<Begin Segment 17>

MN: What year did you graduate from high school?

RN: '35. 1935.

MN: Were you planning to go to college?

RN: I didn't, I wasn't planning to go to college. That's why I had a difficult time, because when you plan to go to college, even now or even in those days, even in those days you had to have so many high school credits to go to college. Well, I'm a very poor student and I barely finished high school. I just took algebra one or geometry one, just one, primary. When you go to college you got to have algebra two or three, or geometry or something three or four, so I had to go back to high school, couple classes so I can get my college entrance. Not only me but a lot of other football players that had scholarships from back East, they didn't have, they were like me. They had to go back to some high school to get their high school credits.

MN: How many scholarships were you offered?

RN: Well, I don't want you to write down all that 'cause it... I was offered, well, four, but it was two major colleges and from two minor, smaller colleges, something similar to here. But up Seattle they had these minor colleges. One was, like they say, called College of Puget Sound, and another one. Then I had one from Washington State and one from University of Washington. There was another Japanese with me; he went to another high school in Seattle and we were good friends. Him and I both got the scholarships and then, but after about, after the second year, actually third year, the second year, anyway, they cut it off.

MN: Which university scholarship did you accept?

RN: I went to University of Washington because they offered me a scholarship but only for my, they didn't offer me a place to stay and live on account of, like the, from out of town because, well, you live in town, you live in Seattle and University of Washington's in Seattle so you can stay home, but your scholarship will pay for your tuition, your books, your travel and all that. That's why. But that only lasted for two years, see, two and a half years or something like that. Then they, I wasn't good enough so they cut me off. It's not like now, you get a scholarship you're guaranteed four years whether you make the team or not. If you make the squad you still get it, but up there, heck no. If you can't cut it, the first, on the first team or something like that, they cut you off, and when they cut you off they don't give you a penny to go home. All those, those days lot of those white players that come, a lot of them came from Texas and back East, and they got cut off. If you can't make the first team or the top squad team they cut you off and they don't give you nothin'. Lot of those guys in those days, they all hitchhiked home. I remember two of my friends I made, they were from Texas, they hitchhiked home. Said, "We ain't got no money to go home." They hitchhiked. In those days hitchhiking was legal and everybody used to hitchhike. Even I used to hitchhike a lot of places. But now it's illegal. But it was pretty rough in those days.

MN: How did your parents feel about you getting a football scholarship?

RN: What?

MN: How did your parents feel about you getting a football scholarship?

RN: They don't know nothing about that, and I just tell 'em I'm goin' to university.

MN: I want you to brag a little. You, you did mention the fourth college that you got a letter from. What's that fourth university?

RN: Well, University of Washington, Washington State, which is a state college which is two hundred miles away, then two smaller, one was College of Puget Sound, which is a small two-year, two- or three-year college, I don't know. The other one I forgot what the name was. It was, it was around Tacoma somewhere, suburb of Seattle.

MN: Didn't you get a letter from Notre Dame?

RN: I never got a, I never got a letter. It was something else I got. I forgot what it was. I forgot what it was I got.

MN: So you said there was one more Japanese American on the University of Washington football team, other --

RN: What?

MN: You said there was one more Japanese American.

RN: Yeah, yeah. He went to a different high school in Seattle. He was good. Yeah, he was, well, he was an all star in Seattle, just like me, and he was, he was bigger than me. But anyway, we, he was a star in his high school. But his family's all gone. Too bad, 'cause he had a bad heart.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.