1977-1978 Kadena Stories
Eddie Hutsell was a blessing to rugby on Okinawa. Not only did he become an accomplished scrummie, but he also spoke fluent Japanese and had a Japanese wife. He developed close relationships with several players from the different Japanese rugby teams on Okinawa. He was also the first Gaijen (Non-Japanese) player to be invited and tour with Guruken, the Okinawa prefecture select side. The funniest recollection I have of Eddie was when we were singing the Wild West Show, the Guruken rugby players stopped the song and asked Eddie to translate it as it was sung. The Ostrich & the snake verse brought so much laughter to the Guruken rugby players, that we couldn't carry on the song.
(From Dennis Gill) We had a great refeee, Minetake Furugen, whose nickname was Take. He only spoke a little English, but was a very good referee and knew the names of all the calls in English. He was instrumental in getting many of the Japanese teams on Okinawa to play with the American teams. In one game, our very talented and very quick fly half took a swing at him for his offside call on a scrum (It was more of an intimidation type swing not even trying to make contact.)This fly half was known to hit the opposite flyback as he was catching the ball from the scrum-half, and he would play it very tight every time. Take had his back to our flyhalf when the ball came out, so there was no way he could have seen the offside, but he called it, because he was in the opposite flyhalf's face as he got the ball. Take stopped the game. As player coach captain, I approached Take on his call, and he basically stated that that conduct is not allowed and that American teams can no longer play with Japanese teams from now on. I agreed with him in that that conduct was not allowed in American rugby either. I then asked our flyhalf over and had him apologize and bow to Take, before I ordered him off the field. We played the rest of the game one man down even though Take asked us to replace him with another player. The Wild West Show team couldn't understand at first why I would "throw the game" by not playing with a full team. I explained the laws of the game, first and then emphasized how the official is the most honored and respected individual in the field and his decisions/calls are expected to be considered final authority. I think our team learned a lot that day. When news spread among the Japanese Teams what had transpired, we got even more Japanese teams in the Okinawa Rugby Union to a total of 12 Japanese and American teams when they elected me President of the Okinawa Rugby Union. My nickname back then was DGILL (rhymes with eagle and pronounced the same as the flower of the Okinawa Prefecture). It's one thing to go to a bar like Cheers, where everyone knows your name, and another to be in a foreign country where it seems everyone knows your name. I went to a Japanese double header: 2 games, four Okinawa University Teams. Every single player, coach, and spectator there felt compelled to greet me (out of respect), "Os DGILL-san." which was the slang for "Ohayo Gozaimus, DGILL-san." It's kind of like "Hi" instead of Good Morning.
MORE from DGILL:
Tom Grippo was US Army The second row/ 8man/break forward who spoke Japanese and had a Japanese wife had the first name Eddie. Can't remember his last name.
Eddie was recruited by GURUKUN, the Japanese Prefecture select side (which we played against several times and never defeated), to play against other Japanese Prefecture select sides in Shikoku and Honshu.
Tom "Spud" Simmonds was USN Annapolis Grad assigned to a Marine unit at White Beach. He played football for Annapolis and played center for us and was very difficult to stop. The Japanese shared their strategy after the game, which was a common occurrence. If Spud got the ball the 4 closest Japanese players were to commit top him immediately and the rest of the team would then cover anyone he could pass to, or run straight down field to cut him off before he could center the ball.
The proper officiating was a big thing, for oftentimes, the Japanese players would lose face if they were caught in a penalty. Obviously things like accidental offside or accidental knock on was not one of them. Minetake "Take" (Tah-kā) Furugen was the only Japanese player that I had kept contact information for, from my playing days in 1974 in Okinawa through my return in 1976. Warren "Sean" Edris was my classmate and my squadron mate at USAFA and we'r were in the same unit, 345TAS, at CCK. It was a unit move from CCK AB Taiwan to Kadena AB, Okinawa.
Also, Take was the only Japanese player who spoke English. He was instrumental in getting the US teams back into playing rugby again. The Wild West Show was mostly beginner rugby players where we trained them from scratch. Our recruitment ad read something like, "FREE BEER [in bold letters] Come train with the US Okinawa Rugby Club and learn how to play rugby. Free beer following every training session and match. " So, when a seasoned first 5/8 showed up and proved to be the fastest man on the team after playing for years in San Diego, i was elated. He was quick, sho quick that the ref would call him offside when he was either playing the ref's field of view, was actually off- side or when the ref just decided he must have been off side because he go to the first 5/8 before he got the ball from the scrum half. He got so frustrated, being called offside, that while 5' from the ref he motioned throwing a punch toward the ref. The Ref stopped the game, and when I ran up to see what happened, he said something in Japanese that I didn't understand. When I went to the player and he showed ne what he had done, I ordered him off the field and we played a man down for the rest of the game. The ref offered to let us substitute and I told him that's against the rules and that conduct was not allowed. I told this player he would be out of the rest of the game, but could play the following game. But, we never saw him again. It was after this that the Japanese opened up the Okinawa Rugby Union to Camp Schwab, Camp Courtney teams, as well as the Wild West Show, and the 7 Japanese teams on the island. The next year I took a course on conversational Japanese and was elected Chairman of the Okinawa Rugby Union.
I got a special chit to buy as much beer as I wanted when beer was being rationed. For matches, I often bought 14-20 cases of beer. After the first game against the Japanese, I had all the players first go up to their opposite man, shake their hand and say "daijobo." [Good job]. Then to go around and shake hands with all the rest of the other team. No Japanese showed up for the party. I went way out of the way to make sure that all team members and the ref, Take, were invited to the party after the second match. No Japanese showed up. For the 3rd match (against the JASDF Okinawa [Joint Air Self Defense Force]) that we decided to have a chicken barbecue and beer fest on the field directly after the match. I pulled out all stops and told Take that we lost face at the 2 previous matches because no Japanese players attended because we must have done something bad. And wanted to know what bad thing we did that caused no players to attend. Then, I wrote an official letter on my squadron letterhead and sent it through official channels informing the JASDF that we'r were really looking forward to playing Air Force to Air Force and celebrating after the match with barbecued chicken and beer. They showed up in force, stayed for the barbecue and beer, spent time with their opposite man, and really enjoyed the party. We ended up having a barbecue for the next several matches. We hosted an annual rugby tournament on Kadena or at Camp Kuwae (formerly Camp Kue), or on Futenma MCAS (which then had a team, also).
