Tuesday, June 2, 1998

Crusaders settle for
Japan club team

St. Louis said it tried to
find a ranked team for the
preseason football game

By Pat Bigold
Star-Bulletin

The St. Louis High School football team, perennially ranked in the national polls, will play a team from Japan in its only preseason home game this year.

On paper, it appears to be a major mismatch as football isn't widely played in Japan.

Crusaders' head coach Cal Lee told the Quarterback Club yesterday that the Crusaders will play Kansai University -- a high school-level club team -- on August 20 (7 p.m.) at Aloha Stadium.

On Sept. 5, St. Louis will travel to Nevada to play the Green Valley High Gators. Green Valley, which has had a football program for six years, was 7-4 and made it to the quarterfinals of Nevada's southern zone playoffs last year.

"They're (Kansai) a scrappy football team, learning the game," Lee said. "We scrimmaged them two years ago."

National prep poll makers contacted yesterday were puzzled by the Kansai-St. Louis matchup.

"I didn't even know they played football in Japan," said USA Today's Dave Krider, who puts together the prep football Super 25.

"Nobody from the Super 25 I know of has ever played a Japanese team. There must be some team in this country (Japan) that thinks it could beat St. Louis. "

Wheeling (W.Va.) Intelligencer sports editor Doug Huff, who compiles the National Prep Football Poll for ESPN and The Sporting News, also expressed surprise at Lee's choice for an opponent.

"I would think they could surely come up with something better than a Japanese team," said Huff, who last year ranked St. Louis as high as No. 4 before its loss to Kamehameha. "Green Valley is not ranked, but at least it's not a bad choice for a preseason game."

A stadium official said the Kansai game hasn't officially been booked. Neither has the Green Valley game, according to a Sam Boyd Stadium official.

Green Valley head coach Larry Thomas said his team will be the visitor against St. Louis, with the Crusaders keeping 100 percent of the gate.

"They are in charge of the game," said Thomas, who wasn't aware of the fact that a St. Louis press release refers to the game as the first annual Aloha Prep Football Classic.

"I don't know if there's going to be another one," he said.

In a Feb. 25 story, Lee told the Star-Bulletin that St. Louis would play Beverly Hills High Aug. 29 at Maui's War Memorial Stadium.

But Beverly Hills head coach Carter Paysinger said last night that he called off the "verbal arrangement" that same month. He said that under the deal, St. Louis also was to arrange a game in the islands for South Torrance High of Torrance, Calif.

"We're under contract with South Torrance to play them here one year and go to Hawaii with them in another year," he said.

Paysinger said St. Louis was unable to find an opponent for South Torrance early enough for fund-raising purposes, so he told St. Louis sports information director Georges Gilbert that the arrangement was off for 1998.

"We hope to come to Hawaii in 1999," Paysinger said.

Lee said a March 3 Star-Bulletin column criticizing St. Louis' decision to travel to play unranked teams prompted Beverly Hills to pull out.

Asked if St. Louis, winner of the last 12 Oahu Prep Bowls, would be nationally ranked this preseason, Krider said, "They're on the edge -- it's possible."

USA Today ranked St. Louis No. 19 before dropping the Crusaders after their late-season loss to Kamehameha.

Gilbert insists St. Louis has tried to set up a game with a nationally ranked team. He said the school has contacted -- by phone and e-mail -- all 25 of the nationally ranked teams from 1997, but none showed interest in a game.

"I spend a lot of time on the phone, calling, leaving my fax number," Lee said. "But I guess they don't want to play someone with a reputation. They don't want to lose."