inception in 1976 until 2004, when they became annual events.
Another idea being bandied about is trimming participants, cutting volleyball teams to nine players, basketball to nine, soccer to 14, cross country to four and football to 22 or 23 players.
Especially in Japan, where exorbitant travel costs are further exacerbated by the weak dollar, in-country regular-season travel for the fall, winter and spring seasons could see drastic cuts, or replacing flights to and from Sasebo Naval Base with Shinkansen rail jaunts, which would save about 20 percent. Other rail journeys could be replaced by bus trips.
More talk has centered on eliminating E.J. King and Matthew C. Perry travel to the Kanto Plain and Misawa Air Base and vice versa, having the Cobras and Samurai play expanded Western Japan Athletic Association schedules.
One way to save more money would be to have more DODDS Korea vs. DODDS Japan competition between E.J. King and Matthew C. Perry and Daegu High and Osan American, perhaps with another Korean-American Interscholastic Activities Conference school involved.
Do it over the Columbus Day weekend. The KAIAC and Osan teams could bus to Daegu. Perry and King could bus to Kitakyushu or Shimonoseki and take the high-speed hydrofoil across the Tsushima Strait, costing FAR less than flying them via Air Pusan from Fukuoka to Kimhae International Airport. Daegu High would send buses to pick up King and Perry at Pusan port, then go the 1½ hours to Camp Walker. Two or three full days of competition, volleyball at Kelly Field House and the old Daegu American School Warrior Gym and tennis at Duryu Park. Then send everybody home filled with great competition and memories. Same drill for basketball in and wrestling in winter and all the spring sports; track and field could be held at Korea National University’s eight-lane facility.
Anything would be better than having these Far East tournaments, as well as the new non-athletic activities such as Harvard Model Congress, Film and Entertainment Arts, Creative Expressions and older ones such as Far East Journalism, face the budget ax. They give students experiences that they otherwise would not get boxed up in the classroom. Instead of cutting events outright, how about finding creative ways to keep things going while trimming fat? Then every side comes away with a little something.
