×

Legendary story about Maui swim coach, ditch kids now a screenplay

Soichi Sakamoto taught Olympic champions in irrigation ditches, yet he couldn’t swim well himself

Maui’s Olympic champion Bill Smith trains in a Puunene irrigation ditch under the watchful eye of legendary coach Soichi Sakamoto (hat) and another coach. Hawaii Swim Club photo

The screenplay of “The Three-Year Swim Club,” the story of how legendary Maui coach Soichi Sakamoto trained Maui youths in Puunene irrigation ditches and led them to Olympic glory, has been completed and is looking for a studio to pick it up, Maui County Film Commissioner Tracy Bennett said Friday.

Bennett said the script, penned by Iris Yamashita, Academy Award-nominated writer of “Letters from Iwo Jima,” has drawn interest and location scouting from Hollywood directors and producers. The screenplay is based on the book “The Three-Year Swim Club: The Untold Story of Maui’s Sugar Ditch Kids and Their Quest for Olympic Glory” by Julie Checkoway.

“It would be a fantastic story,” Bennett said. “The story itself is amazing. The book is amazing. I like to call it Maui’s feather in the cap.”

The movie follows the creation of the Three-Year Swim Club and Sakamoto’s goal of sending a team of Maui swimmers to the 1940 Tokyo Olympics in three years. Children of impoverished sugar plantation workers trained in irrigation ditches, swimming against the current to build up strength.

Sakamoto would end up coaching six national champions, along with an NCAA, world and Olympic champion.

Maui youth of the famed Three-Year Swim Club dive into a pool at the old Puunene Camp in the 1930s. Alexander & Baldwin Sugar Museum photo

“If you can imagine these plantation kids, no shoes, just going to school, and some guy comes along and teaches them how to swim,” said Keith Arakaki, Oahu coach of Hawaii Swim Club, the descendent of the original club. “A lot of the people who started off in the irrigation ditch, they learned about perseverance. Coach got them to believe in themselves because he believed in them. He was able to get the kids to believe in themselves and go above and beyond what they think they could do.”

Maui’s rich sugar cane history and what life was like before, during and after World War II would be highlighted in the film. Producers who visited the island were concerned about Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar operations shutting down at the end of last year, since the film would need scenes of some actual sugar cane, Bennett said.

Bennett added that the movie does not appear to be a “star-driven piece” and is “more about the story.” He said producers visited Sakamoto Pool, the old Wailuku Pool and another pool not in operation as possible shooting spots.

“I think we’re very lucky for Maui to be attached to this story,” he said.

Checkoway said on Friday that the film remained in development. While the story has been well-covered, Checkoway’s book, published in 2015, was the first to thoroughly research and compile all of the tales and characters.

Soichi Sakamoto (left), who later founded Hawaii Swim Club, mentored Olympic champions and future club coaches, including Reid Yamamoto (child) and Keith Arakaki (right), as well as Dennis Kuewa (glasses) and Conklin McKee. Reid Yamamoto photo

Talk of a movie based on Sakamoto and his accomplished swimmers has circulated for at least a decade. The story is filled with interesting twists and anecdotes, such as the Olympic Games being canceled due to World War II and the fact that Sakamoto was not a strong swimmer himself. (The 1940 Summer Games were called off after Germany invaded Poland in September 1939.)

The longtime coach had his detractors, and some sought to belittle his accomplishments and innovations.

Hall of Fame swimming coach James Counsilman said Sakamoto was never given the chance to coach on the United States team despite his swimmers consistently qualifying, according to the International Swimming Hall of Fame website. Counsilman is considered one of the greatest swim coaches of all time. He coached Indiana University’s team to six consecutive NCAA championships, and he traveled to Hawaii to learn from Sakamoto that swimmers could train much harder than most people thought possible.

Every aspect of the trip made a great impression on Counsilman, the website said. He would later credit much of what he learned about stroke technique and other swimming secrets to Sakamoto in his 1968 book, “The Science of Swimming.”

“Sakamoto trained the swimmers hard, but he was a kind, gentle person, and he never screamed or hollered,” Counsilman said. “If you did something that he didn’t like, he would become quiet, but he was not vengeful or vindictive. . . . He wasn’t a politician, and he was never really recognized, even when he had the majority of swimmers on the team. At least, he should have been selected as the distance coach.”

Arakaki recalled a story of Sakamoto sitting in a hot bath, brushing his hand along the steam coming up from the surface of the water, pondering how the water would flow past his body. He said his coach used his science background and observations to help invent new ways to swim.

“He’d be watching fish swim in the water and birds flying. Everything was related to Coach and he was doing this way back,” Arakaki said.

Arakaki was mentored by Sakamoto from the late 1950s until his death in 1997. He gathered all the information he could on his late coach and in 1996 stored it on the website hawaiiswim.org, which still exists.

“I truly thought as I was getting older all of Coach’s equipment and machines he made would just be forgotten,” he said. “Julie came along, and she validated it with her book. I feel like my life’s mission has been accomplished.”

Reid Yamamoto, head coach of Hawaii Swim Club, also recalled being trained by Sakamoto on Oahu when the coach was leading the University of Hawaii’s swim team. He said swimmers trained with handcrafted wooden hand paddles before they became the norm in the swim world.

“It was pretty wild,” he said of his coach’s inventions. “He was pretty revolutionary.”

Yamamoto, a Maui resident, leads the two-island club with about 200 swimmers. He said he tries to emulate Sakamoto’s kindness and strictness. He often talks about his former coach to the team, particularly the older kids, about preserving the legacy and history of the club.

“HSC used to win nationals,” he said. “We placed people on the Olympic team coming from a small place on Maui swimming in a ditch.

“When Julie’s book came out we told everyone to buy it.”

The story still amazes Yamamoto to this day, because of swimmers such as Maui High grad Keo Nakama, who stood 5-feet-5 and won national and international championships as a teenager. He also set the world speed record in the mile. Or Baldwin High School graduate Bill Smith, who won gold in the 400-meter freestyle and 800-meter freestyle relay at the 1948 Olympic games in London.

“That kind of shows me as well as my kids anything can be done if you have the desire and drive and someone pushing you to never give up,” Yamamoto said. “It doesn’t matter if you swim in a ditch or a four-lane pool. As long as you have water, you can work and perfect your craft and become a great swimmer. It’s just the attitude you take.”

Yamamoto is excited about the film and is confident that it will get picked up by a movie studio. He said the “icing on the cake” would be for his club’s kids to act in it or be extras, mimicking the strokes Sakamoto taught.

“Can you imagine? It’s a movie about your club,” he said. “This is the club you swim for. This is the legacy, and it is all true.

“To me, it’s a story about a guy who wasn’t a swimmer and rose to stardom out of this small place. These guys were big fish in a small pond, but when they went to the big pond, they ruled it.”

* Chris Sugidono can be reached at csugidono@mauinews.com.

NEWSLETTER

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper?
     
Support Local Journalism on Maui

Only $99/year

Subscribe Today