Football to Say 'Sayonara' Over Spring Break

This spring, the members of the Harvard football team that have already taken a class in Foreign Cultures will get a second dose of it.

That's because the team will be spending this upcoming spring break in Japan. Harvard coach Tim Murphy announced yesterday that the Crimson will embark on a eight-day odyssey to the Land of the Rising Sun, which will culminate with a game against Kyoto University.

The game will be in honor of two Kyoto anniversaries--the 50th of its football team and the 100th of the school. Kyoto is one of Japan's top schools, both academically and in football.

Murphy said that the planning has been in the works for over six months, but all the kinks were not worked out until after the Yale game before Thanksgiving.

"Early last winter, I talked with their coach [Yaichi Mizuno]," Murphy said. "In principle, I thought it was a great idea, but they wanted to do it during the summer, which wasn't going to happen.... It became a series of negotiations over the summer and the season."

From Kyoto's perspective, meeting Harvard was analogous to how Vince Lombardi described winning--playing the Crimson wasn't an option, it was the only option.

Both Harvard and the city of Boston have great respect across the Pacific. The Boston Marathon was the first major international athletic event to allow Japanese people to participate after World War II, and Harvard is seen as the top American university.

Harvard also hosted the first-ever Japanese football game in America, a 1993 game between Keio University and Waseda University.

"Harvard is held in tremendous regard in Japan," Murphy said. "The first thing that they said is that Kyoto is the Harvard of Japan."

The Crimson will fly to Tokyo March 22 and after a few days of sightseeing will take a train to Kyoto, where the game will be played. All expenses are being paid for by the Japan Society, a non-profit group that promotes better understanding between Japan and the U.S., and by several Japanese corporations, who donated money through Kyoto.

For the Harvard players, this is a chance to do something special.

"It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play in Japan," captain-elect Brendan Bibro said. "I've just been to Canada once."

Since the team is not totally made up of East Asian Studies concentrators, Murphy hopes to have a Japanese culture crash course before they leave, ideally to be conducted by a Harvard faculty member experienced in Japanese society.

Whoever that is may have a job on his or her hands, as Bibro admits to never having tried Japanese food. And one wouldn't want to embarrass one's hosts by putting wasabi in the tea.

Of course, there's still the game to be played. Kyoto has won five national football titles and has been playing the sport longer than Florida State has, but Harvard will probably hold a 30-pound edge along both lines, Murphy said.

However, Kyoto practices year-round and has a roster of about 200 people, while Harvard will have just started spring practices. The Crimson will also take only its freshmen, sophomores and juniors, not including those who play spring sports, such as freshman quarterback Rich Linden (baseball) and junior wideout Jared Chupaila (lacrosse).

"We are going over there to win," Murphy said.