Dear Coaches and Team Reps,
Thank you for participating in the 2006 Nikkei Games 3-on-3 youth basketball tournament. This year's tournament
covered two days, had 89 divisions, 356 teams and over 1,400 participants, making it the largest tournament ever.
We distributed over 1,100 medals and awards.
It was through your participation and support that made the tournament possible. We are very thankful and
appreciative of your support. We trust that you, your teams and families and friends had a great time.
Hopefully, they enjoyed the venue - the beautiful CSULB Pyramid, as well as the excitement and fast-paced games of
the 3-on-3 half court format.
For those of you that were at the Opening Ceremonies, we trust you enjoyed the beautiful singing of Lauren Hanako
Kinkade, 2001 Nisei Week Queen and accomplished vocalist. We also hope you and your families enjoyed the Parade
of Athletes. We think the kids had a great time marching into the Pyramid behind their respective organization's
placard. Perhaps the highlight of the ceremonies was the electrifying ball handling performance of Dean Otsuka
or maybe it was the dazzling dribbling exhibition by some OC varsity high school basketball players. We also hope
that you and the kids enjoyed meeting Commander Terry Hara and Nancy Hatsushi and Sara Yee and listening to their
words of wisdom and encouragement about basketball, the Nikkei community and life. All three are great role
models for our kids. For those of you that could not make it, we think you really missed out on an exciting 70
minutes.
In keeping with the legacy that our Nikkei Games forefathers started over 75 years ago, our goal is to create an
environment for having healthy competition and building lasting friendships. We also endeavor to celebrate the
Japanese traditions of our past and preserve them for our future.
Remember our motto: "The Nikkei Games: Games for the Generations". We hope you will share this vision and help
make the Nikkei Games something our grandchildren will be able to enjoy.
The basketball tournament results should be posted very soon on the Nikkei Games website at www.nikkeigames.org.
However, you can go there now and see pictures from both Saturday and Sunday's games.
A special thank you to those of you who volunteered to be a court commissioner. It is one of the most
challenging jobs of the tournament and it is also one of the most important. We are always in need of strong
court commissioners because of the length of the tournament. It is very evident the success of the tournament is
directly related to the quality of our court commissioners. If you did not have the pleasure of being a court
commissioner this year, please take advantage of the opportunity next year.
This year we closed all but six divisions in July. Even though we have expanded to two days, we still turned away
teams. So next year, please get your applications in early. The 2007 Nikkei Games basketball application should
be available on our website sometime in March 2007. The tournament is expected to be even bigger and better next
year!
Also, please join us in thanking our Nikkei Games sponsors, coordinators and the more than 300 volunteers that
worked to make this event such a great success. The only way we can keep the player fee low and have the
tournament at the Pyramid is through the generous support of our sponsors.
It is also worth pointing out that for every game going on, the number of volunteers on the court equals the
number of players. There are two scorekeepers, two coaches, a court commissioner and the referee. Those six
volunteers match the six players on the court. This is not even considering the people tabulating game results at
the head scorers table, scoresheet runners, announcers, medal awards ceremony coordinators, tournament planners
and schedulers and the countless other volunteers working behind the scenes to make the Nikkei Games a wonderful
experience for our kids.
On a different note, we were informed Saturday afternoon that the CSULB Pyramid ticket office was charging a
spectator fee for all non-players four years old and up. Unfortunately, that was a mistake and we corrected the
situation as soon as we found out. We are still trying to determine where they received those instructions,
definitely not from the Nikkei Games. The spectator fee is for non-players 13 years and older as indicated in the
Nikkei Games Welcome Letter. Please accept our sincere apologies if you were impacted by this. We will make sure
this error never occurs again. Thank you for your understanding.
Finally, if you have any comments or suggestions on improving the Nikkei Games basketball tournament, please let
us know. Your feedback is very important to making the tournament better each year.
Again, thank you for your participation and support. We look forward to seeing you next year!
Sincerely,
Wallace Chan
2006 Nikkei Games
Basketball Chairperson