Host families in Ashland and Phoenix are still being sought for cultural and athletic partnership with Japan’s all-star team

By Kris Henry, Rogue Valley Times

As a Pacific Rim Bowl Hall of Fame member and someone who promoted the value of the experience for more than a decade, it only seemed natural to find a fit for Charlie Hall to play a role in future ventures.

That was the talk among current and former members of Japan’s all-star high school football program when Hall joined the Ashland High football team as a guest when the Grizzlies traveled to Japan in 2023.

Fast forward and a plan has been devised to not only keep Hall involved, but possibly create a more competitive squad from the Rogue Valley in a series that dates back to 1988 and is played every two years at alternating sites.

The Japanese all-star team is selected from more than 40 high schools, with players chosen based on academics in addition to athletic ability. Students come from the western part of Japan, in Osaka, Kobe, and Kyoto.

Currently, Japan holds a 9-8 advantage in the series, but has dominated recent contests in a cultural and athletic exchange born from a partnership with former Ashland High head coach Jim Nagel and Akira Furukawa, chairman of the American Football Association (Western Conference).

For this year’s Pacific Rim Bowl, players from Hall’s current Phoenix High program will team up with those from Ashland High to create a South Valley team that will take on the Japanese all-stars on July 25 at Walter A. Phillips Field in Ashland.

“It’s kind of a trial,” said Hall. “I don’t think it’s something that really is going to be a full pivot yet. We’ll see how this goes and the experience is for both programs, and decide what we want to do two years from now when it’s time to go to Japan. We’ll see if we’ll bring it together, or it just becomes an Ashland thing.”

Hall, who is half Japanese, served 12 years as head football coach at Ashland and six years as head coach at SOU before joining Phoenix. He was part of six Pacific Rim Bowls as head coach, posting a 3-3 record, and played at Southern Oregon University for Chuck Mills, who is regarded as the “father of modern Japanese football.”

Mills brought collegiate football to Japan in the 1970s, and laid the groundwork in Japan for future partnerships with American players.

“This is something that has great traditional roots for anyone that’s been part of Ashland High School and Ashland with all the history and traditions,” said Hall. “I think there’s just this amazing cultural connection with these folks that come over here, and then their players stay with our families in Southern Oregon, and they have this live-in host brother for a week. They get to know them and they’re trying new things.”

“I think it’s a great experience for our players and our community to be a part of, and to share that experience all around the sport of football,” he added. “And hopefully those kids go back home and share what a great experience they had in Ashland, Oregon, and then they reciprocate that when we go there. And I can tell you that when we go there, we can’t match the hospitality that the Japanese give us when we go there. It’s phenomenal in so many different ways.

“I think the benefit for our kids is more when they go there because I think they bring back a whole bunch more when you go to Japan and you’re part of that culture and game experience. But, you know, it’s reciprocal. We just want to do the best we can, to be good hosts and give those kids a great experience when they come to America.”

As such, host families are still being sought for those willing to host Japanese players during the week of the game, July 20-25. Requirements are that there must be at least one Ashland or Phoenix player in the home, and that host families provide lodging, meals and transportation during the visit. Host families can be either a current Ashland or Phoenix football family or a community member willing to host both a current player and one or more Japanese players.

“That’s a careful thing to try to match up,” said Hall, “but I think the most important thing is that you also have an American football player in the home to try and bridge that gap, and then to have that relationship building during the course of the week. It can be an amazing experience for everyone involved.”

Besides the playing of the Pacific Rim Bowl, the week will involve the Japanese players practicing alongside the South Valley players following their arrival on June 20. All will compete in the Kitchell Games on July 22, with 7-on-7 and linemen competitions that include other Southern Oregon programs, and traditional excursions to Crater Lake, jet boat outings in Grants Pass and local shopping in Medford are also planned.

The 2023 meeting between the teams in Kobe, Japan — the first in-country meeting since 2017 due to COVID restrictions in 2021 — saw the Japanese squad win 47-14.

This year’s matchup will be the first at Ashland High since 2011 after artificial turf installation resulted in the game being played at SOU’s Raider Stadium in 2015 and the 2019 contest was moved to North Bend due to air quality issues brought on by smoke in the Rogue Valley.

“Hopefully we don’t have that situation this year,” said Hall, “because we feel like it’s important for this game to be there on the turf at Ashland.”

Combining players from two high school programs — who are busily preparing for their own fall high school seasons — will be quite a task, but one Hall believes is possible as his staff works cohesively with the staff led at Ashland by Greg White, who has taken over as head coach for Beau Lehnerz.

“Greg’s been quite a fixture in the youth program of Ashland over the years and at the middle school, and as his youngest boy, Gavin, came to the high school, he’s been helping out there for the last five years or so,” said Hall. “We have enough common language, actually, and sort of the same philosophy — more offensively than defensively — that I think it’ll work. And looking at the staff, certainly my staff at Phoenix, and then some of the guys that Greg has, these are guys that played for me and worked with me. There’s a lot of common denominators, I think we can pull this off.”

There will be a tryout process during sort of a combine in the first week of June to see where the Ashland and Phoenix players stand athletically, said Hall, and then a 50-person team will be carved out. The collaboration will be eased, according to Hall, since most players involved previously competed together as part of the South Valley Wolfpack youth football program.

“We’ll have about three sort of mini camp practices during June, and then we’ll get cranked up once it’s 10 days before the game so we follow the OSAA policies,” said Hall. “Then we can have ourselves a 10-day camp that concludes with the Pacific Rim Bowl.”

For more information about becoming a host family, contact Hall at [email protected] or 541-535-1526.

Reach Rogue Valley Times sports editor Kris Henry at [email protected] or 458-488-2035. This story first appeared in the Rogue Valley Times.

Related story: Cultural connection: Ahead of Pacific Rim Bowl, Ashland High football team tours Hiroshima Peace Memorial (July 28, 2023)