WELCOME TO AMERICAN HS FOOTBALL PACIFIC
OUR EARLY HISTORY BELOW
This section will be dedicated to the American high school football programs competing in the Pacific.
*still in process of updating
Below is an account of our long, hallowed gridiron history in the Far East.
DODDS FOOTBALL HISTORY
BY DAVE ORNAUER
This information compiled by Pacific Sports Editor (Dave Ornauer)
All History below
Prior to the 1999 football season, no playoff existed to crown a DODEA champion in the Pacific.
JAPAN
Until 1999, the Kanto Plain Association of Secondary Schools Principals league was the gold standard. Until 1973, it featured the Johnson High School Falcons, Nerima (Jaguars, I believe), Chofu, Yamato Warriors, Zama Trojans, YoHi (Yokohama High School) Red Devils and American School In Japan Mustangs.
That changed in 1973, when everything consolidated to just the four Tokyo-area Kanto Plain schools, Yokota, Zama, Nile C. Kinnick (formerly Yokohama, or YoHi) and ASIJ. Those four schools played annually for the Kanto Plain league title, would divvy up All-League patches according to where you finished in the standings, and play an All-Star game after the season against a Japanese team. Six-game regular season, along with any games you could play against outside schools, such as the Japanese or the occasional game with an Okinawa school or Korea youth activities team.
The only out-of-area opposition they would have from time to time would be the Misawa Air Base High School Missiles, later the Robert D. Edgren High School Eagles. They were always forced to travel to play any games, would never be afforded the chance to host any teams until the 1980s (more on that later). Yokota twice played against Okinawa-based Kubasaki High School twice in the mid-1970s, and again in 1992 against Kubasaki and 1993 at Kadena, games dubbed the Ichiban Bowl.
Kanto’s regular-season arrangement continued into the 1980s and 1990s with little change. Kinnick became the first school to have an in-season home-and-home arrangement with Edgren, which became the Toku Horse series. Later, ASIJ, Yokota and Zama would play Edgren once or twice per season.
When Steve Boyd took over as Edgren coach in 1992, he pressed the Kanto Plain schools for regularly scheduled games and succeeded. At the same time, Richard Elliott, who was a teacher at Matthew C. Perry High School, managed to start up a youth-activities program at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in 1996.
Kanto Title
1973-1999
ASIJ, Yokota, Zama, Kinnick
OKINAWA
Until 1981, the only DODEA high school that existed on Okinawa was Kubasaki, which would divvy up its population into as many as four teams for a regular season, then cobble together the best of the best for games against Kanto Plain schools. That only occurred twice, in 1975 and 1976.
In 1981-82, Kadena High School opened up and the football format for the island changed. Kadena fielded two regular-season teams, the Buccaneers and Islanders, and Kubasaki two teams, the Samurai and Shogun.
They would play a regular season that mirrored the Kanto Plain’s schedule. Six regular-season games per team, double round-robin. After which, each school would select its best players and play a two-game All-Star series between the schools and their official mascots, Kadena Panthers and Kubasaki Dragons. That arrangement continued until the 2004 season.
Okinawa Athletic
1981-1999
Buccaneers, Islanders, Samurai, Shogun
KOREA
DODEA did not sponsor football in Korea. That fell to Army Community Services at Yongsan Garrison and Camp Walker in Daegu, and Air Force Morale, Welfare and Recreation at Osan Air Base. Beginning in 1978, Osan and Daegu would field teams encompassing their communities, while Yongsan – with its MASSIVE population – had two teams minimum, sometimes three, including students at DODEA’s Seoul American High School and the non-DODEA Seoul Foreign and Seoul International schools.
They would play six-game regular seasons, then pool the best players from all four/five teams to form an All-Star team with the objective of playing schools off-peninsula. They played at Yokota in 1982, and again in 1986 and 1987, then hosted John F. Kennedy of Guam in 1990 and 1991, then settled into a routine of playing against Singapore’s Community Action Council All-Stars, in which became called the United Bowl (sponsored by United Airlines).
DODEA high school sponsorship would begin in the 2003 season, and eventually lead to DODEA-Korea’s inclusion in the DODEA-Pacific Far East football playoffs starting in 2005.
GUAM
No DODEA entity existed in the Guam Interscholastic Football League until the 1999 season, when Guam High entered its second year as a high school. It would compete for spots in the island playoffs when they would be scheduled, or for the league title in seasons in which the schedule was just a single round-robin. Guam High would eventually be included in the DODEA-Pacific Far East playoffs in 2005.
RISING SUN BOWL
In 1999, conversations between Mr. Ornauer, and several members of the DoDEA Pacific Principal's Conference, including Dr. Nancy Bresell, the suggestion was made to expand the schedule and playoff system and the "Rising Sun Bowl" was conceived. This would pit the DoDEA-Japan team with the best record versus the team on Okinawa (Kadena Buccaneers, Kadena Islanders, Kubasaki Samurai, Kubasaki Shogun) with the best record. This system was in place for six years.