Football
Kubasaki has a prep football legacy going back to the start of the Cold War era.
As KBHS was the only school on the island with active varsity and JV gridiron programs at the time, teams were determined by the general location on-island the players were from. From the 1950s through the 1980s, Kubasaki's legacy teams and colors were: Kadena Falcons (blue & white), Sukiran (later Zukeran) Knights (black & white), and Naha Eagles (red & white).
The team names, mascots and colors also carried-over to Kubasaki's basketball and wrestling squads.
As there was no football field or stadium at Kubasaki's previous campus locales (and, until recently, the present Kishaba campus), each team had their respective "home field" stadium. MacDonald Stadium on Kadena Air Base was home to the Falcons; the Sukiran Knights shared Rambler Field at Sukiran Stadium in the Camp Sukiran Troop Area (now known as Marine Corps Base Camp Foster) with the Army's intramural football team, the Rangers; and the Eagles claimed Naha Field at Naha Air Base as their home turf.
By the mid-1970s, a fourth "expansion team" -- Kubasaki Warriors (gold & white) -- was added due to the large post-Vietnam student population, and to give those prep athletes an opportunity to play.
For regional games against opponents on mainland Japan, an "all-star" team of top players from all three (and later, four) Kubasaki varsity squads were selected and sported the green and white uniforms of the Kubasaki Dragons.
The legacy teams were dissolved with the opening of Kubasaki's new "cross-town rivals," Kadena High School on Kadena Air Base in 1981.
Kubasaki has the Varsity Dragons and the JV Dragons. At the beginning of the season, these teams are not formed yet, instead, they make up the Green Squad and White Squad and they have scrimmages against themselves.
The Kubasaki All-Stars lost the first "Cherry Bowl" game 30-0 in Yamato Japan(1961) to the Narimasu Dragons; coincidentally, this game was held on the 20th anniversary of Pearl Harbor.
They split two games with Kanto Plains champion Yokota High School in the 1970s.
From 1982 to 2004, Kubasaki and Kadena High School fielded 2 teams each to make up the 4-team Okinawa Secondary Schools Athletic Association (OSSAA) football league. In 23 seasons, the Kubasaki Samurai won or shared 15 island championships, while the Kubasaki Shogun captured three.
At the end of the season, a Dragons varsity team was selected from the Samurai and Shogun and played against Kadena's varsity team. In 1992, the Dragons swept Kadena two games to none and routed Yokota 44-12 in the inaugural Ichiban Bowl.
The Kubasaki Dragons won the First Class AA Far East Championship against the Seoul American Falcons 34-14 in 2005, but lost to the Kadena Panthers 2 years in a row in the OAC best two-of-three series 28-14, 14-8 the first year and 45-0, 41-6 in the second.
Read more about this topic: Kubasaki High School, Extracurricular Activities, Athletics
Famous quotes containing the word football:
“In football they measure forty-yard sprints. Nobody runs forty yards in basketball. Maybe you run the ninety-four feet of the court; then you stop, not on a dime, but on Miss Liberty’s torch. In football you run over somebody’s face.”
—Donald Hall (b. 1928)
“You can’t be a Real Country unless you have A BEER and an airline—it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a BEER.”
—Frank Zappa (1940–1993)
“... in the minds of search committees there is the lingering question: Can she manage the football coach?”
—Donna E. Shalala (b. 1941)