With his latest Olympian guiding him, 96-year-old judo coach Yoshihiro Uchida scaled the steps of the San Jose State gym that bears his name Saturday, as more than 100 national competitors smacked the mats beneath them.
“You should ask them about getting escalators for this building. I’m tired of all these stairs,” Marti Malloy, a 2012 bronze medalist headed for the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro this summer, joked to her coach at this weekend’s National Collegiate Judo Association championships. Malloy had the day off from training Saturday to help coach San Jose State’s team.
“Did you get your exercise today? You don’t even have to work out,” Uchida shot back, grinning.
A smackdown with a smile is not uncommon from the man they endearingly call “Yosh,” said Malloy and other Olympians who returned to the humble San Jose gym for the 56th annual championship.
This year’s competition in the nation’s collegiate judo program — which Uchida created — is yet another highlight of his stunning national and international career. Before Saturday, the San Jose State team had won 49 of 55 national championships. So when the team tied Saturday with West Point Military Academy, it claimed its 50th title.
At the 1964 Tokyo games, Uchida brought the first U.S. judo team to the Olympics, where 19 of his athletes have since competed.
Malloy, 29, the second woman in U.S. Olympic history to earn a medal in judo, is ranked the fourth-best female judo athlete in the world. She will likely be joined in Rio by another San Jose State grad, 24-year-old Colton Brown, an Olympic hopeful expected to qualify in the coming weeks.
On Saturday, Uchida cheerfully shuffled between media interviews, photo sessions and his regular daily post at the side of the judo mat, his students bowing as he passed.
Asked to describe how he launched collegiate judo in the U.S., he said: “You have to apply the right technique at the right time. It’s the building of character. And don’t be foolish because you might get hurt.”
Uchida, who grew up in Orange County, decided to move to San Jose in 1946 after the second World War. Yet he struggled to find work and a place to stay, even though he had served in the Army.
“They wouldn’t hire me because I was Japanese,” he recalled. “But I said, that’s a bunch of bull. It made me more and more determined.”
The world-class judo program at San Jose State– which is not part of the National Collegiate Athletic Association but is supported through donations and alumni with use of the school’s facilities — was borne of that determination. The dojo at Yoshihiro Uchida Hall on campus is in the same building where decades ago Japanese-Americans were processed before being sent to internment camps, including members of Uchida’s family.
“To show the American public that I was as American as they were,” Uchida said, he decided to focus on coaching in a country that is far slower than the rest of the world to fully embrace the dramatic sport of judo, with its chokeholds, leg locks and pinning techniques.
On Saturday, former Olympians came to the championships from their homes across the country to celebrate Uchida’s birthday the day before — and prospects in this year’s Olympics.
“Even today, when Yosh says ‘Hey we’ve got an event today, can you come?’ you don’t say ‘Oh, I’ve got something else.’ You come,” Paul Maruyama, celebrated author and member of Uchida’s first U.S. Olympic team, said with a laugh.
At Uchida’s side Saturday was Ben Nighthorse Campbell, a former U.S. senator from Colorado who, like other former athletes, calls Uchida his “surrogate father.”
The 82-year-old Campbell said his mentor gave him strength as a younger man when he faced discrimination as a Native American, and continues to inspire him. “We’re getting older and Yosh he’s stayed the same!” he said.
Campbell and others also marveled at the fact that a third of the judo athletes competing Saturday were women. In his era, the sport was all male.
To date, American women have won three Olympic medals in judo.
Malloy hopes to make it four, she said Saturday. “I’m qualified by a long shot, I’m in great health and I’ve never been better than I am now,” she said. “I’m ready to give a show you’ve never seen before.”
Uchida vows to be at her side.
Despite failing eyesight, he remains in good health, still attends daily practices and travels with the team, said his longtime assistant, Jan Masuda Cougill.
When Uchida took a tumble at his Saratoga home recently, he fell but did so gracefully, coming up in a judo roll.
“He was with Marti in 2012 in London,” Cougill said. “And God willing, he hopes to be in Rio de Janeiro with Marti in 2016.”
Contact Karen de Sá at 408-920-5781.
