IN A WALNUT CREEK, CALIFORNIA, community gym, cheers from the bleachers mingled with the beat of basketballs against hardwood floors. Ohtani and Diablo, two teams of high school students, squared off on a winter’s Saturday night. On the sideline, Ohtani coach Eiji Kinoshita watched as his son, Kai, raced down the court.
It was a familiar scene for Kinoshita, who had lapped similar courts hundreds of times himself. He’d spent Saturdays playing basketball in tiny gyms across Northern California since 1971. The Kinoshita family had just moved from San Francisco to the tiny port city of Richmond when their neighbors, the Kowadas, asked Eiji,