Teams make paper cranes, learn about the detonation of the atomic bomb there on Aug. 6, 1945
By Holly Dillemuth, Ashland.news
A tour of the Atomic Bomb Museum, a visit to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial and participation in a peace ceremony were part of the Ashland High School football team’s activities as they get ready for Saturday’s Pacific Rim Bowl contest, according to a message sent from Charlie Hall to his wife Wednesday, a message shared with Ashland.news.
Hall, who coached at Ashland High School and Southern Oregon University, is now head football coach at Phoenix High. But he is traveling as an ambassador with AHS Head Football Coach Beau Lehnerz, Pacific Rim Bowl board member Steve Mitzel, and more than 30 football players during their first trip back to Japan since 2017.
Hall, who is half Japanese, has a special connection with the trip to Hiroshima. He has visited many times during the exchange program’s history, having been part of six Pacific Rim Bowls as head football coach.
“The Atomic Bomb Museum was redone for the first time since we went there in ’88,” Hall said in an email he shared with Ashland.news. “Well done and very powerful. Larger images, more videos, personal artifacts and interactive touch screen presentations helped the experience.”
Japan organized a peace ceremony with Ashland and members of a local high school football team, as well as a group of girls from another local high school, Hiroshima Jogakuin.
Hall said he helped start the cultural tradition in 2015 and said it has become an integral part of the Pacific Rim Bowl experience in both countries.
“As we left the park, this 10-year-old boy surrounded by TV cameras came up to me and asked me if he could ask me questions in English,” Hall said. “He was very bright and articulate … 30 minutes later, he has interviewed me for a TV documentary that will air on Sunday, Aug. 6, the Anniversary of the A-Bomb. The documentary will feature this boy and his passion to help teach the world about the Peace and nuclear disarmament.”
In an interview with Ashland.news prior to the trip, Hall sat down with a reporter following a summer football practice at Phoenix High School to talk about his personal connection to Hiroshima.
He described it as a “sobering, surreal, feeling that you’re at Ground Zero,” Hall said, of previous trips.
“As a Japanese-American, it’s always very conflicting with me because my mom was a Japanese citizen … so she would’ve been 10 years old when the bomb dropped,” Hall said.
Hall’s mother lived farther north of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but he said her city of Niigata could have been a target.
It’s something he has had to process, that his “mom was in a country that was nuclear bombed.”
Hall emphasized his gratitude in being part of a program that connected him with his roots — Hall’s late mother is from Niigata, Japan, located in the northern part of the main island.
Hall’s first time visiting Japan was in 1988, when he visited an uncle and aunt there.
“I was able to come to Japan and meet my mom’s family,” he said.
At the time, he didn’t think he’d be back to Japan — then along came the opportunity to be part of the Pacific Rim Bowl and to assist then-head coach Jim Nagel. Nagel is also traveling with the team.
Hall said he was grateful for the opportunity to travel with the team, and to reconnect with the Japanese coaches and officials he’s made friends with over the years.
“Some come to the states quite often and we stay connected, and so just going to their country is very important,” he said.
The upcoming gridiron matchup between Ashland and Japan’s All-Star team in Kobe, Japan, is set for 5:30 p.m. local time Saturday (1:30 a.m. PDT).
Ashland High’s last mainland matchup was in 2019, but the game was played in North Bend, due to smoke.
Reach Ashland.news staff reporter Holly Dillemuth at hollyd@ashland.news.
