For the first time since an 8.9 magnitude earthquake hit Japan, the Keio University High School lacrosse team can run in the sun and be boys again.
Twenty-four players found sanctuary at Johns Hopkins' Homewood Field on Friday, escaping the trauma of the March 11 tsunami that raked the Japanese coast and ravaged the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.
"They haven't been playing or running around on a field ever since the earthquake," said Atsuko Kuribayashi, one of three mothers serving as chaperones for the team. "They had to stay home because we were running low on electricity. Once we came here, they started running."
Running was a relief compared to being back home and dealing with the disaster. A week-long tour began when Keio's entourage, including two coaches, arrived in New York Wednesday. On Thursday, the boys played New York's Keio Academy, the first of four games in the U.S. Then they took a bus for games against St. Alban's School in Washington (Saturday), St. Paul's School (Monday) and Boys' Latin (Tuesday).
Keio's team members live in Tokyo, far enough from the earthquake epicenter that no one was in danger. No relatives of any of them were lost in the disaster, either, coach Tomonao Hashimoto said during Friday's visit to the U.S. Lacrosse Museum and Hall of Fame on the Hopkins campus.
But there was a lot of discussion about whether to leave home.
The decision to come was not made until several mothers and team officials convened a pair of three-hour meetings. Because the trip had been planned for quite a while, Hashimoto said, they decided to come.
"We had a discussion about that and that was really a difficult decision because in Japan, [it was] really a tough situation," he said. "Actually, we get over this part and we should go forward. We have to go forward. And we believe that it is a life opportunity for the boys. So we decided to go ahead."
Hashimoto, 26, said residents of Tokyo "felt a really big shaking," when the earthquake hit, but they were not hit by the tsunami.
The earthquake was bad, Kuribayashi said, "but the aftermath -- the tsunami and the nuclear plant -- nobody could predict the aftermath. I thought it would be better once the earthquake was over, but it just got worse."
Even in leaving, there were mixed emotions.
"The kids, first of all, they wanted to go," Kuribayashi said. "As long as we can get to the airport, we thought it would be safer to come here. But then we felt really bad leaving, like they have [left] their brothers and sisters."
They all brought their own fears and anxieties, although none of them outwardly.
"I [was] very worried about the trip, that our plane maybe [wouldn't] fly to here," said Kazuaki Noguchi, one of the players.
Asked if he was anxious to return home next week, Noguchi said, to great laughter: "No, no, no. I want to stay long time here. I don't want to leave this town, because this town is very clean, very nice town."
Jun Hashizume, team captain and midfielder, said simply, "My family and friends are safe. A long time, we were excited and preparing for the trip."
Upon arriving in America, they could not avoid the growing drama back home. Updates arrived via email and were readily available on television.
It didn't take long before Kuribayashi's 17-year-old son, Yoshiyuki, had his fill.
"They have been watching the media for such a long time, it was worrying them," said Kuribayashi, who speaks fluent English. "My son would turn the channel because it [was] too much for him to handle. They were running away from reality. But that's because they're kids. I couldn't blame them. On television, everything was about the tsunami, the broken houses and the fire."
High school students at Keio graduate into the university, which is Japan's oldest institution of higher learning. Keio's team has visited Baltimore before, as recently as two years ago. Because there are so few high school lacrosse teams in Japan, Keio plays in a league with college teams, and this year advanced from the third division to the second division.
"There's very little time in Japan for lacrosse at the scholastic level and below because the focus is on academics, getting into the best university you possibly can," said Steve Stenersen, president of U.S. Lacrosse, who exchanged gifts with the Japanese team Friday.
"[But] the game has exploded intercollegiately there. They've got some 15,000 college players, men and women, in Japan."
Stenersen said that of the near 40 member-nations of the International Lacrosse Federation, Japan ranks third behind the United States and Canada in number of players.
"Their national teams are really tough to play," he said, "just because they're so fast, so quick. And they're fun to watch. ... When they play on the field, they go a million miles an hour."