It’s more than a sideline, featuring Raiderette Noriko

Dave, Midwest Correspondent | Jan 5, 2014

Today, photos of a true UltimateCheerleader, Noriko of the Oakland Raiderettes, with a few fun facts, designed to delight and amaze:

• Noriko is in her rookie season with the Raiderettes
• In fact, Noriko was named 2013 Raiderette Rookie of the Year!
• Only two Raiders have won the AP NFL Rookie of the Year Award: Marcus Allen (offense, 1982) and Charles Woodson (defense, 1998)
• The Oxford English Dictionary states that the origins of the term rookie are uncertain, but that perhaps it is a corruption of the word recruit. The earliest example from the OED is from Rudyard Kipling’s Barrack-Room Ballads (published 1892)
• Kipling is best known for his works of fiction, including The Jungle Book
• Kipling travelled all over the world, including Japan
• Noriko is from Japan and has lived in the US for six years
• The end of December and the beginning of January are the busiest times for the Japan’s post offices, due to the Japanese custom of sending New Year’s Day postcards to their friends and relatives
• At midnight on December 31, Buddhist temples all over Japan ring their bells a total of 108 times to symbolize the 108 human sins in Buddhist belief, and to get rid of the 108 worldly desires
• AC/DC’s “Hell’s Bells” is prominently played at Raiders games
• Raiderette Noriko’s first job was scooping ice cream at age 17
• Ice cream is a popular dessert in Japan, with almost two in five adults eating some at least once a week, according to a 2007 survey. The top four flavors are vanilla, chocolate, matcha (powdered green tea), and strawberry
• Japan is also known for unique ice cream flavors, including octopus, chicken wing, wasabi, shrimp, squid ink, and garlic
• The X-League is a professional American football league in Japan. Americans are often recruited to play for X-league teams, with a strict rule of 4 per team. No more than 2 non-Japanese players are allowed on the field of play per team
• According to their website, the cheerleaders for the X-league team, the Tokyo Gas Creators, were named 2013 cheerleaders of the year
• Noriko runs her own importing business, importing from the US to Japan
• Art Vandelay, the product of the fertile imagination of Seinfeld’s George Costanza , was an importer/exporter, who considered giving up exporting in the episode that George wanted to meet Marisa Tomei
• Marisa Tomei won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for My Cousin Vinny
• Rated as perhaps the best Asian-produced film ever, Tokyo Story is a 1953 Japanese film directed by Yasujirō Ozu. It is the story of an aging couple who visit their children, and contrasts the behavior of their children, who are too busy to pay them much attention, and their widowed daughter-in-law, who treats them with kindness. It is often regarded as Ozu’s masterpiece, and has appeared several times in the British Film Institute lists of the greatest films ever made.
• According to Google Translate, Football’s Fabulous Females in Japanese is サッカーの素晴らしい女性で (Sakkā no subarashī josei de)
• Congratulations Noriko on being the most Fabulous rookie!