New Americans shine for revamped Silver Star

KAWASAKI (May 2)—Having fallen out of the X-League elite and 16 years removed from their last title, the Asahi Beer Silver Star were in need of a drastic change. Adding the team’s first-ever American players in nearly a half-century of existance was about as extreme as it gets.

Quarterback Mason Mills and wide receiver Roman Wilson were added to the Asahi Beer roster this spring, and if their play in the opening game of the abbreviated spring season is any indication, the Silver Star can certainly expect to regain some of their luster.

Mills and Wilson made their debuts last weekend by combining on four touchdown passes as Asahi Beer stunned the Japan X Bowl finalist IBM BigBlue 34-9 at newly completed Fujitsu Kawasaki Stadium.

Granted, IBM’s lauded passing combo of Kevin Craft and Takashi Kurihara sat out the game, but the victory at least showed that Asahi Beer and new head coach Kiyoshi Oka were on the right track. “It’s a new team, and we put in a new offense from February centered around Mason,” Oka said. “We’re only at the beginning, but to get this result is very good.”

The 24-year-old Mills, who starred at the University of San Diego, completed 24 of 41 passes for 302 yards with one interception—on his first pass of the game, which was returned 35 yards for a touchdown by defensive back Takakazu Saito to give IBM a 9-0 lead.

But Mills connected with Wilson on touchdown passes of 13 and 2 yards in the second quarter, then again from 19 and 28 yards out in the third period to help the Silver Star pull away. Wilson, a Division I-AA All-American at Princeton who played last season with the X2 West Division’s Iwatani Sidewinders, finished with 11 catches for 196 yards.

“I think the big thing for us was to gauge where we were at,” Wilson said. “So to come out here and play well and get a win…it’s good. It allows us to figure out what we really need to work on, looking forward to our next game and then the fall season.”

At 1.83 meters, 89 kilograms, Mills is not as big as Craft or Fujitsu Frontiers quarterback Colby Cameron, but came to Japan with weighty credentials. In his senior year in 2013, he was a finalist for the Walter Payton Award as the nation’s top player, and was the Pioneer Football League’s player of the year. He left San Diego as the all-time leading passer with 11,104 yards, having completed 887 of 1,338 attempts (66%) with 95 touchdowns.

Mills spent time on the practice squad of the Canadian Football League’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers last year, but was looking to head across the Pacific—and not just to play football.

“In university, I always wanted to work in international business,” said Mills, a finance major at San Diego who also made the PCL All-Academic team. “Japan was the first choice — being a quarter Japanese, having that culture, and Japan being the third-largest economy in the world. I had friends over here in banking…I was just really interested in coming over here as a young person.”

For Mills, the timing was perfect. He still wanted to play football, and Asahi Beer was looking for an American with the skills and temperament to thrive in Japan.

“I honestly was more interested in coming to Japan than necessarily playing professional football,” said Mills, who works full-time as a recruiting specialist for Robert Half International. “But I wanted to validate the hard work I put in in college, so I pursued that.”

Mills lauds long-time team boss Toshiaki Abe and general manager Daiju Fujinawa for taking a chance by opening the door to the Americans, and calls it an honor to be one of the first ones through.

“[Abe's] taking a leap of faith, because there’s a lot of American players that you don’t want on your team. We just have to, in turn, show him the same respect and work as hard as we can for him.”

Asahi Beer, which will face IBM again in the fall in the Central Division along with the Lixil Deers, won four league titles between 1989 and 1999, but has been in a malaise in recent years. Last season, the Silver Star posted a fifth straight 3-2 record, but the gap became clearer in the second stage with a 65-0 hammering by eventual champion Fujitsu, and an equally humiliating 65-3 loss to the Panasonic Impulse.

In taking on the challenge, Mills was not completely in the dark on Japanese football before arriving, having gotten the lowdown from other California natives currently here, including fellow San Diego alums Adeyami Al-Rilwan of Fujitsu and Loka Kanongataa of Nojima.

“I had spoken with Adeyami and Loka frequently, and I believe what they said and they don’t mess around. When I’m talking to them, especially Adeyami, he told me, ‘Look, this is legitimate football.’ It’s amateur, but the skill level is right there for a lot of players. When Ade told me that, I believed him, I bought into it.”

Wilson needed little convincing to join the Silver Star, as it means he no longer faces a round-trip train ride every weekend from his home in Tokyo down to the Osaka area for practices and games, as he did with the Sidewinders.

“After the first season with Iwatani, I realized that traveling to Osaka every weekend is extremely tough, especially when you’re working,” said Wilson, who works at Evolution Japan Securities in Tokyo. “I decided that I wanted to stay in Tokyo and I kind of shop around for teams.”

Wilson drew some interest from NFL teams coming out of Princeton, but not enough to pursue a career there. Like Mills, he jumped at the chance to combine working in Japan with playing here.

“I got an opportunity to come out here and work for a company and play football,” he said. “That was very appealing to me and I thought it was the best decision for me. I visited Japan last year in July and just fell in love with the place. After I visited, it sealed the deal.”

Last season, Wilson caught 10 passes for 253 yards and three touchdowns in four games for Iwatani, which finished 4-1 in the West Division. He also returned a punt for a touchdown.

Now he looks forward to the higher level of competition, as well as playing in front of crowds of more than the few hundred that came to X2 games.

” X2 is fun, but coming from American college football to jumping down to X2 is humbling at times. But you put all your pride aside, and remember that this is an incredible life experience.”

Helping create the link to Asahi Beer was a colleague in his office, who also happens to play for the Obic Seagulls. Center Frank Fernandez said he has no qualms about strengthening a potential opponent, as well as helping an Ivy League rival (Fernandez went to Harvard).

“We’re all foreigners trying to play the game we love in Japan,” Fernandez said. “More power to him.”

—Ken Marantz for the X-League