Next month, Jeff Tanaka begins his 12th season on the Bulls training staff and sixth as head athletic trainer. He will do so, to use his word, “rejuvenated” after participating in this month’s Basketball Without Borders trip to Tokyo.
Tanaka, who served as the athletic trainer for the camp’s 32 girls and 45 boys ages 16 and 17, had worked a Basketball Without Borders camp in Europe in 2015. The NBA and FIBA began this joint initiative in 2001 to grow the game globally with basketball development and community outreach.
This time Tanaka had a special guest — his father, Ted.
Ted Tanaka spent time as a youth in a U.S. internment camp during World War II.
“I’m a third-generation — or what they call sansei — Japanese American,” Jeff said. “My grandparents migrated from Japan in the early 20th century to California. My parents were born here, and they and my grandparents got sent to camps during World War II. And I’m feeling somewhat removed from the firsthand experience of Japanese culture.
“As a kid, I went to summer school and did some cultural enrichment activities so we could learn about our family’s history and language and traditions and customs. But I haven’t been as immersed in it lately. So this opportunity to experience my roots was welcomed.”
Jeff describes his father as “stoic.” And in a phone conversation from suburban San Jose, Calif., where he’s a retired accountant, Ted plays the part.
He said his memory of the war years “is quite dim” and his more powerful emotional experience of returning to Japan came in 2000, when he visited his parents’ birth city of Hiroshima and the museum dedicated to the victims of the atomic bomb that ended warfare.
“This trip was father-son bonding for me,” said Ted, 84.
They took shopping trips to buy gifts for Ted’s grandchildren, including Jeff’s two young kids with his wife, Val, the United Center’s senior manager of premium seating. They did some sightseeing. They ate dinners with the tight-knit community NBA and FIBA officials create on such trips.
They even caught a baseball game between the Yomiuri Giants and Hanshin Tigers with Robin Lopez, one of the camp’s NBA players, and his older brother.
“My dad’s in good health and I thought it would be a great opportunity to spend one-on-one time with him,” Jeff said. “I have a lot of gratitude. I’m 48 and we still get to spend time together. I don’t lose sight of that for a minute. As adults, when do we ever get to have one-on-one time with our parents after you leave for college?
“And the experiences the NBA and FIBA puts together while we’re there and the way they take care of us, I wanted to share some of that experience with my dad as well. I wanted him to reap some of the benefits of that. I am where I’m at because of how my parents brought me up and the work ethic they instilled in me and the support they gave me through college and graduate school and throughout my career.”
Ted called his son’s invitation “an honor” before wisecracking: “I was the most logical one after his wife, so I guess I would’ve been disappointed if he didn’t ask me.”
Both Jeff and Ted pointed to the baseball game and the night with the Lopez brothers as a trip highlight. Ted had taken Jeff and his brother to their first San Francisco Giants game at Candlestick Park in 1983. Thirty-six years later, sitting inside the Tokyo Dome and hearing the constant in-game chanting, they had come full circle.
Jeff had mentioned wanting to attend a game to Robin Lopez, the former Bull who signed with the Bucks as a free agent this summer. Lopez, who has traveled extensively in the Far East, took care of the arrangements and tickets — and then spent most of the game signing autographs, according to Ted.
“And that goes to show the kind of person Robin is and how generous he is,” Jeff said. “At the end of the day, this whole job is about the relationships you make — and, more importantly, the ones that you keep.”
The camp also presented Jeff with myriad opportunities for enrichment. In one session, he and the Knicks’ assistant strength and conditioning coach educated the campers on proper warm-up and stretching routines, nutrition and general health.
“Basketball Without Borders is such a cool program,” Jeff said. “On one level, we’re acting as ambassadors to help promote and support the NBA and FIBA and trying to grow the game globally. The fact there were girls and boys at this camp was really cool.”
Ted and the other camp officials’ guests attended the final day of camp, which featured tournament championship games and an all-star game. One minor injury afforded Ted the opportunity to see his son in action.
“I looked up in the stands a couple times and he was just soaking it all in, smiling,” Jeff said. “I talked to some people that were sitting near him and they let me know he’s very proud of me. There’s not much more you can ask for than that.”
