Week 5 Top Ten
The Top Ten teams in the Stars and Stripes' 2008 Far East high school football ratings, with records through Sept. 27, points and last week’s rating, as compiled by Dave Ornauer of Stars and Stripes sports. Ratings are based on teams' win-loss records, quality of wins, strength of roster, schedule and leagues, point differential and team and individual statistics. Maximum rating is 500 points:
                                  Record Pts Pvs

-- They don't get much more scary than they did Saturday afternoon at Camp Walker's Kelly Field. Quite a nice comeback by Seoul American, which trailed much of the day 14-3 on the KellyTurf. Nico Scholl falling on a fumble in the Daegu end zone and Willie Brown's 8-yard touchdown catch to cap a 13-point run within six minutes of the final period.

*donning my best Fred Rogers cardigan, sitting back in my easy chair, smiling for the camera*

Well, Mr. Hokkaido Milk asked me to tell a story about the great Northwest Airlines rescue of the Far East Boys Basketball Tournaments in 1986. So here we go, boys and girls and SportsBlog campers:

Once upon a time, there was a Far East High School Boys Basketball Tournament scheduled for February 1986 at Yokota High School. It was to be a competitive tournament, featuring 16 of the finest American and international high school teams from around the Pacific. And their cheerleading counterparts as well. A good time was expected to be had by all.

-- Kadena is, simply put, a very, very dangerous team. Brandon Harris or Anthony Tarver sniffing out the nearest interception and taking it to the house. Big-armed Lamar Smith striking just the right note with the well-placed pass on fourth down. And how about Stan Schrock, leaping over double coverage to catch that fourth-down pass? A defense that allowed deepest penetration by Kubasaki to Kadena's 38, and only two first downs the whole game?

Some camping trip this was. Try 11 universities and three summer volleyball camps in five states in 25 days of driving hither and thither.

Thus was the lot of Osan American Cougars junior Nicole Sparks and senior Laura Vega, along with the latter's mom and dad Christine and Gualberto. Kentucky, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Virginia.

The goal: Exposure to smaller universities where students learn from professors rather than graduate assistants, smaller volleyball programs which afford more playing time than one might get at a Division I school, and exposure to cultures and creeds one would never see out here.

Week 4 Top Ten
The Top Ten teams in the Stars and Stripes' 2008 Far East high school football ratings, with records through Sept. 22, points and last week’s rating, as compiled by Dave Ornauer of Stars and Stripes sports. Ratings are based on teams' win-loss records, quality of wins, strength of roster, schedule and leagues, point differential and team and individual statistics. Maximum rating is 500 points:
                                  Record Pts Pvs
1. Kadena (Okinawa)                 1-0  448   2

The below passage came in from former Robert D. Edgren Eagles wrestler Alyssa Rodriguez, a tribute to her Eagles coach Justin Edmonds. And I mean, what a tribute.

Which leads me to ask SportsBlog Nation, who is or was your favourite coach, and why? What lasting impression did your favourite coach leave you? What will you best remember about that coach? In what ways did that coach motivate you to get the most out of yourself? Team? Unity? Character? Responsibility?

Shout it out. Name, school and the years that coach was your coach.

Now, some prose from the girl known in Eagles country as A-Rod:

-- All things must pass, including record regular-season winning streaks. It took a 1,000-mile journey to Okinawa and a comeback from a 14-0 deficit in the first three minutes to do it, but Yokota met its match in the right arm of Kaleb Robinson, a 12-tackle performance by Don Hampton and the Kubasaki Dragons, 18-14 at Mike Petty. 51-game regular-season winning streak is now history.

-- Robinson is nothing if not resilient. Playing with a separated left (non-throwing) shoulder, Robinson atoned for his four-interception game Sept. 5 at Kadena by going 6-for-9 for 152 yards, including the game-winning 20-yard TD strike to Andrew Candelaria with just over three minutes left.

Different year, different site, same result, as the Air Force women and Army men repeated their All-Armed Forces softball tournament titles, held at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Fla.

Each team went 7-2, with Army's men finishing a game ahead of 6-3 Air Force, and Air Force women three games ahead of Army and Marine Corps.

And Korea played a huge role in the verdict:

What we learned from Friday's games (all two of them, thanks to Typhoon Sinlaku; which pushed one game back to Monday):

-- We may have witnessed Trey Griffin's coming-out party at Osan American's Cougars Field. The Daegu American sophomore tossed two touchdown passes to Thomas Smith as the defending Class A runner-up Warriors beat Osan 28-10. Phillip Cox lived in the Cougars' backfield, causing four sacks. David Martinez ran back an interception for a TD. A good effort on both sides of the ball for Daegu.