The Japanese men’s national team hasn’t qualified for the Olympic tournament since the 1976 Games in Montreal. Recent international results have been dismal. “They get beat by everyone in Asia,” Sojourner says. He has seen the problems firsthand—Japanese youth players without the proper fundamentals, the basic skills to succeed.
Hoping to initiate change at a grassroots level, Sojourner founded SoJo’s Foundation in 2007, while still playing for the Five Arrows. He invited young fans to Arrows games, then chatted with them afterward. The foundation grew to include special youth clinics, summer camps and private basketball lessons. “The purpose of creating SoJo’s Foundation was to expand the horizons of Japanese youth through the beautiful sport of basketball, and to give them the tools to be a successful basketball player,” says the organization’s website. “Japanese youth have a sincere interest in basketball; however, they lack the guidance and support to be truly great at it. SoJo’s Foundation hopes to help fill that void.”
Because Sojourner had acted independently, Takamatsu management immediately tried to undermine the program, he says. It became a frustrating battle—Sojourner tried to do his own thing, but the Five Arrows never backed him. “They just didn’t like it, ‘cuz they didn’t think of it first,” he adds. Takamatsu resented his unilateral decision-making, his outspokenness, his willingness to ruffle feathers. He is an opinionated man, and when he believes in something he’s not afraid to speak his mind. Sojourner’s goals were to improve and promote the game, to incite a “basketball revolution,” but without Takamatsu’s support SoJo’s Foundation never realized its full potential.
He was eventually traded back to Saitama in 2009. By that time the Broncos had left the JBL and joined the BJ-League. Sojourner was a valuable part of the team, but an elbow injury slowed him down. Japanese pro contracts are year-by-year—something that had always irked Sojourner and other foreign players—and Saitama didn’t renew his deal for the following season. His career had reached its endpoint.
Sojourner was living in Tokyo when the catastrophic earthquake struck Japan last March. Quakes were common on the islands, an insidious force of nature he had experienced before, but the March tremor was on a far larger, far deadlier scale. “We were just shaking from side to side,” Sojourner recalls. “It was the longest, the biggest, the worst earthquake I had ever been in.” He was uninjured, but thousands of Japanese died in the quake and the tsunami that followed.
Not long after the earthquake, early this summer, Sojourner returned to his natal land and found a place in Springfield, where he now lives with his girlfriend, Sarah, and 3-month-old daughter, Natalya. He is busy in Oregon, though sometimes he gets restless. Sojourner got the Thurston High School JV job, and also runs a girls’ club program. Teaching young women the rudiments of the game, he preaches fundamental skills, defense, rebounding and hustle—his father’s old lessons.
Compared to NBA or European players, Sojourner pocketed very little money as a professional ballplayer (never more than 50 grand for a season). “It wasn’t profitable. It wasn’t something I’m going to retire on,” he says.
But he doesn’t regret the journey. From New Hampshire to Utah to Saitama to Takamatsu, his was a long and challenging road. He was a true sojourner, in name and in practice, and he lived the itinerant life of a basketball nomad. There were ups, downs, failures and successes. If he had the choice, he would probably do it all again.
“I’m very thankful for the experience and the opportunity,” Sojourner says, “to live your dream.”
