A contingent from Wasada University in Tokyo spent part of last week in Gainesville studying the University Athletic Association's model. (Photo: Tim Casey/UAA Communications)
Foreign Exchange: Gators Open Doors to Visitors from Japan
Sunday, January 14, 2018 | General, Scott Carter
Officials from Tokyo's Waseda University spent much of last week at UF studying how the University Athletic Association runs one of the country's top overall athletic departments.
Okuma Auditorium, built in 1927 and named after Waseda University founder Shigenobu Okuma, offers a stout resemblance to one of UF's most famous landmarks more than 7,000 miles away. A nine-member contingent from Waseda visited UF over three days last week to gain insight into an aspect of the two universities that differs significantly: how their athletic departments operate.
The visitors from Japan met with University Athletic Association officials to study the organization's day-to-day operations and to gain a greater understanding of its financial model, overall philosophy and place in UF's culture.
"We want to learn the management of the UAA,'' Waseda professor Masayuki Ishii, who is also vice director of the university's athletic center, said through a translator. "We also want to learn about the NCAA in general, and how the UAA operates under that umbrella."
The Japanese government is interested in reforming college athletics and establish its own version of the NCAA. The Waseda contingent plans to compile a report for the Japanese government based on its findings from the visit with UAA officials.
The delegation arrived on Jan. 7 and met with various UAA departments during its visit. The Japanese visitors also spent a day at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., following their three-day stay at UF.
Keiji Suzuki, who is the administrative athletic director at Waseda University Athletic Center, facilitated the trip. Suzuki spent nearly a year serving as an exchange intern at the UAA in 2006 when the Gators became the first school in NCAA history to win men's basketball and football national titles in the same academic year.
The experience made a lasting impression on Suzuki and offered valuable insight into big-time college athletics in the U.S.
"Our ultimate goal is to provide better scholarships and a better environment, so now we are studying how we can do that,'' Suzuki said.
In Japan, athletic department funding comes primarily from whatever the university budget provides, which is currently the biggest hurdle in the expansion of college sports in the country.
According to a recent story in The Japan Times, the country's education ministry and Japan Sports Agency want college athletics to generate additional revenue through games and tournaments since unlike the U.S. financial model, no Japanese college sport has the type of lucrative TV contracts that help college football and men's basketball prosper in America.
Ishii noted that another significant difference is that in Japan the most popular college sports are baseball and rugby. However, with the 2020 Summer Olympics on the horizon in Tokyo and sports in general gaining a stronger foothold in popular culture, there is a wave of momentum to learn more about the American model of college athletics and see what can translate into success in Japan.
Multiple Tokyo-based media outlets have visited campus in recent weeks to do feature stories on Gators freshman sprinter Hakim Sani Brown, who is from Tokyo and potentially the face of the country's Olympic hopes in 2020.
"There used to be a really huge difference in college sports culture between the U.S. and Japan, because in Japan, college sports used to be a really small part of school life,'' Ishii said. "But now, Japanese government and universities try to make it bigger and make it similar to U.S. colleges."
During their stay, Ishii, Suzuki and the others met the UAA's senior administrators, compliance department, academic staff, Gator Boosters, facility managers and a wide array of other departments for an up-close-and-personal view of what it takes to operate one of the country's most successful athletic departments, both on the field and in the classroom.
Mike Hill, Florida's executive associate athletics director for external affairs, welcomed the opportunity to share the UAA's blueprint with their Japanese counterparts.
"We wanted to try and help in any way we could,'' Hill said. "The feeling is that we are part of a really outstanding public university and we felt a responsibility to try and work with this great university in Japan that had an interest in learning about how we do business. It was really an honor for them to choose us to come over here and study how we operate."
Waseda University's athletic department dwarfs the Gators' in sheer size. While UF has 21 NCAA-sanctioned athletic programs and more than 500 student-athletes, Waseda features 44 athletic clubs and more than 2,600 student-athletes.
Ishii left impressed by the care and attention to detail the UAA provides its student-athletes, altering his perception in some ways of how U.S. college athletics run at the highest level.
| CATEGORY | UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA | WASEDA UNIVERSITY |
| Founded | 1853 | 1882 |
| Enrollment | 54,854 | 50,221 |
| President | W. Kent Fuchs | Kaoru Kamata |
| Main campus | Gainesville, Fla. | Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan |
| Type | Public | Private |
| Athletics Director | Scott Stricklin | Masao Iwai |
| Teams | 21 | 44 (official clubs) |
| Student-athletes* | 500 | 2,600 |
*Approximate figures
Websites: University of Florida | Waseda University
"We learned a lot of things from UF,'' Ishii said. "We realize there is so much socially and culturally that is different, so we cannot just adapt the model to Japan. But we believe the philosophy that the UAA has can be adapted and be applied to Waseda University. We try to use that and come up with our strategy.
"The big similarity between Waseda and UF is that we both believe that the academic aspect for college sports is not only for business, but for education and a contribution to society."
UAA officials served as host and teacher during the visit by Waseda officials. Still, they learned through the experience as well.
The Japanese's quest for knowledge sparked some thoughtful internal discussions that touched on perhaps the most important question of all.
"It caused us to step back and think about why we do this," Hill said. "I found it to be a very good self-reflection. There are similarities in what we do and what they do, but there is so many differences in how we do it. We all walked away saying that was really interesting."
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