The Meiji University-Affiliated Nakano and Hachioji Intermediate and High Schools (3)

Ogawa: My advisor is scary when he gets mad: "I'm telling you this for your own good. You can drop out all you like. If you don't want to get faster, then quit. You decide."

Takehazama: I'd probably prefer that way of talking, though.

Kawakami: The upperclassmen in my club got good scores in competition, but now our performance level has completely fallen off. When the previous class graduated, the teacher walked out on us. We've said, "Come out to the club and work with us,", but the reply we get is "If you're not willing to do what it takes, then neither am I".

Noguchi: Once, when I was in a club, it seemed that our faculty advisor wasn't doing it because he wanted to. One was like, "I'm important, so it doesn't matter," and another one said, "I really wanted to be advisor for the rugby team." Both of them stayed away, and if the upperclassmen hadn't taken charge and organized things, we wouldn't have had a club.

Kawakami: Even if we really work at it, we lose interest if the teachers don't show any interest themselves. The teachers blame it on us for not having any real interest ourselves, though.

Takehazama: In my club, the advisor was on fire. When we won a meet, he'd say that it was because he took us on.

All: (laughter) "We're Not Doing It Just to Win"

Takehazama: He just gets into it all by himself. And then sometimes he didn't want to do it, no matter what anyone said. That's what he was really like.

Anno: Sounds like a teacher of extremes.

Takehazama: Which is why we turned on him. We're not doing it to win.

Kawakami: You're only young once, right? Get the teachers and students together, at least in the clubs.

Takehazama: That just isn't going to work.

Kawakami: Well, if teachers and students both get into it, and give it their all, then there's a sense of accomplishment even if they don't do well in competition. There's no reason to regret that. Wouldn't that be the way to mark your youth?

Takehazama: That's the way I'd like to go.

Ogawa: They say, if you practice your times will improve, and if you want to improve your times, you have to practice. But if that were true, then everyone in the country would be Number One.

All: (laughter)

Ogawa: The most important thing is whether you've got talent for something. I think what the world needs is people who can make other people aware of their talents. I used to have fun. I could go out six days a week, no absences. Now I can barely get worked up enough for four days a week, and that's with the thought of my advisor getting mad if I'm absent. "You're Glad When You Get Good"

Noguchi: The Art Club has it easy in that respect. You have to draw when you feel like it if you want to make anything decent, so if you don't want to draw, the advisor says "Fine".

Kawakami: That's ideal. All we do in my club is practice. But that's how it has to be in sports.

Sone: But you're glad when you get good, right?

Anno: That's because in sports, you're always after the results. The numbers. You do it to be the best in the world, but there can only be one world's best. I don't know whether that teacher is good or bad, but he's got his good and bad points. The problem is, after-school clubs aren't set up to make you the best in the world.

Kawakami: The best thing is when you can do what you enjoy.

Anno: If you enjoy running, then that should be good enough, and so long as improving scores or times comes after that, then it may be OK.
(To Be Continued)

(From the April 16, 1998 edition of Mainichi Intermediate School News)