Yoshihiro Uchida (born April 1, 1920), better known as Yosh Uchida, is an American

judo is an unarmed gendai budō, modern Japanese martial art, Olympic sport (since 1964), and the most prominent form of jacket wrestling competed internationally.『日本大百科全書』電子版【柔道】(CD-ROM version of Encyclopedia Nipponi ...

coach, businessman, entrepreneur, and educator who is best known for his contributions to

. Uchida has been the head judo coach at

San Jose State University San José State University (San Jose State or SJSU) is a public university in San Jose, California. Established in 1857, SJSU is the oldest public university on the West Coast and the founding campus of the California State University (CSU) sys ...

for over 70 years, and has played a leading part in the development of the university's judo program. His brother George Uchida was the 1972 US Olympic judo coach. He turned 100 in April 2020.

Early life

Uchida was born in the

Imperial Valley , photo = Salton Sea from Space.jpg , photo_caption = The Imperial Valley below the Salton Sea. The US-Mexican border runs diagonally across the lower left of the image. , map_image = Newriverwatershed-1-.jpg , map_caption = Map of Imperial ...

town of

Calexico, California Calexico () is a city in southern Imperial County, California. Situated on the Mexican border, it is linked economically with the much larger city of Mexicali, the capital of the Mexican state of Baja California. It is about east of San Diego ...

, to

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

immigrants who worked as farm laborers. Later growing up in Garden Grove, Uchida began competing in

at age 10. Uchida studied

biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...

at San Jose State, and in 1940 was made the student-coach of the Physical Education Department's judo program. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, while members of his family were sent to

internment camps Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without Criminal charge, charges or Indictment, intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects ...

, Uchida was drafted into the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

during

and served as a

medical technician A medical laboratory scientist (MLS) or clinical laboratory scientist (CLS) or medical technologist (MT) performs diagnostic testing of blood and body fluids in clinical laboratories. The scope of a medical laboratory scientist's work begins wit ...

. He returned to San Jose State in 1946 to complete his degree and to restart the judo program.

Judo career

After graduating in 1947, Uchida remained the coach at SJSU, a part-time position, while working as a laboratory technician at O'Connor Hospital and then a lab supervisor at San Jose Hospital. During this time, Uchida and

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

judo coach

Henry Stone Henry Stone (June 3, 1921 – August 7, 2014), born Henry David Epstein, was an American record company executive and producer whose career spanned the era from R&B in the early 1950s through the disco boom of the 1970s to the 2010s. He was bes ...

began developing rules to allow their students to compete against each other, including a

weight class Weight classes are divisions of competition used to match competitors against others of their own size. Weight classes are used in a variety of sports, especially combat sports (such as boxing, kickboxing, mixed martial arts and wrestling). Altern ...

system, moving judo away from a martial art for

self defense Self-defense (self-defence primarily in Commonwealth English) is a countermeasure that involves defending the health and well-being of oneself from harm. The use of the right of self-defense as a legal justification for the use of force in ...

to a

sport Sport pertains to any form of Competition, competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and Skill, skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to specta ...

for

competition Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, indivi ...

. Stone and Uchida persuaded the

Amateur Athletic Union The Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) is an amateur sports organization based in the United States. A multi-sport organization, the AAU is dedicated exclusively to the promotion and development of amateur sports and physical fitness programs. It has ...

(AAU) to sanction judo in 1953; the first AAU National Championship in judo was held at San Jose State in that year. From 1960 to 1961, Uchida served as president of the Judo Black Belt Federation of America, which under his leadership started a pilot program for a national ranking system. With

United States Air Force Academy The United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) is a United States service academy in El Paso County, Colorado, immediately north of Colorado Springs. It educates cadets for service in the officer corps of the United States Air Force and Uni ...

(USAFA) judo coach

Phil Porter Phil Porter (born 1977) is a British playwright, librettist and television writer. He is a graduate of the University of Birmingham , mottoeng = Through efforts to heights , established = 1825 – Birmingham School of Medicine and Surgery18 ...

, Uchida co-organized the first National Collegiate Judo Championship in 1962 at USAFA. Uchida's

San Jose State Spartans The San Jose State Spartans are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent San José State University. SJSU sports teams compete in the Mountain West Conference (MW) at the NCAA Division I level, with football competing in the Football B ...

won the first of their over 40 national championships under his leadership at the inaugural tournament. Uchida represented the United States as the team coach of the first Olympic Judo Tournament at the

1964 Summer Olympics The , officially the and commonly known as Tokyo 1964 ( ja, 東京1964), were an international multi-sport event held from 10 to 24 October 1964 in Tokyo, Japan. Tokyo had been awarded the organization of the 1940 Summer Olympics, but this ho ...

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

. The team included two of Uchida's students from San Jose State,

Ben Nighthorse Campbell Ben Nighthorse Campbell (born April 13, 1933) is an American Cheyenne politician who represented Colorado's 3rd congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1987 to 1993, and as a United States Senator from Colorado f ...

and

Paul Maruyama Lecturer Paul Kuniaki Maruyama (born October 27, 1941 in Tokyo) was a member of the first American team to compete in judo in the Summer Olympics. Judo was first included in the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. Maruyama was born in Kugayama, Toky ...

James Bregman James Steven Bregman (born November 17, 1941, in Arlington, Virginia) was a member of the first American team to compete in judo in the Summer Olympics. He is an Olympic bronze medalist, a world championships bronze medalist, a Pan American Games ...

won a bronze medal in the middleweight class, becoming the first American to medal in the sport. Uchida continued promoting the sport after the

1964 Olympics 1964 Olympics refers to both: *The 1964 Winter Olympics The 1964 Winter Olympics, officially known as the IX Olympic Winter Games (german: IX. Olympische Winterspiele) and commonly known as Innsbruck 1964 ( bar, Innschbruck 1964, label=Austro-Ba ...

. He organized the first U.S. High School Judo Championships and the first U.S. Open tournament, both hosted at San Jose State. , his San Jose State Spartans judo teams have won 45 of the 51 National Collegiate Judo Championships. In February 2007, the San Jose State program was named one of six

USA Judo USA Judo (officially known as United States Judo, Inc.) is a non-profit organization which represents all areas of U.S. judo practitioners, including athletes, coaches, referees and others. The organization is managed by a staff of seven at the U ...

National Training Sites.

Business career

In 1957, Uchida bought and operated a failing

medical laboratory A medical laboratory or clinical laboratory is a laboratory where tests are conducted out on clinical specimens to obtain information about the health of a patient to aid in diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease. Clinical Medical labor ...

in order to earn enough income to qualify for a

home loan A mortgage loan or simply mortgage (), in civil law jurisdicions known also as a hypothec loan, is a loan used either by purchasers of real property to raise funds to buy real estate, or by existing property owners to raise funds for any p ...

. Having bought the lab for $3,000 with a $75 down payment, Uchida made the lab profitable within one month by soliciting business from doctors with whom he worked previously. Uchida's laboratory business grew to 40 locations. In 1989, he sold the business to Unilab for $30 million. He used the funds from the sale to start Uchida Enterprises. With 78 other investors, Uchida formed the San Jose Nihonmachi Corporation, which invested over $80 million to develop housing and businesses in San Jose's Japantown neighborhood. Uchida also helped form the Japanese American Chamber of Commerce of Silicon Valley.

Honors and awards

For his contributions to judo, Uchida was awarded the

Order of the Sacred Treasure The is a Japanese order, established on 4 January 1888 by Emperor Meiji as the Order of Meiji. Originally awarded in eight classes (from 8th to 1st, in ascending order of importance), since 2003 it has been awarded in six classes, the lowest ...

with Golden Rays in 1986 by Emperor

Hirohito Emperor , commonly known in English-speaking countries by his personal name , was the 124th emperor of Japan, ruling from 25 December 1926 until his death in 1989. Hirohito and his wife, Empress Kōjun, had two sons and five daughters; he was ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. He was inducted into the San Jose Sports Hall of Fame in 1996. Uchida has also received many awards from San Jose State, including the university's highest award (the Tower Award) in 1992 and an honorary

Doctorate of Humane Letters The degree of Doctor of Humane Letters (; DHumLitt; DHL; or LHD) is an honorary degree awarded to those who have distinguished themselves through humanitarian and philanthropic contributions to society. The criteria for awarding the degree differ ...

in 2004. Additionally, the building on campus that houses the judo dojo was renamed "Yoshihiro Uchida Hall" in 1997. Coincidentally, Uchida's parents and brothers were processed in this building prior to being sent to an internment camp during World War II.

References

External links