Although the moment is billed as a \u201cBlack Power\u201d protest, the medalists bore symbols of empathy on the dais: Carlos\u2019 tracksuit was unzipped in a show of solidarity with blue-collar workers, and the beads he wore represented those who had been hanged, killed, lynched and tarred. Smith held an olive branch as an emblem of peace and wore a black scarf for black pride. Both wore black socks, but neither wore shoes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Uchida, who turned 98 in April, remains impressed that Carlos and Smith \u201chad the courage to speak out against discrimination.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think it is important for the students to view the statue because [Smith and Carlos] are Americans, not just black people,\u201d said Uchida, who came to San Jose State as a student in 1940 and started coaching judo in 1941. \u201cWhen they went on the world\u2019s stage, they represented all of us as Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn judo, you help the weak. If you see someone in trouble, you stand up for them.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n After the 1968 Games, Smith and Carlos \u2014 the 200-meter gold and bronze medalists, respectively \u2014 faced backlash. After swift suspensions \u2014 International Olympic Committee president Avery Brundage argued that the sprinters \u201cviolated one of the basic principles of the Olympic Games: that politics play no part whatsoever in them\u201d \u2014 Smith and Carlos\u2019 memory languished for decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI thought what Smith and Carlos did took a lot of guts,\u201d Uchida said. \u201cI had seen how blacks in this country were treated. I knew how difficult it was for blacks to get access to apartments, and then, even after graduation from school, many times there were no jobs available.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As an American of Japanese ancestry, Uchida understands the fear, hatred and racism directed at Smith and Carlos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Uchida was a student on campus when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in December 1941, but he was drafted before President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, the directive ordering the removal of the Japanese from the West Coast to concentration camps in the U.S. interior in February 1942. Uchida\u2019s family was first sent to the War Relocation Authority\u2019s camp in Poston, Arizona, that spring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Uchidas, along with other Issei (first generation), Nisei (U.S.-born, second generation), Sansei (U.S.-born, third generation) and Kibei (born in the U.S. but educated in Japan), became known as \u201cno-no boys\u201d because of their responses to questions 27 (\u201cAre you willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat duty, wherever ordered?\u201d) and 28 (\u201cWill you swear unqualified allegiances to the United States of America and faithfully defend the United States from any or all attack by foreign or domestic forces, and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, or other foreign government, power or organization?\u201d) on a survey that internees were required to take.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During the early months of his family\u2019s internment, Uchida was transferred from Fort MacArthur Air Force Base in San Pedro, California, to Camp Robinson in Little Rock, Arkansas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe rode across the country by train with the shades pulled down,\u201d said Uchida, who, except for a trip to Japan as a baby during the 1920s, had never left California. \u201cOne of my friends needed to use the restroom once we arrived at the train station in Arkansas, but we didn\u2019t know which one to use. We had never seen signs that said \u2018colored.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOnce we started walking toward the \u2018colored\u2019 sign, someone told us, \u2018No, you use that over there,\u2019 pointing to the sign that said \u2018white.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Having grown up on his father\u2019s farm in rural Orange County, Uchida had yet to experience the type of discrimination on display in the South. He does, however, remember his Mexican classmates being sent to a new elementary school during the late 1920s. (The 1947 case Mendez v. Westminster would set the precedent for Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n After World War II, Uchida and the many other Japanese citizens who returned to the West Coast would experience housing and job discrimination. He and his young family eventually settled on the farm of Sam Della Maggiore, who once coached Uchida in wrestling at San Jose State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Uchida started coaching judo for the college\u2019s police academy soon after his arrival from Garden Grove, California, in 1940. His Spartans have since amassed 51 of the 56 National Collegiate Judo Association (NCJA) titles since the league\u2019s inception in 1962, and he became the first U.S. Olympic judo coach in 1964.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The actions of Uchida\u2019s brothers and many other Japanese-Americans better enabled Uchida\u2019s understanding of Harry Edwards\u2019 Olympic Project for Human Rights. Edwards, a 1964 graduate of San Jose State who returned there as a lecturer during the fall of 1967, had called for a boycott of the Spartans\u2019 1967 football season opener against the University of Texas-El Paso.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSomething like that had never happened before,\u201d Uchida said. \u201cIt was a first locally and nationally, and attracted the attention of [then-Gov.] Ronald Reagan.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the success of the Olympic Project for Human Rights, Edwards would define a list of demands for the U.S. Olympic Committee, including the restoration of Muhammad Ali\u2019s heavyweight boxing title, the hiring of more African-American coaches, the removal of South Africa and Rhodesia from the games and the removal of Brundage at the IOC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Smith and Carlos\u2019 standing at SJSU would eventually change, too, thanks to the curiosity of business major Erik Grotz. Once Grotz discovered the duo\u2019s connection to the university, he questioned why nothing had been placed on campus to honor them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In October 2002, 34 years after the medalists\u2019 stand on the dais, Alfonso De Alba, executive director of SJSU Associated Students, announced the university\u2019s intention to begin a fundraising campaign to build the statues. And in 2005, Portuguese political artist Rigo 23 unveiled the 23-foot statues of Smith and Carlos standing shoeless, each with a bowed head and a single, black-gloved fist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe saw the statue and Coach Uchida started explaining the story,\u201d Colton Brown, who served as team captain en route to three NCJA titles, said of his memory in 2010. \u201cWe even took a picture in front of it. After that, my dad bought a picture of it, framed it and put it in our house.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brown, who is now training in Boston in hopes of making the 2020 Olympic team, said Uchida\u2019s speech that day gave him a good sense of his character. \u201cOne thing that he said was, \u2018I could never get myself to hate a group of people after what happened to me as a Japanese-American.\u2019 I really respect that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Edwards and SJSU announced the Institute for the Study of Sport, Society and Social Change in 2017, Uchida required team members to attend the panel that featured athletic greats such as former Cleveland Browns running back Jim Brown and former Los Angeles Lakers center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt was mandatory,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n Uchida\u2019s experience on campus has added to his coaching philosophy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn judo, you help the weak,\u201d Uchida said. \u201cOur philosophy is to help people stay away from trouble if you can. If you see someone in trouble, you stand up for them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n What some might deem as most remarkable about Uchida is that he is legally blind but continues to coach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sophomore Laurel Zemke, who manages and competes for the team, visited SJSU after the Spartans traveled to Enumclaw High School in Washington state for a judo jamboree that was sponsored by a former Spartan. After meeting Uchida, she and her mother traveled to San Jose. She said it was the best decision she ever made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s hard to form bad habits because he is always looking,\u201d Zemke said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n SJSU graduate and four-time NCJA champion Marti Malloy agrees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t know how he does it, but he does,\u201d said Malloy, a bronze medalist at the Olympic Games in 2012. \u201cEven if it\u2019s a fraction of a wrong move. I don\u2019t know, is it his instinct?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe can\u2019t see clearly, but he still sees judo.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Uchida laughed at the comment and said, \u201cWell, I can tell if someone is doing something wrong because of the long list of players I have watched over the years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although Malloy now works as a social media manager an hour north of San Jose, she makes an effort each day to get to practice by 6 p.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCoach has a rough exterior, but he recently suffered a terrible loss\u201d with the death of his wife, Mae, in May, Malloy said. \u201cI just want to try to make him laugh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSometimes I know I am not going to get to practice on time, but I go anyway, just to see him. I like the fact that he was my coach, my mentor, and now my friend.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Uchida has been recognized by the San Jose State Spartan Hall of Fame, the San Jose Sports Authority\u2019s Hall of Fame and the Multi-Ethnic Sports Hall of Fame. In 2008, the USA Judo Hall of Fame inducted Uchida and Spartan Mike Swain, a four-time Olympian and former world champion, onto its initial team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2020, Tokyo will host the Summer Olympics for the first time since 1964.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI want to go,\u201d said Uchida, who will be 100 years old in 2020. \u201cThis will only be the second time the games will be held in Tokyo.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the meantime, Uchida will continue to teach important lessons through judo, even comparing the quiet stance taken by Smith and Carlos to the judokan way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cJu<\/em> is gentle, and do<\/em> is the building of character in the individual,\u201d he said. \u201cThe word itself means \u2018a road.\u2019 \u2026 And all these \u2014 being humble, not looking for a fight, pushing forward, persistence \u2014 are included on that road and gives that person a certain confidence as he moves through life.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/8floz.net\/speedcity\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/32\/2023\/04\/UchidaFamilyphotos-1024x682.jpg\")
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