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MN: Now I'm gonna skip to your, after you get out of Poston and you return to Redlands and you went into Redlands High School, and then your sophomore year in 1946 you were on the high school track team, and who was your coach at the time?

RW: Well, the one year we, our coach was Payton Jordan. That was when he pretty much graduated college, I think he went to USC, and he came to RHS because he was a close friend of another coach/teacher there. So he was our track coach before he went after Redlands High School to coach at Occidental College, I believe Stanford. One of the things about him was he was, he would teach us all the aspects of track, whatever we were participating in, and I happened to be running the low hurdles and high hurdles. One track meet against Riverside I got a good start and I was leading right up to the last hurdle, and my foot just kind of clipped the last hurdle and I half stumbled so then I lost the race, I don't think he was too happy with me 'cause he pretty much ignored me after that. He would hardly talk to me, but I don't blame him. It was just a miscue on my part and all coaches, if they're coaching someone in track they're coaching 'em to win. They're not coaching 'em just to run. So that was my downfall, but he was a good coach and most of us were in touch with him. He was in touch with my brother Hank 'cause Hank had met him before during junior high school before World War II, and Jordan was in contact with a lot of the Redlands High School students.

MN: Then he went on to coach the Olympic team, is that right?

RW: Yes, he went on to coach the Olympics too, as well. Wasn't too long after that.

MN: Would you describe him as a very demanding coach?

RW: No, I don't, I wouldn't consider him a demanding coach. I just think he was a very dedicated coach and I don't think he was, it was, whether it was a high school or college, it didn't matter. He was dedicated to teaching, and he was teaching us how to master whatever event we were in. And he did a good job. I think he taught me a lot. It's kind of unusual for a shorter Japanese American to run high hurdles, but he taught me how to get over 'em quickly, and so I think he was a very good and dedicated coach with not really harsh demands, just "do as I say," and if you did it he said you'd excel.

MN: You know, as one of the runners on track, were you considered shorter, because for Japanese American you're pretty tall.

RW: Well, I guess in high school I wasn't tall. I guess I should say wasn't short either, but then I wasn't extremely tall. However, I guess I was about five-ten, and I was very, very lanky, very thin. I think I only weighed about a hundred and thirty-five pounds through high school. Then, of course, when I went in the Marines I went up to about a hundred and fifty-five, so in high school I was a little taller. That's why I was able to make the varsity basketball team in my junior and senior years. In my senior year I was on the starting line up until I broke a finger playing touch football with some of the Japanese guys in Riverside. When I broke my finger, that didn't make the basketball coach too happy and that's kind of when I lost my starting position.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.