"Speed Like the Wind"

After receiving word that a team of Notre Dame pigskin alums will soon take on Japan's national football team, we got to wondering about the uniquely American sport's history in the Land of the Rising Sun. Our natural assumption was that it was brought over during the post-World War II occupation. But it was, in fact, another cataclysm that ushered in the gridiron era in Japan:

The history of American Football in Japan goes back to 1934 when Paul Rusch, a teacher and missionary from Kentucky (US