TOKYO SUMMER OLYMPICS
At 101, judo coaching great Yosh Uchida still isn’t done helping Olympians
Prolific judo coach Yosh Uchida still heads San Jose State’s storied program 70 years after assuming the post.(San Jose State Athletics Archives)
BY JORGE CASTILLO STAFF WRITER
JULY 25, 2021 5 AM PT
TOKYO — Yosh Uchida made a promise to Colton Brown in 2016, right after Brown competed in judo for the United States at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics: Qualify for the 2020 Games in Tokyo and I’ll be there.
Attending the Tokyo Olympics would have closed a circle for Uchida. The son of Japanese immigrants and raised in Orange County, he was the U.S. judo team’s coach at the Games in 1964, when the sport made its Olympic debut in its birthplace. The city, the country, the martial art supplied him more than a lifetime’s worth of memories.
Uchida was 96 years old in 2016. He would be a centenarian by the next opening ceremony. People his age usually don’t make plans four years in advance. But Uchida reached his 100th birthday in April 2020 and bought his ticket to the Nippon Budokan to fulfill his pledge.
The COVID-19 pandemic postponed the Games a year. Still, Uchida, at 101, was ready to make the long journey to watch Brown — until spectators were banned from most Olympic venues.
The gut punch precluded what would have been a fitting conclusion to Uchida’s international judo life.
Over decades, through tireless advocacy, he became the godfather of judo in the United States, and he still heads San Jose State’s storied program 70 years after assuming the post.
He pushed for the implementation of weight classes in the sport, a necessary step for inclusion in the Olympics, and helped bring about its breakthrough on the international scene. He’s received both the Order of the Sacred Treasure and the Order of the Rising Sun from the Japanese government for his work.
But five years after his Rio de Janeiro promise, Uchida will be stuck thousands of miles away at home in Northern California while Brown, the 17th of his San Jose State pupils to reach the sport’s top competition, takes the mat Wednesday in the men’s 90-kilogram weight class. Uchida hopes to watch the match on television.
“I’m going to be glued to it,” Uchida said, “unless it’s late.”
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Uchida wore a blue San Jose State Spartans jacket over a black sweater in his living room for a recent video call. With the help of his assistant, he keenly relayed his thoughts and experiences. After spending a year inside his home, he was a seasoned Zoomer — more than 120 people joined him on a Zoom call to celebrate his 100th birthday, and he held classes on judo history during the pandemic. Finally, COVID-19 vaccinations have slowly expanded his bubble.
He had 15 people visit him for a backyard barbecue for his 101st birthday. His daughter traveled from Hawaii recently for the first time since the pandemic began, and he enjoyed his first meal at a restaurant in more than a year while she was in town. Japanese, of course.
Yosh Uchida founded the National Collegiate Judo Assn. in 1962 and coached the first U.S. Olympic judo team at the 1964 Tokyo Games.(San Jose State Athletics Archives)
“This man will not die of COVID,” said Jan Cougill, his assistant since 2008 and a family friend for 56 years. “He will die from boredom if we don’t get socialization.”
Uchida was born in Calexico in 1920, two years after the deadliest pandemic in modern history ravaged the country, and raised in Garden Grove. His father grew strawberries and tomatoes. His mother pushed him into judo when he was 10 years old.
“I was a Nisei, born in the United States,” Uchida said, “and she wanted me to know something about Japanese culture.”
He attended San Jose State before he was drafted for World War II and sent to segregated military camps in the Midwest while his family was split among Japanese incarceration camps. He served for four years and married his late wife, Mae, at the Poston prison camp in Arizona in 1943.
“My parents were in concentration camps because they were suspected of being spies,” Uchida said. “If you know my parents, they had very little education. They knew nothing about spying.”
He returned to San Jose State in 1946, finished his degree in biological science the next year and stayed at the school to coach the judo team.
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Japanese educator Kano Jigoro created judo, a system of unarmed combat, in 1882. Its origins can be traced to jujitsu. The participants — judoka — are taught to use an opponent’s force against them. The goal is to cleanly throw, pin or master the opponent. Strikes of any kind are not allowed. It is intended to train the mind and body.
Uchida was a small judoka, topping out at 5 feet 2, 135 pounds, but his presence off the mat stretched internationally. While establishing himself as a prominent businessman in the Japanese American community — he opened 41 medical laboratories in the Bay Area — he championed the sport he credits for cementing his identity.