It started with his first plunge into the pool at Heart Mountain Internment Camp. Well, if you can call it a pool. “A giant pit near the irrigation canal became the camp swimming pool. I learned to swim there,” recalls 91-year-old Tak Iseri. “In the winter, the pool became an ice-skating rink.” After leaving camp in 1945, Tak would make swimming a lifelong passion.
Tak and wife Kathy moved into ACC Greenhaven Terrace last year. Tak’s swimming accomplishments as a young teen are highlighted in a newly released book entitled Victory in the Pool, authored by Bill George. Coach Sherm Chavoor and his swimmers are the subject of the book.
Sherm is best known for leading swimmers Debbie Meyer, Mark Spitz and others to Olympic glory. In the late 1960s, the Olympians put Sacramento and the Arden Hills Swim Club on the “swimming map.” Tak was one of the first successful swimmers Sherm coached.
In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 authorizing the forced evacuation of over 100,000 men, women, and children of Japanese ancestry. Tak was 10 years old when he and his father were sent to Tule Lake. Tak said, “Dad had to close his flower shop and my friends from ‘Japanese Alley’ were gone. It was my first time to ride a train. I thought I was going on a vacation.”
For the next three years, they lived at Tule Lake, then at Heart Mountain in Wyoming, where he fell in love with the camp pool. After the camps closed, his family returned to Sacramento. Japantown wasn’t the same. The flower shop his father, Kaizo Iseri, once owned, had burned down. He had been one of the founding members of the Buddhist Betsuin Church. Church members helped each other find housing and jobs. To support his son, Kaizo took a job as a gardener.
In 1946, Tak was attending Cal Junior High and heard that the Sacramento YMCA was offering swim lessons. He rode his bike to the Y at 5th and J streets. Most of the swimmers were young kids of color. Excluded by law and custom from private clubs, minorities joined the Y to play basketball and learn to swim. Tak said it was the only pool Asians could swim in.
Sherm was a schoolteacher but had a second job as recreational director at the YMCA. He refereed basketball games, coached boxing, and supervised swimming. Sherm noticed Tak wasn’t in the pool to just horse around – he liked to swim fast. He took Tak and a few others under his wing, preparing them to race.
Tak said, “Sherm worked me hard during training, but I respected him.” Tak followed the two-hour swimming regimen, six days a week. “I developed confidence in myself. Sherm even helped me get a job as a lifeguard at Mather Field. He was like a big brother to me.”
When Tak entered McClatchy High School, there wasn’t a swim team. So, he swam competitively for the Sacramento YMCA. “We swam against everyone, even city college teams. Sherm even drove us down to So Cal to compete,” he said. Tak was soon posting record-breaking race times. He set a record of 1:20.2s in the 100-meter breaststroke at the Far Western Amateur Athletic Union swimming meet in San Francisco. He was only 15 years old. Swim teams were impressed with Tak’s strong kick movements. The San Francisco Examiner sports section had a photo of his winning race.
By 1949, Tak was nationally ranked. At the Far West AAU championship meet in Los Angeles, he bested his 100-meter breaststroke record, posting a time of 1:18.3s. The YMCA’s swim team won 17 of 18 dual meets. They won three Pacific Southwest YMCA titles and five state championships. A photo of the swim team was featured in the Sacramento Bee on July 5, 1949.
There was talk about Tak going to the 1952 Olympics, but Tak wasn’t so sure. He was only 5’7”, smaller than other competitive swimmers. He dreamt about swimming for the Golden Bears at UC Berkeley. He spent his initial college years on the UC Davis swim team, then transferred to Cal.
It was here that Tak mastered a new swim stroke called the butterfly. He was the Pacific Coast Conference champion in the 100-yard butterfly. In his senior year at Cal, just nine years after being released from Heart Mountain, Tak was elected co-captain of the UC team. “It’s one of the highest honors of my life,” he says.
Tak studied pharmacy at Cal and often rode the bus home from Berkeley. One day, he met a fellow rider, Kathy Osaki. Kathy told me she actually hatched a plan to meet Tak. “I knew he was this famous swimmer on campus. I saved the seat next to me so no one else would sit there. When Tak got on the bus, I told him he could sit there.” As they say, the rest is history.
Tak became a pharmacist, married Kathy and raised a family of three boys. This year, they’ll celebrate 65 years of marriage. The entire family loves sports. Kathy ran her first marathon at age 50. Since then, she’s run seven marathons and several Eppie’s Great Races. She’s been a performing member of the Sacramento Taiko Dan and a hula troupe which performs at ACC and other venues.
When he wasn’t swimming competitively for the Sacramento Masters Swim Club, Tak ran marathons with Kathy and did alpine ski racing. Until a few years ago, they traveled all over the country for swim meets. He even competed in the Canadian Nationals. He still holds individual All-American records for the 100-meter Breaststroke (60-64 age group).
Like Tak, their sons took swim lessons at the YMCA. Howard is a triathlon athlete. Ron is an extreme cyclist, participating in the Death Valley Century and other long distance races. Andy does alternative sports such as off-road skateboarding.
Andy said, “We were pleasantly surprised to see that dad was included in Bill George’s book. We’re proud of our father and all his accomplishments. Our parents have been good role models for us.”
Tak’s competitive swimming days are over. There is an outdoor pool at ACC Greenhaven Terrace, but he hasn’t gone in. Now he does light workouts in the community gym.
Tak’s story is one of overcoming incredible odds. Through hard work and sheer determination, he achieved success in the pool and in life.
Bill George has conducted several book signings at local libraries. Tak and some Olympic swimmers have attended. Bill is scheduled to hold a book talk at ACC on August 29. To register, go to accsv.org/classes. You can find Victory in the Pool on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and as an e-book at the Sacramento Public Library.
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