A Story of Japanese American Athletes

Back in the days of 6-foot centers, two-handed set shots and three-man weaves, Wataru “Wat” Misaka--all 5 feet, 7 inches of him--emerged as a defensive standout on University of Utah basketball teams that captured two national championships.

He was the New York Knicks’ No. 1 pick in 1947, but was cut after only three games, ending his pro basketball career. Anti-Japanese sentiment after World War II may have had more to do with his short career than his playing ability.

Still, he made a mark.

He was the first nonwhite player in what was to become the National Basketball Assn. What’s more, there’s been no full-blooded Japanese American player since, said Misaka, now 76 and living in Bountiful, Utah.

Misaka’s name isn’t likely to spark much recognition, even among Japanese Americans. Olympic weightlifter Tommy Kono, Olympic swimmer Evelyn Kawamota and NCAA long-jump champion Hank Aihara fare little better.

Since 1885, however, when the first Japanese immigrants arrived in Hawaii, sports have been an important thread in the fabric of Japanese American life.

That fabric and the sports figures who helped weave it will be featured in a landmark exhibit, “More Than a Game: Sport in the Japanese American Community,” at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo. It opens today.

Aside from figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi, the 1992 Olympic gold medalist whose skates and costume will be on display, few Japanese American athletes are household names.

Harold Sakata, for instance, may be one of the best-known Japanese American athletes. But his fame comes from playing the sinister character Oddjob in the 1964 James Bond movie “Goldfinger,” not from winning a silver medal in weightlifting at the 1948 Olympics.

“There are many heroes who have made important contributions to sport and to their communities by overcoming insurmountable obstacles of discrimination, incarceration and resettlement,” said Brian Niiya, the exhibit’s curator. “To this day, sport plays a vital role in providing identity and connections within the Japanese American community.”

In California, an estimated 20,000 Japanese Americans--men and women--compete in basketball leagues sanctioned by the Nisei Athletic Union.

And baseball, first embraced by many Japanese in the 1890s before they immigrated to this country, is still contested in scores of athletic union leagues.

When those first Japanese arrived in Hawaii to work on sugar plantations, they organized a sumo wrestling match shortly after stepping off the boats.

Sumo and baseball merge into a metaphor for how Japanese and American culture influenced each other.

In the American context, sumo lost its religious and ceremonial overtones. Japanese American baseball in Hawaii adopted the sumo custom of giving star players bags of rice, miso or sake, among other gifts, Niiya said.

Sumo, though, virtually disappeared from the United States with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Japanese Americans living along the West Coast were rounded up and shipped to government internment camps.

“Sports were one of the things you could do to remind you of what life was like before,” Niiya said. “In many cases, entire teams all went to the same camp.”

One way out of the camps was to join the Army, and Japanese units became legendary for their performance in combat. Sports were a big part of the Nisei soldiers’ story as their baseball teams competed against other military units and local civilian teams.

“Part of that competition was getting respect,” said museum spokesman Chris Komai, who is also a Nisei Athletic Union board member. “It was like saying, ‘We’re just like you.’ ”

“More Than Just a Game” includes “a lot of real strong counter examples to the stereotype of Japanese American athletes,” Niiya said.

“The stereotype for Japanese American men is that they are nonathletic, physically smaller, bookish, intellectual, passive, nonconfrontational,” he said.

But the roster of Japanese American athletes includes “a whole bunch of boxers, football players, wrestlers, baseball players,” he said.

They are not always well known because they don’t compete at the highest levels of sport, Niiya said.

“They play for the love of the game,” Komai said of the basketball leagues. “This is their connection to the Japanese American community.”

Because basketball remains hugely popular among Japanese Americans, the exhibit will feature intergenerational free-throw contests today and Sunday.

Children who wear their team uniforms will be admitted free today to see judo, golf and martial arts demonstrations.

The weekend will also feature films and videos looking at the 70-year history of Japanese American basketball leagues, and profiles of past and present athletes.