Focus! The Coaching Life of Geoffrey Katsuhisa '97
By Kit Pancoast Nagamura
(The Internationalist Fall/Winter 2021 Vol 67)
Twelve years ago, in Osaka, I interviewed both Geoffrey Katsuhisa ‘97, and his younger brother, Michael ’99, for this magazine. At the time, Michael, then a rising basketball pro, described his older brother as his “superhero.” “That’s his nickname,” Michael declared, “because he’s always helping others, and he’s just the nicest guy.” This is how I remember Geoffrey, as a generous, soft-spoken, and slightly pensive superhero. When his face pops up on the Zoom screen now, he looks nearly the same, but his demeanor holds more gravitas. Of course, the fact that he is accompanied on the Zoom call by a publicist might have something to do with that impression. Once I get the go-ahead from the publicist, I ask Geoffrey what has happened in his life these past 12 years.
Superhero Daddy
“Well,” he says quietly, “the biggest difference is that I have a family now, a wife and two boys. My older son, Kyle, is 6, and my younger one, Sho, just turned five months.” A family presents a range of responsibilities and pressures that alters nearly everyone’s life trajectory, but Geoffrey quickly adds, “I’m lucky. Because my wife, Miya, is super supportive, I can still do what I want to do.” And what Geoffrey wants to do, and has always wanted to do, is coach basketball.
At age 40, Coach Katsuhisa already has an impressive coaching resume. He has assistant-coached for the Chiba Jets (2011 – 2015); head coached the Iwate Big Bulls (2015-2016); assistant-coached then headed the Sunrockers Shibuya (2016-2017); and currently is Assistant Coach for the Kawasaki Brave Thunders team (2019-present). Geoffrey and his brother are still very close, and it’s no surprise to learn that Michael, too, has shifted from pro playing to head-coaching for the Shinshu Brave Warriors.
While basketball might seem one of the lesser-known sports in Japan, its history stretches back to the early 1900s. Japan was instrumental in getting basketball included in the Berlin 1936 Olympics competition. When Japan merged its National Basketball League and Basketball Japan League into one professional unit, this gave rise to the B. League, in 2016. Still, basketball is not the first sport that comes to mind when one thinks of Japan, so how is it that the Katsuhisa brothers both fell in love with hoops?
Part of the reason, Geoffrey divulges, is that Nishimachi International School had the necessary equipment available on campus, proving to some degree the theory that with sports, “if you build it, they will come.”
Boing, boing!
From what I’ve heard, both Geoffrey and Michael were crazy about basketball from day one at school. Geoffrey nods. “We’d get to school in the morning, before classes,” Geoffrey recalls of his elementary school years, “going through the gates, past the sandbox, and then there was a tiny court, just tucked into the corner, surrounded by the art room and science room that doubled as Sasayama-sensei’s calligraphy room after school. There was a very small hoop that was balanced on a rubber tire, that you could move, and that was a dunking hoop—we weren’t supposed to dunk on it, but we all tried, and once we got older and could do that, it was great. The other hoop was cemented into the ground, and it had chain nets. Our dribbling would echo [in the courtyard] because we used rubber balls…boing, boing. We had a blast. We’d play in the morning, we’d play during recess, we’d play after school until dark, and then I’d walk home with my friends to the train station, sweat drying, trading magazines, Shonen Jump or Dragonball.”
Aside from a mecca for b-ball, Katsuhisa also describes Nishimachi as “a tightknit multicultural family” which he chalks up in part to the intimate size of the school. “It’s just you and your 15 classmates…I think that’s how many were in my class,” he says.
As a student, Geoffrey recalls enjoying math and geometry, and even English, though he admits he wasn’t a star pupil. “I wasn’t in the advanced class, or anything,” he says, “but I really enjoyed those subjects. The teachers were good, and I was curious. But I wouldn’t say I was the best student. I procrastinated and left stuff to the end.”
When pressed to discuss what he found unique about Nishimachi International School, Geoffrey says, “You knew what every other person was doing and people really cared about you. Even the teachers who weren’t your homeroom teachers knew you and your family…and your parents knew about everything [that happened at school] instantly.”
On the Radar
Of course, young Geoffrey and Michael were particularly “on the radar,” given that their father, Hikojiro Katsuhisa, was headmaster of Nishimachi International School from 1991-1996, when they attended. Their mother, Sherry, was an American from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and this undoubtedly magnified the family’s level of cultural perceptiveness. Geoffrey feels that because he grew up in the Nishimachi community, multiculturalism was for him the norm. “And as a ‘double’ [with parents from two cultures],” he says, “I just always understood that there aren’t single ways of doing things.”.
“What impressed me,” he remarks, thoughtfully, “was when [former students] came back, they told us ‘you don’t realize what you have here.’ That made me think,” Geoffrey says.
When Geoffrey graduated from Nishimachi, he and his family moved to Bellevue, Washington, where he encountered added dimensions to his understanding of cultural identity.
“In Bellevue,” he elaborates, “the thing that made me different was that I was from Japan, and I spoke Japanese. There were a lot of Nisei [second-generation Japanese] who didn’t speak Japanese there. I wasn’t used to that. If they had a Japanese last name, I just assumed that I could have a conversation with them in Japanese. But that wasn’t the case. That was just my own ignorance.”
Half-court Press
Geoffrey recounts a scenario that used to play out repeatedly with his mom, Sherry. “She was a blue-eyed blonde working in a middle school office, in a Seattle suburb. Her colleague had black hair, brown eyes, and was from Hawaii, with a western last name. My mom, of course, had her Japanese last name. People used to call over the phone, and talk to my mom in Japanese, and then come in person, to speak to Mrs. Katsuhisa. They’d always start talking to my mom’s colleague, and do a double-take when they realized who Mrs. Katsuhisa was.” I nod, because Japanese-speaking foreigners run into versions of this scenario still today.
Geoffrey graduated from Bellevue High School, attended Santa Clara University near San Jose, then upon graduation returned to Seattle to work for a few years as a paraeducator, providing specialized assistance to students. “I would assist a student for half a day in private individual classes, then would assist that student in regular classes, too,” Geoffrey recalls. The altruistic nature of his job choice was admirable, I remark, but he holds up a hand. “To be completely transparent, the teaching job was exhausting,” he admits, “so I’d come home and just collapse. I thought I was doing good work, but I was also coaching junior high level teams as part of a high school feeder program on the side at night. Teaching, sharing what I love, building teamwork, and things like that, I began to realize I like those things.”
Courtship
One day, while playing a pick-up game at a Bellevue athletic club, a guy Geoffrey only knew from court play asked to talk to him. “When you play pick-up with other guys,” Geoffrey explains to me, “it’s like, ‘I know you, but I don’t really know you.’ But this guy came up to me and offered me a job. He turned out to be the president of a mortgage company. He told me he made a lot of hires from among people he played sports with, because he knew what they were like, and what they valued.”
After this court-side interview, Katsuhisa found himself, at 23 years-old, working in mortgage banking, which he found exciting and stimulating, but “not something I wanted to continue for the rest of my life,” he said. He lasted at the job for two years, before Japan began to call him back.
By the time Katsuhisa was 26, he had returned to Tokyo, where he supported himself with English teaching jobs until landing an internship with a sports marketing company. His first assignment was to assist with a golf tournament the company was running in Hawaii; he flew there for three weeks, and so impressed the company that they hired him.
Pivot
The year that I first interviewed Geoffrey, in 2009, he was on the verge of shifting out of sports marketing, but shortly after landed a job as team manager and translator for Tokyo Apache, an up-and-rising Shibuya-based basketball team. In the midst of his first season on the job, however, everything changed. “The 2011 earthquake hit, and the ownership group decided to pull out of the basketball business in Japan. So the team dissolved.”
One thing I admire about Geoffrey is his ability to take a hard situation and rebound from it. The dissolution of Tokyo Apache was abrupt and shocking, but Geoffrey knew he wasn’t the only person suffering, so he didn’t wallow in self-pity. Still, “It was a ‘next day, I don't have a job’ kind of thing,” he says, “But that's when I learned a different team, the Chiba Jets, who were just starting out, were looking for staff. They interviewed me for the team manager position, but I said what I really wanted to get into was coaching, and I asked to be interviewed for that position instead. So that's how I got my start.”
The Other Kind of Courtship
Shortly after meeting his soon-to-be wife, Miya Inui, at a fundraiser for the documentary film, Hafu, by Megumi Nishikura ’95, he signed with the Chiba Jets in 2011. The feature-length film explores the experience of being of mixed race in Japan, and when I learn that Miya also has a Japanese father and US-born mom, and was a former Nishimachi International School kindergarten assistant, I assume their similar backgrounds gave them all they needed to start a lively conversation.
“You know what,” Geoffrey says suddenly. “Actually, that was thanks to you.” I’m perplexed for a moment. Say what? “Miya saw the Internationalist magazine in the Matsukata House,” he explains, “and she happened to read your article, and remembered me from that piece! She felt a connection there, and that’s how we started talking.”
Writers rarely get to hear such heartwarming stories, so I bask in the moment, before asking for the rest of the love story. “I got her number,” Geoffrey says, glancing off stage right, where I suspect Miya must be, “and we started dating…” He blushes a bit, and his voice fades away, like an air ball sailing off the court with no hope of return, so I quickly switch the topic, and ask instead what his coaching life entails.
Geoffrey’s day begins between 5 and 6:00 a.m., when his boys are still asleep. He has breakfast, and then walks 25 minutes to work. The walk, which he loves, provides him with precious quiet time to prepare for his work. “I think about the state of the team, a certain phase that we’re in or a need that we have,” he says, “or I might consider how I can help a certain player improve from a psychological or technical viewpoint, or how to prepare for an opponent that we’re about to play.”
Then, he begins morning practice at the team gym. He changes clothes in the team clubhouse, goes over the day’s practice plan in the staff room, and commences practice on the court. Court work requires Geoffrey to hustle. “It depends on the day, but I’m pretty active in the practice,” he says, “so I have to be healthy. I’m running up and down the court sometimes, and sometimes I’m in a drill, simulating a game situation, or playing mock defense, or refereeing.”
I ask Geoffrey to give me a sample of directions or phrases he might shout on the court. “I could be shouting something like ‘Be ready!’” he replies, sotto voce. That’s a whisper, I point out. “It sometimes helps to just whisper,” he replies, “because if you’re shouting all the time, the players will tune it out.”
Coaching Voice
I ask for his real on-court voice. Geoffrey laughs. I suggest that if he stands up, it might help get him into character. He stands up, then sits down. “This feels so unnatural, Kit,” he says, looking around his apartment. There’s an awkward silence, and we laugh, and I get a sense of how powerful the dynamic flow of Geoffrey’s working world must be; it doesn’t fit at all in his peaceful home. Finally, Geoffrey kindly warns Miya to head to another room, because he fears he might alarm little Sho. Once the coast is clear, he delivers an impressive, booming single word: “FOCUS!” It’s so strong, even my computer mic trembles, but there’s nothing cruel in his voice, just firm authority. When Miya brings Sho back into the room, the baby coos happily in the background, like a budding assistant coach.
Geoffery is particularly adept at creating team harmony between his team’s 3 foreign players, one naturalized foreigner player, and Japanese players. “Establishing roles, and respecting each other’s roles is important, and we work toward each player’s strengths. It’s a process to get there,” Geoffrey admits.
While I began this interview with a sense that b-ball doesn’t get top billing as a sport in Japan, Geoffrey is optimistic about its future. “I think coverage is growing, and the B. League is doing a good job of marketing the game. More and more coaches and players from overseas see Japan as an attractive place to work, for the basketball, but also for the culture. We have great coaches from different parts of the world that help raise the level of basketball in Japan.”
Getting TV exposure, in arenas such as the Olympics, also helps immeasurably. “Take what the women’s national team did in the Olympics,” Geoffrey points out, referring to the silver medal won by Japan’s women’s team this year, “doing as well as they did is amazing, and will help promote the game.”
This reminds me that Geoffrey is one the chosen few who knows what it’s like to sleep on a cardboard bed frame, to mingle with the greatest athletes of the world, and to experience the world’s greatest sports stage, as Japan’s Olympic basketball team’s Support Coach. This opportunity came, I learn, right after Geoffrey was fired from his coaching job with the Sunrockers Shibuya.
Key Moves
“I was in the right place at the right time,” he says, pointing out that being out of work actually cleared his schedule to take on other positions. “I helped out with the national team training camp, and worked for the women’s younger player’s team. One thing just led to another. I try to make the most of things, not always knowing what it could lead to.”
Olympics rules curb most participants from going into great detail about their experiences, but it’s clear from his expression how impactful he found it to be participating in the games. “When I entered the Olympic village and saw all these athletes who have dedicated their lives to trying to be great at something, making sacrifices, and all in one place…it was an amazing feeling, it was humbling. Representing Japan for the Olympics, I was really lucky, because it could have been anyone else, really. I got there in my own way, but when the national anthem was playing, and I saw the flag, I was there with the team and I felt grateful and humbled. I wished it had been a packed arena, but [nonetheless] I thought it was really cool. Nishimachi gave me a love for the game, so I’m grateful.”
At 40, Geoffrey is the rare man who knows where his passion lies, has had that tested, and nonetheless came back stronger. I wonder, though, if he sees coaching as a job that will take him all the way through life.
“I had to think about things long and hard when I was fired from my coaching job at Shibuya,” Geoffrey says. “I had to ask myself if this is really what I want to continue doing. And I decided it is. First of all, I love basketball, and I’ve always loved it. It’s an amazing sport. It’s the perfect number of people, the court is the perfect size, and the possibilities are endless. This amazing beautiful game… I want people to feel it and be moved by it, and I want my players to enjoy the game as much as I did, and to be able to say one day, ‘basketball gave me so much.’” This is what it comes down to.” His answer has the feel of a winning swish shot.