Coach Yoshihiro “Yosh” Uchida helped make judo an international sport, and spearheaded the revitalization of his hometown neighborhood.

By Diane Solomon and Urla Hill

San Jose State University’s “Speed City” era of the late 1960s is remembered for the iconic image of SJSU runners John Carlos and Tommie Smith raising their fists at the 1968 Olympics. But Speed City was about more than track and field. Hardcore sports fans worldwide remember the championship boxing of Julius Menendez, and the historic judo champions of Coach Yoshihiro “Yosh” Uchida. 

Uchida helped turn judo from an unknown martial art into a US national and Olympic team sport, and made SJSU a championship Judo powerhouse. He then turned a small medical lab into a multi-million dollar fortune that he used to revitalize San Jose’s deteriorated Japantown . 

Uchida, who turned 90 on April 1, still coaches State’s judo team, a team that’s won forty-five out of this sport’s forty-seven US national championships. 
A remarkably modest and self-effacing man, Uchida reluctantly agreed to chat with Metro about judo, Japantown and the challenges that faced San Jose’s Japanese Americans before and after World War II. Getting him to talk about this and his accomplishments was about as easy as throwing a gorilla. 

How did you learn Judo?

Our parents felt that we didn’t have any Japanese culture because we went to American schools, and everything was American. So women and girls were taught tea ceremony, dancing and flower arranging and the men and boys were taught kendo, sumo, and judo. It was never a sport but a self-defense type thing. 

How did you get started coaching judo at SJSU?

In 1940 I transferred from Fullerton Junior college in Southern California as a chemical engineering student and joined the wrestling team. There was a fellow, Mel Bruno teaching self defense. When he decided to go into the service he asked me if I’d help continue this course. So that’s how I became the coach. Then in 1941 Pearl Harbor started, I got drafted and that was the end of the Judo program. 

After I got out of the military in 1946 I returned to finish my degree. The director of the police school, Willard Schmidt, remembered me from before the War and wanted the police school students to learn martial arts and self defense. So the athletic director, Tiny Hartranft, asked me if I would start this Judo program again. 

I was the first Asian hired by SJS to teach. One of the tough things was the students were all veterans and they had all served in Guadalcanal or Saipan or someplace like that. There was almost hatred by my first group of students toward Japan, even though I’d been in the service, too. 

One of the students, a 240-pound football player, came up to me during roll call and said, “What are you going to do with guys like me? We practiced bayoneting guys like you! That’s how we got our early morning exercise! What are you going to do when I pick you up and do this?” 

He picked me up and started to whirl me around and whirl me around and pretty soon I was horizontal with the mat. When he let me down, without hesitation I just dumped him because I knew he was off balance. And when I landed I turned around to the class, who were just shocked, and said, “Well, this is Judo!” And that’s how I got started. 

Why make Judo a Sport?

In 1947 students were coming to me and saying, ‘I go down to the Civic Center and they have fights going on. The boxers take a Judo guy and just sock ‘em and that’s it, and the wrestlers just knock ‘em over. Why should I take judo?’ 

When I heard this I went to see a friend of mine, Henry Stone. He was the director of physical education at the University of California Berkeley and that carried a lot of prestige. He said judo is a martial art not a sport and as long as there’s no governing body over judo, you can’t stop these guys from putting on all these expositions. The way you make judo a sport is you have to talk with the Amateur Athletic Union, which is the governing body for US sports, and if they recognize you as a sport, then you can do something about it. 

So we started a weight class system of 130 pounds, 150 pounds and 180 pounds and a heavy weight. It’s been changed since then. They said “Judo is a martial art, its not supposed to be a sport with weight classes.” So I said, “Look if you want everybody to practice Judo you’ve have to do this.” In 1953 it officially became an AAU sport and the first AAU National Judo Championship was held at SJS. You really feel proud that you’ve accomplished something that people felt that you couldn’t do because changing to the weight system was almost impossible. 

When we started there were only about 60 countries that were practicing Judo. Today it’s being practiced all over the world. I think one of the reasons it became an AAU and an Olympic sport was because of the weight system. Everyone thinks Japan spread it, but Japan was against the weight system. We really were the ones who pushed it. 

What was it like here for Japanese Americans after the war?

I couldn’t find a job when I graduated in 1947 because I didn’t look the part of a college graduate. Somehow they thought that being a Japanese I wouldn’t be able to do the job or there was still a lot of hatred here. I’d apply for a job and they’d say “we just filled that position’ or they’d say “we don’t hire Japanese,” and of course having spent four years in the service I was just furious. 

But I had good friends too. Sam Della Maggiore [who later became a Santa Cara County Supervisor] was SJS’s wrestling coach. He went to a friend at O’Connor Hospital who helped me get my first job as a medical lab technician on the late night shift. I moved from O’Connor to Doctors Hospital then to San Jose Hospital. 

While I was at San Jose Hospital I decided to go further and the only way to get higher level lab work was to have a higher certificate so I took public health tests and I became a Public Health Lab Tech. Then an opportunity arose to buy my own laboratory. That’s how I got started. 

Why did you find investors, form the San Jose Nihomachi Corp., and build the Miraido Village Apartments?

Japantown was really run down. It was just an area that you would not want to go live in. If anyone wanted to hide, that was a good place to hide [Laughs.] 

In 1990 I visited Japantown one evening and I told the friends I was with, “Look at this. It’s 6 o’clock and this place is dead. No one wants to come down here because it’s dirty, there are homeless people living in the old factories and warehouses, and there’s graffiti all over.” So I told a few of my friends, “Why don’t we pull our resources together and see if we can clean this place up.” 

At first, we didn’t get the city involved because it wasn’t something the city was interested in. The city at that time was only interested in downtown development. But eventually we convinced the right political people to have a clean and safe community. I made a couple of trips with mayors Tom McEnery and Susan Hammer to Asia, and pointed out to them how they had retail underneath and living quarters upstairs, and said this is what we need in Japantown. They agreed, but getting it done was the hard part. 

Now it has nice condos and apartments, it’s very clean, safe, and people enjoy living there. This makes it a real community that you could be proud of.

https://www.sanjose.com/japantown-hero-a28821

Apr 21, 2010