Category Archive: Pop Culture

NBC’s Gazzillion Dollar Olympic Investment: Is the Sky Falling or Is the Sky the Limit?

NBC Rio logo

The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) aired the 1964 Tokyo Olympics Games in America, the first time events were broadcast live via satellite. With a 13-hour time difference between New York and Tokyo, the opening ceremonies of the Games on October 10 appeared on American televisions in the middle of the night. After that, NBC offered about an hour of highlights after prime time, fearful of eating into the ratings of their lucrative evening programming.

NBC didn’t get high marks for their coverage, and eventually lost the Games to ABC, which became the network of the Olympics over the late 60s and 1970s. Thanks to ABC’s coverage, the Olympics emerged as a premier marketing opportunity for sponsors and broadcasters. In America, the three networks fought furiously for broadcast rights.

NBC currently owns US broadcasting rights through 2032, having bid an incredible $7.65 billion dollars for the Summer and Winter Games through that period. With so much riding on the Games, not only for NBC, but obviously also for Brazil, the IOC and the athletes, it’s no surprise that commentators around the world are casting doom and gloom on the upcoming Rio Olympics. A doctor in Canada has even called for the postponement of the Games until the zika virus threat is deemed less of a risk.

It’s also possible that the entire track and field team from the Soviet Union will be banned from participating in the Rio Olympics due to state-sponsored doping. Michael Colangelo of the blog, The Fields of Green, recently wrote that the lack of Russian competition will strike a great blow on the success of the Rio Olympics, particularly on the viewer ratings of NBC. “The problem is that as doping seems to become more prolific — with Russia essentially running a doping program at a national level — bans and bad news could affect the television ratings this year and beyond.”

Colangelo went on to write, “It’s a balancing act and the only loser right now is NBC. As the Olympics get closer, the IOC and its partners will have to work to make sure that all parties’ investment in the games is worthwhile. That seems close to impossible right now.”

That was actually a concern in 1984. As you may recall, the United States and over 60 other countries boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics, primarily due to the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. Four years later, 15 nations led by the Soviet Union boycotted the Los Angeles Olympics. Michael Payne, who wrote the fascinating book called “Olympic Turnaround“, said that the American Broadcasting Company paid a then-record $225 million for rights for the Summer Games in Los Angeles and the Winter Games in Sarajevo, and that ABC bean counters started shouting that the sky was falling when the boycott was announced.

Roone Arledge
Roone Arledge

 

And then stepped in ABC Sports President and Olympic broadcasting legend, Roone Arledge. Like Henry V in Shakespeare’s eponymous classic play, Arledge faced down the naysayers, according to Payne, and stated with conviction that the Los Angeles Games would be a moment of triumph.

By early 1984, ABC’s financial leaders were running scared about a potential ratings collapse due to the Soviet-led boycott, and attempted to renegotiate terms. Arledge argued that the Soviets had done them all a favor, as the boycott would only allow Americans to win even more gold medals. “They would not lose viewers, they would gain them.”

Arledge was right, ABC’s coverage of Los Angeles set new ratings records. From Los Angeles in 1984 onwards the Olympic Games began to have a dramatic effect on the US advertising market. More than half of the advertising available for all sports for all networks for the entire yea was spent on the Olympics over two weeks. “We’d not only captured the market, we’d suck it dry,” Roone Arledge observed.

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WWII Japanese Stragglers Uncovered in Guam September 1964: Was it the Famous Corporal Shoichi Yokoi?

Shoichi Yokoi

Dateline: Wednesday, September 2, 1964

Guam, UPI: Two men believed to be World War II Japanese Army stragglers are living a game of hide and seek with authorities on this United States tropical island in the Western Pacific Ocean. Scattered reports circulated about two men seen wearing long beards and G-strings scrounging for food. The most recent report came from Jose G. George, an employee of the Hawaiian Rock Company on Guam.

About a month prior to the opening of the Tokyo Olympic Summer Games, and over 19 years since the end of the Pacific War on August 15, 1945, reports of seeing yet another set of Japanese military stragglers were made. The Japanese fought to protect a massive area from Indonesia to Manchuria after their comprehensive attacks and invasions that commenced with Pearl Harbor in December, 1941.

When the war ended, most Japanese were either imprisoned or repatriated to Japan. But in the years after the Pacific War, there have been some 80+ cases of Japanese turning themselves in, being uncovered and taken in or killed. Most of these cases were in the 1950s and 1970s. Very often, the Japanese were uncertain that the war had ended and wanted to make sure they avoided capture by the enemy.

Sergeant Shoichi Yokoi Displays Clothes to Guam Police
Shoichi Yokoi shows his clothes at a police station in Guam.

The two men in the UPI report were said to be “seen wearing long beards and G-strings scrounging for food”. The man who saw them, Jose George, was driving a truck when he saw the two unusually dressed and famished men. It was also reported that one of the stragglers had a gun, pointed it at George, but the gun failed to fire. The Marines searched but could not find the two reputed Japanese stragglers.

What’s interesting is that in January 1972, a Japanese man, Corporal Shoichi Yokoi, was captured on Guam. Was Yokoi one of the men who Jose George some 7-and-a-half years earlier?

After serving in Manchukuo, the Mariana Islands and finally Guam, he went into hiding with ten other soldiers after the American forces captured Guam. In 1972, Yokoi was alone when he was found out by two local fishermen and captured. When Yokoi returned to Japan, he was an overnight sensation.

“It is with much embarrassment, but I have returned,” said Yokoi on his arrival back in

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Outrage or Guilt: Edward Seidensticker, Yoshinori Sakai and the Appropriateness of Reminding the World of Hiroshima at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics

Edwared Seidensticker

Edward Seidensticker was a translator from Japanese to English, and was so proficient in Japanese that by the time the Tokyo Olympics rolled around in 1964, he had already translated the works of Japanese novelists Niwa Fumio and Tanizaki Junichiro. He would go on to translate one of the world’s earliest novels, “The Tale of Genji” as well as the works of Kawabata Yasunari, which led to his selection as the first Japanese to receive a Nobel Prize.

But his formative years as a young adult was as a translator for the US Marines in the Pacific War, as well as in Post-War Japan during the American occupation. And in the weeks leading up to Tokyo Olympics, Seidensticker reportedly stuck his neck out.

It was already news that the Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee had selected a 19-year-old freshman from Waseda University named Yoshinori Sakai to run into the National Olympic Stadium, carry the sacred Olympic torch up the steps and then light the Olympic cauldron. Sakai was born on August 6, 1941, in Hiroshima, the day an atom bomb was dropped on that city.

Sakai at cauldron 2

Seidensticker was reported to have objected to this particular selection, saying that choosing Sakai was not “incidental”, and that it was “unpleasant to the Americans”.

When a member of the International Olympic Committee was asked to comment on Seidensticker’s reaction, G. D. Sondhi of India, who had just witnessed Sakai’s torch lighting at the opening ceremonies, replied “He is good and I’m happy to see him do it so nicely. We must bring young people in the Olympics and let those old men just sit and help them.” Sondhi went on to say in an article from the October 11, 1964 Mainichi Daily News that he did not think Sakai’s selection to be political, and rather thought that Sakai was “a big hope” for Japan, and was “the most touching of all Olympic ceremonies I ever saw”.

Take a look at the first 10 minutes of Kon Ichikawa‘s classic documentary, Tokyo Olympiad. Ichikawa shows in dramatic fashion the blazing sun, old buildings being demolished making way for modern-looking stadiums. Ichikawa charts the path of the sacred flame, ignited in Greece, and carried in an amazing international relay through the Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, North Asian and finally into Japan.

After the torch leaves Okinawa, it arrives in Hiroshima. As you can see at about the 6-minute mark of the film, Ichikawa uses a helicopter to focus in on the famed Hiroshima Dome, its skeletal frame a reminder of the atomic bomb’s power, and a symbol for resilience. The Mainichi Daily News wondered if this scene would also arouse the ire of Seidensticker and others like him.

October 1964 was barely 19 years removed from the disastrous end to the war in Japan. Those who remembered the war on both sides could be excused for a nerve unexpectedly exposed on occasion. But I can’t help but believe that the choice of Sakai, born symbolically out of the ashes of Japan’s greatest disaster, was an inspired and most appropriate choice.

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Anti-Zika Virus Uniforms: Secondary Market for South Korean Fashion in Rio May be High

South Korea uniform
New South Korean Team Uniform

The threat of zika-virus bearing mosquitos are such a fear that the South Korean Olympic team has taken unusual measures. Authorities have worked to ensure that the uniforms of South Korean athletes helped to decrease the chances of being bit by a mosquito.

Their uniforms will make sure that legs are covered to the ankles and the arms are covered to the wrists. As you can see in the video and pictures, no shorts or shorts sleeves. Additionally, official wear of the South Korean Olympic squad will be infused by mosquito repellent.

As you can see in this link, other nations are fashioning wear that expose arms and legs. Since bartering among athletes is a huge sub-economy during the Olympics, as athletes trade a national pin, shirt, hat or jacket for those of another nation’s, it wouldn’t surprise me if the South Korean jackets become a hot item if the zika scare climbs another notch.

Australia team uniform
Australia Team Uniform for Rio
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Archie Williams: Won Gold in Berlin and Trained Pilots at the Tuskegee Institute

Archie Williams in Berlin 2
Archie Williams at the Berlin Olympics in 1936
Jesse Owens won four gold medals in Berlin in 1936, and came home to American a hero…for about a week…before he was then treated like any other black American. Unable to find work, he gave up his amateur status and earned a living as an entertainer, most famously sprinting and winning against thoroughbred horses. “People say that it was degrading for an Olympic champion to run against a horse, but what was I supposed to do? I had four gold medals, but you can’t eat four gold medals.”

Archie Williams was a teammate of Owens, one of ten black Americans on that 1936 USA team at the Berlin Olympics. And while he didn’t get the fanfare of Owens, Williams was already the owner of the world record time in the 400 meters, and would go on to win the gold medal in the 400 in Berlin. After the Olympics, Williams went on to graduate from the University of California, Berkeley, with a degree in mechanical engineering, as well as in aeronautical engineering from the Air Force Engineering School at Wright-Patterson Field, as well as in meteorology from UCLA.

But as was true for the majority of blacks in America, it was a challenge to get the opportunities to get ahead. Williams was quoted as saying, “When I came home, somebody asked me, ‘How did those dirty Nazis treat you?’ I replied that I didn’t see any dirty Nazis, just a lot of nice German people. And I didn’t have to ride in the back of the bus over there.”

Williams was a graduate of Berkeley with a degree in engineering in a war-time economy that could only be described as heated. But, Williams could not find gainful employment at places like GM or GE that were hiring to keep up with demand, as he explained in the oral history of American Olympians, Tales of Gold.

Those big corporations just weren’t hiring black people. They weren’t, and who else would? Look, I had a job one summer making $5 a week chopping weeds for the East Bay Water Company. Later I thought about working as an engineer for them. And I talked to the guy down there, but he said, “Sorry about that.”

Williams had a passion for planes, and wanted to become a pilot. He eventually got a job “gassing airplanes”, which is essentially fueling the planes, and warming them up. He had to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, but he also got to fly, build up his hours in the air, and get his flying qualifications. And yet, he couldn’t get up that next rung in the career ladder, as he explained. “That was early in 1941. Again, a black guy with a pilot’s license and an instructor’s rating; he’s…well, he’s nothing. Even the guy I worked for couldn’t hire me as a flying instructor. He’d have lost all his business.”

Archie Williams in Tuskegee
Archie Williams (2nd Right) at Tuskegee, 1944
There were apparently very few black pilots in the 1940s, and even fewer opportunities for them in America. But as is often the case, war forces people to look beyond color. The US Army had established a training center for African Americans in Tuskegee, Alabama, where blacks were educated at Tuskegee University and trained at Tuskegee Army Air Field. Williams one day in 1941 heard about the Tuskegee program, and took his pilot’s license and mechanical engineering degree to the Tuskegee Institute.

Williams began his career as a pilot instructor in Alabama, and his first students were the famed Tuskegee Airmen, whose planes were called Red Tails for the color of the tails on their P-47s and P-51s, and who went on to fighting glory in North Africa and Italy.

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The Pains of Amateur Purity in America Part 2: Duke Kahanamoku and The Missing Film “The Beachcomber”

Duke Kahanamoku and Henry Fonda
Duke Kahanamoku with film star Henry Fonda (1905 – 1982) who is draped in leis. Fonda is in Hawaii for the filming of ‘Mister Roberts’.

Kahanamoku first achieved Olympic glory in 1912 in Stockholm, Sweden, but because of the cancellation of the 1916 Olympic Games, Kahanamoku had to figure out how to remain an amateur for 8 years until he competed again at the 1920 Olympic Games in Antwerp, Belgium.

Only a few months after the 1912 Stockholm Games, gold medalist pentathlete and decathlete, Jim Thorpe, was stripped of his medals and amateur status because he took home pocket change for playing semi-pro baseball in 1909 and 1910.

Kahanamoku, who considered Thorpe a friend, was crestfallen, and was reported to have said, “Jimmy Thorpe was the greatest athlete there ever was. He could do everything. And what happened to him was a bad break for sports and for everyone.”

When Thorpe was stripped of his medals, Kahanamoku and his backers had to be cautious. So, according to author David Davis, when the citizens of Hawaii raised money for Duke Kahanamoku after his gold-medal winning performance at the 1912 Stockholm Games, they weren’t sure how to provide it to him lest they risk Kahanamoku losing his amateur status. And if Kahanamoku lost his amateur status, and could no longer compete in AAU events or the Olympics, then Kahanamoku’s ability to draw tourists and opportunities to Hawaii, it was thought, would diminish. Eventually, a house was bought by a trust company, and Kahanamoku was able to move into a new home. The trust was set up so that he could never re-sell the home. The flip side of the deal is that the powers that be in Hawaii probably kept this transaction under the AAU radar.

While it is possible that Kahanamoku received cash very quietly for appearances at exhibitions all over the world, as well as for low-key advertising campaigns in a pre-television, pre-internet world, Kahanamoku did not financially benefit from his immense celebrity while he was an athlete. This was true even after Kahanamoku had surrendered his amateur status and tried to make it in the world of film. His Hawaiian “otherness”, however, got him typecast as the quiet pacific islander surfer, or native American Indian chief. He was never able to rise to the easy heights of fellow swimmers, Johnny Weissmuller in the Tarzan films, or Buster Crabbe in the Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers films.

Anita Stewart and Duke Kahanamoku
Anita Stewart and Duke Kahanamoku in what I think is the 1927 film Isle of Sunken Gold

Kahanamoku is credited with appearances in 14 feature films, including the WWII naval classic, Mr Roberts, with Henry Fonda and James Cagney. But one film that is not mentioned is The Beachcomber, a film made shortly after Kahanamoku’s triumph in Stockholm. It never got distributed in the US, as it was seen as a threat to Kahanamoku’s amateur status. Here is how David Davis explains it in Kahanmoku’s biography, Waterman: The Life and Times of Duke Kahanamoku:

Before returning to Hawaii, Kahanamoku made his motion picture debut in The Beachcomber, shot on an unidentified beach in Southern California. The one-reel silent film was directed by its star, Hobart Bosworth, a pioneer in Hollywood’s nascent movie industry. (Bosworth also was a friend and business associate of the author Jack London.) Duke did not have to stretch much to play a native islander who swims out to rescue Bosworth’s character from drowning. Publicity shots showed him wearing nothing more than a sarong. Bosworth had to delay releasing the film, however, after it was discovered that “the champion might lose his right as an amateur if swimming for money,” according to Motion Picture News. It is unclear whether The Beachcomber was ever shown or distributed in the United States, although foreign audiences reportedly were able to view the stirring flick.

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To All Olympians from October, 1964: Did You Get this Doll?

Fuji Companion Daruma Doll
The Daruma doll and box sent to all Olympians in October, 1964 by a student group called “Fuji Companions”. This doll was given to Canadian field hockey player Victor Warren.

On Monday, October 12, 1964, a package arrived at the Olympic Village in Yoyogi, Tokyo. The package contained 4,500 little boxes, which had a small gift for all of the foreign athletes in Japan for the XVIII Olympiad. Upon opening the small cardboard gift box, the athlete found a doll in the shape of Dharma (pronounced “daruma” in Japanese), as well as a letter.

The daruma doll represents for Japanese hope and luck, and because it has a rounded bottom that allows the doll to bobble and roll while remaining upright, it also represents perseverance. One usually receives a daruma doll with both eyes white and blank, and the custom is to fill in one eye with a black dot to get you started on your journey of fortune and success. And when you have fulfilled a goal, or had a landmark life event, like a graduation, marriage or a birth of a child, then you fill in the second eye.

A group of high school students who called themselves the Fuji Companion Head Office in Shizuoka Prefecture (the area where Mount Fuji resides) produced these paper-mache daruma dolls and had them sent to the Olympic Village. The enclosed letter explained that “in this doll is hidden a small story of friendship and good will of all the young and grown up people from all Japan.”

Daruma Gift to Athletes
 

The Japan Times, Oct 13, 1964

 

 

On the back of the doll was the name and address of one of the high school students. The letter asked the Olympians to send a note to that student when you reach your goal and fill in the second eye on the doll. Victor Warren of the Canadian Field Hockey team had held onto this treasure since he received his in 1964, and sent it to me with the task of tracking down the person whose name was on the doll.

Unfortunately, I was unable to do so. But the doll has already served its purpose – “Even if we can’t do much, this little doll will tumble about for joy if we unite our hearts in bringing peace and friendship to the world.”

If you are an athlete from the 1964 Olympics, and you still have the daruma, have sent a note to the name on the back of your doll, or remember the doll, please let me know. I’d love to hear about it!

Victor Warren_1964
“#2 (me) about to score a goal vs Belgium. That made it 1-1, we should have stopped the game then, and we would have had a ‘tie’.” – Victor Warren: October, 1964
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The Torch Relay in Brazil Begins! Rio’s Torch Has a Twist

Rio Olympic Torch closed and open

The torch for the 1964 Tokyo Games was as plain and utilitarian as can be – black handle and thin silver metal cylinder. Over the years, the torch has taken all shapes and forms, with the Winter Games torches in particular tending to the gaudy. But the Rio torch, which will embark on a 3-month journey through Brazil, is both simple and colorful, thanks to an innovative design.

A picture of me with a replica of the 1964 Summer Games torch.
The Rio torch starts off as a narrow cone, completely white save for the Rio Olympic emblem. As Wired Magazine describes it, “with a satin aluminum finish, it looks almost clinical in its simplicity.”

But, as Wired continues to explain, something happens when you activate the torch and ready it for the flame exchange, or “the kiss” as it is called.

“Then you open it. At the moment of the kiss—the handoff from one torch bearer to another—the runner will turn a knob to ignite the gas valve, which will simultaneously cause the top of the white cone to expand, revealing five ribbons of bright, metallic colors.”

Click on this link to see a GIF showing this transformation.

The ribbons of gray, blue and green represent the ground, sea and mountains of Brazil, capped off by the golden top of the torch, which represents the sun.

The Olympic flame had begun its journey on April 21, born of a spark created by the sun in a parabolic mirror, housed on site at the Temple of Hera in Olympia, Greece. Starting today, May 3, the Rio torch will begin its relay through Brazil, where over 10,000 people will run with the torch for at least 200 meters, taking the flame through some 500 cities and towns across the vast South American nation.

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The Group of Death: What is it and Who’s in it

group of death
From JEA’s Sports World

 

What is the “Group of Death”?

  1. A heavy metal band from Hamburg
  2. A recently discovered novel of youthful enthusiasm gone wrong by J. D. Salinger
  3. A designation for the group in a multi-staged sports tournament perceived to contain an outsized level of strong teams
  4. All of the above

That’s right. The answer is “c”. In the first round of a tournament, you’d rather have an easier time before you get into the more competitive rounds. The “Group of Death” is the group said to have no easy wins, so you don’t want to be in that one. Granted, this designation is purely subjective and has no bearing on the tournament themselves. This is how the English newspaper, The Telegraph, describes it:

The “group of death”, a concept that sounds like it was named by an 11-year-old child listening to emo for the first time, was actually coined by Mexican journalists to describe Group 3 at the 1970 World Cup, which contained the defending champions England, the favourites Brazil, the two-time finalists Czechoslovakia, and Romania. Since then, the term has been much used, misused and very possibly overused to describe a group with a lot of good football teams in it, of which only two can qualify.

In the upcoming Rio Olympics, The Groups of Death in the men’s football (soccer) teams are in Group B, and in the women’s teams are in Group G.

Here’s how the sports internet site Vavel describes the two groups of death:

group of death men

Men’s Group of Death

This group is the Group of Death for this year’s Olympic Games. This group is composed of Sweden, Colombia, Nigeria, and Japan, loads of big-hitters in the U-23 game. Nigeria, Japan, and Sweden were all first-time winners of their respective confederation championships, making the competition fierce for one of the two qualification spots in this group. Colombia qualified by defeating the United States in the CONCACAF-CONMEBOL playoff after failing to meet automatic qualification by finishing second in the South American Youth Football Championships.

group of death women

Women’s Group of Death

It’s called Group G for a reason. Why? This is the Group of Death. The lowest-ranked team in this group is Colombia at 24, and they’ve given the United States, the top team in this group, their fair share of battles over time. New Zealand, the OFC champs, are actually ranked higher than Colombia at 16. France is second-highest ranked team in the group, ranked third and is one of two teams from UEFA to qualify for the Olympics via the World Cup. 

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