100th Anniversary of Basketball Japanese TV Program (December 22, 1991)

Item Information

Title:
100th Anniversary of Basketball Japanese TV Program (December 22, 1991)
Description:
This a digital copy of a VHS tape of a Japanese program titled "Sports Frontier" that is broadcast on TV ASHAHI in Japan. The video is about 22 minutes long. It is in Japanese. The video looks to answer questions related to the history of basketball in Japan, specifically Genzaburo Ishikawa. In 1891, Genzaburo Ishikawa was a member of the first ever basketball team created by James Naismith, and he was the only Japanese player who was part of the team. However, basketball was not introduced in Japan by Ishikawa, and was instead introduced seventeen years later by Hyozo Omori (Springfield College class of 1907). In 1991, Yutaka Mizutani, a Japanese professor at Springfield College, looked to discover more information about why Ishikawa did not introduce basketball to Japan. The program follows this investigation, looking for family members, and visiting archives to discover the information.The video looks to answer questions related to the history of basketball in Japan. This is the original video which was filmed in Japan on a news channel. An English translation of the video was created, and this English translation video is about two minutes shorter than the original. The difference between the two videos is that advertisements are shown in the Japanese version, which appears to represent a commercial break that occurred during the actual broadcast in Japan. The advertisements occur from the about the 9:30 minute mark to the 11:00 minute mark of the video. These advertisements were subsequently removed in the United States version. See here for the English version: https://cdm16122.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15370coll2/id/23351. Genzaburo Ishikawa (July 27, 1866 - December 7, 1956) was born in Tatebayashi, Gunma-prefecture, Japan. When he was only two years old, his father died. In 1876, he moved to Tokyo, where his mother had been born. On September 30, 1886, he left Japan and entered the Westminster Prep School in San Francisco. Three years later, he entered the Pacific Theological Seminary in San Francisco. The following March, he moved to Massachusetts and entered the Mount Hermon Prep School. That September, he enrolled at Springfield College. In 1891, he was one of the original 18 students to play in the first game of basketball created by Dr. James Naismith. Most famously, he is credited with a drawing of the first game of basketball that appeared in the 1892 Triangle edition that announced the game to the world. In 1892, he graduated from Springfield College and became a director of the San Francisco YMCA. He stayed in this position for five years, at which point he left to enter the University of Wisconsin (Madison). In 1899, he submitted his master’s degree thesis. In 1901, he submitted his doctoral degree thesis and returned to Tokyo with Mary MacRea, whom he married that August. In 1903, he began working at the Mitsui Products Company, Ltd. In Tokyo. Five years later, he was promoted to general manager of the company’s branch in Hamburg, Germany. On April 4, 1906, his first child, Akemi, was born. By 1917, Ishikawa was having a hard time in Hamburg due to World War I, so he returned to Tokyo. However, his wife and daughter moved to Alexandria, Canada, and never again returned to Japan. In 1918, he left the Mitsui Products Company, Ltd. In 1923, he became a representative of the International Wireless Telephone Co., Ltd., in Tokyo. The following year, he became a member of the board of the directors of the NHK in Tokyo. In 1934, he joined the Board of Trustees of the NHK in Tokyo. During WWII, Ishikawa became a translator for Armed Forces from the United States positioned in Japan, and after the war, he eventually retired from this position and focused on drawing until his death in 1956 at the age of 90. During his studies, Mizutani discovered multiple reasons why Ishikawa did not bring basketball back to Japan. First off, Ishikawa chose to continue his education in the United States after graduating from Springfield College, eventually getting both his masters and doctoral degree in the United States. Because of this, Ishikawa did not immediately return to Japan after graduating. Secondly, Ishikawa came from a military family, which led to him focusing more on imperial affairs. Ishikawa moved around constantly in his life, and returned to Japan from 1903-1905 before moving to Germany. Because of this, Ishikawa was not focused on the game of basketball. Thirdly, it appears that Ishikawa was generally not interested in the sport of basketball at all, which is shown by the fact that his son did not even know his father played basketball until they received something in the mail during the 50th anniversary celebration of the sport. Overall, Mizutani's studies led him to discover multiple reasons why Ishikawa did not bring basketball back to Japan, and it is interesting to consider how things could have been different for the sport of basketball in Japan if Ishikawa was indeed the one who brought basketball back to Japan. Video Technician Notes: "Asset is a recording of live tv from Japan. Audio on both channels at consistent levels. Frame size seems to be slightly different, so there is a gray bar across the top. Asset is NTSC though. Begins immediately with program. Other program (Sesame Street) breifly appears, but full program is not recorded on asset.";
Date:
December 22, 1991
Format:
Film/Video
Genre:
Color; VHS
Location:
Springfield College Archives and Special Collections
Collection (local):
College Archives Digital Collections
Series:
Student Files
Subjects:
Springfield College
Young Men's Christian Association of North America
Basketball--History
International Young Men's Christian Association Training School (Springfield, Mass.)
Ishikawa, Samuro Genzaburo
Omori, Hyozo
Mizutani, Yutaka
Naismith, James, 1861-1939
Springfield (Mass.)
Japan
Basketball
Basketball players
Places:
Massachusetts > Hampden (county) > Springfield
Extent:
00:22:31
Link to Item:
http://cdm16122.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15370coll2/id/23352
Terms of Use:
Text and images are owned, held, or licensed by Springfield College and are available for personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that ownership is properly cited. A credit line is required and should read: Courtesy of Springfield College, Archives and Special Collections. Any commercial use without written permission from Springfield College is strictly prohibited. Other individuals or entities other than, and in addition to, Springfield College may also own copyrights and other propriety rights. The publishing, exhibiting, or broadcasting party assumes all responsibility for clearing reproduction rights and for any infringement of United States copyright law.
Contact host institution for more information.
Publisher:
TV ASAHI
Identifier:
ishikawa-video-japanese