<Begin Segment 13>

MN: I want to ask you about the sports clubs. What sports club did you belong to?

RN: Boys' club?

MN: Sports.

RN: When?

MN: Sports.

RN: When?

MN: When you were in Seattle.

RN: Well I'll tell you something about Seattle, in those days Seattle, Japanese were very condensed. There were quite a few Japanese compared to down here. But in there up in Seattle in those days they had the Nisei, or mostly Kibeis and Niseis, we had four, we'll say four major sports clubs. I belonged to one called Taiyo. Another one was called, what the hell'd they used to call that? One was called NAC, Nippon Athletic Club, NAC. Another one was called Lotus, which was all Buddhist. They were all made up of Buddhist members, young ones. Then they had another one, two more, one was called We're All Kibeis, the ones that came from Japan. You know, the war was gonna start pretty soon and all the families were calling their kids back from Japan, all the Nisei in, well you know what I mean, people that was, went to... what do you call, what do you call those people?

MN: Kibei.

RN: Kibeis. They had two clubs, the Kibeis. They speak nothing but Japanese. And there're all these different clubs, Wasedas, they all had sports programs. They all had baseball, football, and basketball. All year round we had different teams and we had our own Japanese leagues, different class. It was big in those days, very interesting. And all the Japanese that lived in the farmlands, outskirts of Seattle, like Bellevue, Yakima, Wapato, and there's two or three others, they all had their own athletic clubs and they all used to come into town on weekends to play sports, baseball. Basketball you can't play because they used to come in the weekends because weekends, weekdays they have to work and it's too far away. They're all about thirty miles away. But then they'll, on the outskirts of Seattle now, they don't have it now, but in those days places, the suburbs of Seattle, like they call 'em Kent, Auburn, Snohomish, and a couple others, all Japanese farms around there and they all had their athletic clubs, all Nisei. And they all used to come into Seattle to play sports on weekends. We used to dominate the Seattle athletic fields like you have down here. But up there the Japanese dominated those fields. Sports was big up there in those days.

MN: So did you play only with Japanese Americans or did you also play with the hakujin teams?

RN: In Seattle there was the Taiyos and the Nippons, they had older players. They participated in the Seattle white league, football and baseball, not basketball. They had, but the city of Seattle had their own city league, baseball, and the Japanese, the Nippon and the Taiyos, they're all the good players. They're all in their, well I wouldn't say thirties, but in those days in their early twenties. They would compete with the American teams. But then the Seattle, the younger ones, we had our own league, and we, it was big up there in Seattle.

MN: So when you were in the sports club you had to play all three games, basketball, baseball and football?

RN: If you belonged to, say, like I belonged to the Taiyos, the Taiyos had three levels of players, the real older ones, then the ones that are out of high school -- they were about in their early twenties -- then they had the ones that was in high school yet. They had three levels. They go by age. And they had three levels of play, and the older ones, the good ones, they used to get good players that used to play in the Seattle American league, white league, city league, baseball, mainly baseball. And football they used to play.

MN: Which sports were you strongest in?

RN: Me?

MN: Yeah.

RN: I used to play football, but I was no good in baseball or basketball. Basketball I was too fat, too slow. I used to belong to a team, but I would sit on the bench all the time and toward the end of the game when the score was big they'd put me in for one minute or so like that. The rest of the time I'd sit on the bench, so I finally quit. But baseball was the same way. I used to play baseball. We all, when you belong to a league you play all three sports. Some of the players are good in all three sports and some are only good in basketball, some are good in baseball. But I could play football, see, but baseball I couldn't play. I, they'd hit me the ball and then I'd, and jeez, like the ball'd go over my head, and I'd catch grounders that I couldn't hit. I was a slow swinger. I wasn't, I wasn't a good baseball player, and I was, like I say, I was too fat to play basketball. Although I suited up every game, I would go in there maybe for, at the end, one minute or so like that, so I quit. But I was good in football.

MN: What position did you play in football?

RN: I was a guard. See, I was, don't tell nobody, don't tell nobody, but in high school I was all city. I was all city, all star team in high school. Then I got a scholarship to go to college. I had a football scholarship to go to college. But football was big, and in high school I was, well, all city, all star for two years, but like football, you don't need no skill. You don't need no skill in football. Baseball and basketball you got to be skillful, but football you don't have to be skillful.

MN: You know, let me ask you, if you wanted to quit the Taiyos and go to another team --

RN: You couldn't do it. You would be ostracized. When you, when you join one team you don't quit and go to another club. They won't like it in the first place, and you, your name is mud. Nowadays it's different. Even up to about ten or fifteen years ago here in L.A. you can go from one club to another, they think nothing of it. But up in Seattle, oh boy, you belong to one club you don't go to another club. The Japanese loyalty, I guess, or something.

MN: Do you know how the Taiyos formed?

RN: Huh?

MN: How the Taiyos, that team, how it was organized? Who, how was your team created?

RN: Well, it's hard to say. Team like the Taiyos, they were created a long time ago. They'd just get together somehow and they had lots of teams. They all belonged to some team, and when the baseball season'd come we had all levels of hardball, and the funny thing, when, right before the, before the war started all the Kibeis were coming back to Seattle and they formed their own club and they formed their own baseball. They had about two teams from out in Japan. They, and they played with, I guess, the Nisei, but when they play against the Nisei they all speak Japanese. It's a funny thing, you hear one group speak nothing but English, speaking English, the Nisei people, but the ones from, Kibeis from Japan, they all speak in Japanese. And it was funny.

MN: Did you do any Japanese sports, like kendo or judo?

RN: Not me. I tried judo, but I quit. For a while, I'll tell you why quit. Some of my friends were in judo and they were pretty good at it, and they told me, 'cause I was gettin' big, pretty big, and so they asked me to come with them and join them 'em and learn judo, so I went with 'em one time. And Japanese are, they're funny. Well, they're not funny, but... so when they teach you, this guy, he's a Kibei, he's like a bully type. All those guys in kendo and judo, they're all bullies. So this guy, I knew who he was and I never did like him because he was, he was a bully, and he was like, was a Kibei. He went to Japan, got Japanese education and came back to this country, and he taught judo. Well anyway, I got there, he don't say nothin' to me and I didn't like his looks, but he grabbed me, boom, he kicked me, tripped me and threw me to the ground. I get up and, picked me up and hit me again. God damn, I got so mad, and he's supposed to be teaching me how to do it. Naturally, I can't speak Japanese and he's not, and he don't speak, he's not speaking at all. But he picks me up and grabs me and boom, I'm down. He's, he's teaching me, but to me he's not teaching me. And I was mad, so I went about two or three times, I quit. And to this day I, he's still livin' around here. He's an old guy, but I know who he is and to this day I say, that son of a so-and-so, I says. And he was the one that picked, used to pick me up back in 1935, around there. That's why I quit judo.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.