Katsumi Miyaji


Katsumi Miyaji is a former rugby union player and coach. He played as a prop.

Career

After attending Shijonaga High School, Miyaji headed to Doshisha University. In his university enrollment days, he joined at the second Japanese Association invited NHK Cup along with Yoshihiro Sakata and other players, winning against Kintetsu and virtually took part in rugby. Later, he got a work in Sanyo Tokyo. Also, he took part in the Japan national rugby union team, with which he participated in the Asian championship in 1969, during the match against Hong Kong and won 1 cap.
After his retirement, he became the coach of Japan twice in 1978 and 1984. And after the resignation of his predecessor Hitoshi Oka, he took the lead for the third time as head coach for the Japan national team in the 1987 Rugby World Cup, taking the command during the tournament. Then, he took over as coach for Sanyo. Every year in the same period, he fought a nomination against Kobe Steel, which won most in Japan at that time. However, at Sanyo Electric, through the players ad the coaching period, as he was not able to achieve the victory in the National Company Championship, he was known as "a Coach of Agony". Currently he runs a landscaping business, as well, he works on the development of Panasonic Wild Knights' training ground.
Nobuhiro Baba, the original author of the TV dorama School☆Wars is a junior student in Shijonaga High School and has been providing a large number of rugby-related materials for writing his work.

Anecdotes