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SU: Then also during our growing-up days, we had what we called the Courier League.

BK: Could you tell us more about that? What is --

SU: It was, see, Jimmie Sakamoto and his wife had started this English-written newspaper. Once a week it came out. He had -- he was a pugilist. And he'd got blinded when he was boxing in New York City. So he had to come home. This was his home, Seattle. And he had married a lady from Tottori, from the same ken. So we know them quite well. And they started this Courier League in conjunction with their newspaper. And the league consisted of football games, baseball, basketball, according to the season. And a man named George Ishihara, who was Jimmie's friend, helped in organizing this tremendous group of hundreds of kids in various activities. Like for instance, like just basketball team. It wasn't just one team representing one church, like the Baptist church had basketball team, boys' basketball team. The top ones were called High Stars, and we had Meteors, Sparklers, all those things. They were all made up of different age groups. And then we had also what we called the girls' team. And the girls' team, I joined them when I was fifteen. And I have a picture of them. We had Mac Kaneko as our coach, and his wife-to-be at that time designed our cos -- suit --

BK: Uniforms.

SU: Uniform, I guess. And we had to have our mothers make it for us. It's trunks. No bloomers. By that time, we were able to wear trunks with little bib on it. Isn't that an odd uniform? But we got to be in the girls' basketball team -- I mean, league. The WWGs used to get a lot of championship, and even in the year that I was in.

BK: What does WWG stand for?

SU: Oh, my, you have to be a Baptist. Worthwhile Girls of the Worldwide Guild Working with God for the Whole World's Good. See, WWG.

BK: Wonderful. Yes. Excellent.

SU: So, and then the boys, they were in the league. And so many of the men, now, tell me, if it weren't for these teams where they had to play so hard and work so hard, practice, it got them out of mischief. They couldn't, they didn't have time for any mischief. So a lot of people were influenced by the league.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.