<Begin Segment 18>

MN: Now, you had mentioned earlier that were not prepared academically to go to college and you had to go to high school, and your other football teammates also had to go to high school.

RN: My other friend?

MN: Your other teammates, your football teammates. You were not the only one that went to high school, right?

RN: There were two other white guys from back East that had to go back to high school, just the two of them. But they made 'em up, their credit, in, on the university somehow. They got by somehow. But my case, I had to go back to high school during the, when I was there, and attend two classes.

MN: Now, while you were on the team, did you suffer any injuries? [RN shakes head] Then you got cut after two years?

RN: Two or three years.

MN: Why did, why did they cut you off?

RN: 'Cause I, well, because for one thing, I wasn't able to make the first team. I was on the squad, but they got new players coming in all the time so they know that I would never make the first team. I would be a benchwarmer, so they cut you off. That's all there is to it. The other Japanese guy, Harry, he got cut off the same time I did, and others, other white guys, same, they came when I entered and they got cut off. I don't know how many there were. You don't know how many 'cause you just talk to the ones that you hear about. There's a, there was a number of them, maybe three or four in those days, so it's, it was very simple, anyway.

MN: So when you got cut off what did you do, once you got cut off?

RN: When I got cut off I went to work, like I told, I went to work in a sawmill and then I worked, I went up to the salmon cannery to work for the summer. And when I come back I got that cash in my hand, two hundred and, three hundred and fifty or something like that, money I saved. In those days I didn't give my, I didn't give my folks no money for living there. When I came back to Seattle, I mean from Alaska, I gave 'em a lump sum. Naturally I have to give 'em something. But they told me, "Keep your money and buy your own clothes and everything, your own expenses," see. So anyway, I went, what happened was after University of Washington cut me off and I went to work to raise money, I wrote a letter to the coach at Washington University, Washington State college, and he answered me. He said okay, you can come to school here and you can turn out for the football team. If you can make the squad, the team, the squad, if you can cut it we'll give you a scholarship. So I took the chance; in the fall I went back to Washington State and he gave me a uniform and I went to practice there, and at the, at the end of spring practice in February he gave me, they gave me a scholarship. I made the squad. So in the fall, he said, "Now in the fall you come back you'll be on the squad and we'll pay your tuition and everything." But by that time, after the spring practice, that's when my father passed away, see. So I quit school and went back to Seattle. And then from Seattle I came down here, 'cause my father's gone and my brother, he had a business but he sold the business, and so my mother and my younger sister stayed in Seattle until she finished high school. Then by that time I had come down to here to work 'cause my sister told my, my married sisters told me, "Come on down here and you can get a job at the market." But anyway, that's why I didn't go back to school, even though I had a scholarship waiting for me I didn't go back.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.