Itchy Japanese wrestlers pay for sordid holiday

By Ryann Connell
February 11, 2005

Maybe it was the sores that started spouting all over the young men's faces. Perhaps it was the sudden predilection to furiously scratch the pubic region that they had all seemed to have developed. Then again, it could well have been the screams of agony that pierced the air whenever one of them went off to take a leak.

Whatever it was, the wrestling team coach at the posh Tokyo University of Agriculture knew that something was seriously amiss among his charges and his suspicions proved to be absolutely spot on, according to Shukan Shincho.

Nodai, as the college is referred to colloquially, boasts a proud history in the annals of Japanese university wrestling competition and its 40 years of existence have allowed it to build up an old boy's association numbering well over 2,000 members.

Yet an embarrassing, university-funded overseas trip a few years ago that came to light only recently has now placed the Nodai wrestlers up with the other college sports teams caught up in highly publicized sex scandals over the past few months.

"It was a two-week trip to South Korea in March. They went with wrestling teams from other colleges and stayed in camps there. And the wrestling team members used the time to go and use hookers," a member of the team's old boys association tells Shukan Shincho. "When they came back to Japan, a coach noticed that there was something strange about the bodies of many of those who'd made the trip. They'd all developed sores on their faces, were constantly scratching their balls and complaining about how much it hurt to take a whizz. The coach sent them off to see a doctor, who confirmed they had all been given a dose of the clap. When the coach asked one of the team members how it had happened, the wrestler admitted the afflicted had all been hanging out with prostitutes in Korea."

And it wasn't just the wrestlers who'd been hooking up with hookers. Their coaches had also gone in for a bit of a different sort of grappling, too, as well as the man who was supposed to be acting as a chaperone, according to the Old Boy.

"One of the wrestlers said they had gone to a famous red light district in Seoul. Some of the wrestlers only went three or four times during the two-week trip. One of the team members said they had used a condom on his first visit, but had been told he wouldn't need one after that, so had ridden bareback on subsequent trips," the Old Boy says.

Team alumni were outraged, discussing the misuse of university money to fund women of the night and the medical costs of paying for those pleasures. Team coaches and managers were called before the Old Boys Association to explain their side of the story.

"One of the managers admitted using the whores, but denied there was anything wrong in what had happened. He said the players had only picked up a venereal disease because they had been tight-fisted and used cheap hookers, whereas he had used a high-class girl call and emerged unscathed," an alumni association insider tells Shukan Shincho. "The manager lashed out at the old boys, telling them that he shouldn't be expected to foot the blame when it was common practice among college sports teams from across the country to do the same sort of thing."

Another old boys association insider says one of the team members received a pair of knickers from one of the Korean prostitutes and that they had been nailed to a wall of the team's clubrooms until they were ripped down as the incident threatened to bring out even more serious repercussions than the clap.

Suddenly, though, team members' and coaches' mouths were all clapped shut. Now, the manager supposed to have admitted to the carnal carousing denies anything of the sort ever took place.

College officials are at a loss.

"We've heard about the story from the team's Old Boys," Yukimichi Koizumi, a spokesman for the college, tells Shukan Shincho. "We asked the team manager and coaches about it, but they denied anything had ever happened, so we brought the matter to a close. I realize the investigation might seem a little shoddy, but there's really not much more we can do about it."

Comment on this story, click here.

Copyright 1999-2004, Mainichi Shimbun.  All rights reserved.  No content may be reproduced in whole or part without written permission.  Please contact us via the link below for re-print and syndication policies.