The Shintaro Higashi Show - Million Dollar Deal with USA Judo - Jimmy Pedro

Episode Date: October 6, 2024

In this episode, Shintaro is joined by the legendary Jimmy Pedro, a two-time Olympic medalist and world champion in Judo, to discuss his campaign for the USA Judo Board. Jimmy opens up about his extensive experience as a coach and businessman, emphasizing the urgent need for structural reform in USA Judo. They explore topics ranging from developing future athletes and expanding judo in schools to leveraging professional coaching and raising funds for USA Judo's success leading up to the 2028 Olympics. Jimmy also shares his ambitious plans to create stars in Judo, foster stronger connections with BJJ and MMA communities, and professionalize the sport at all levels in the United States. Whether you're a judo enthusiast or just curious about how national sports organizations operate, this episode provides deep insights into the future of American judo. (00:00:00) Introduction (00:01:27) Why Jimmy is Running For USA Judo Board (00:07:50) How Judo Competes with BJJ and NCAA (00:09:00) Creating Stars and Events to Promote Judo (00:10:00) The Importance of Developing Coaches (00:16:20) American Judo System and USA Judo (00:18:18) The Need for Structural Reform in Coaching (00:25:14) Jimmy’s Coalition Within USA Judo Board (00:37:50) Jimmy’s Thoughts on National Training Centers (00:41:42) Financial Needs for Professional Coach Development

So these are great ideas. I love every single thing that you've said so far. So what has been done in the past term, the term before, by the board who are in charge of the positions that you're going for? And what is wrong with the current system now? Like, is there something wrong with the current system? For the last decade, the sport's done nothing but downward, in my opinion, for a number of reasons. I'm not pointing blame anywhere, but the sport has had a spiraling downward trend. USA Judo, you have $500,000 as a country this year to budget to go support Team USA. Hello, everyone.

Welcome back to the Shintaro Higashi Show with Peter Yu. Today, we have a very special guest, the Jimmy Pedro. How many nice things can I say about him? He is a world champion Olympic bronze medalist. Two-time medalist or one-time medalist two-time medalist two-time medalist i should have known that i'm sorry jimmy it's all right it's just an olympic medal shintaro amazing amazing athletic career he's a businessman fuji mats fuji sports he was my. He was my coach. Thank you for being here today, Jimmy. It's absolutely my pleasure.

I'm very, very happy to see the success you're having in the judo community. Congratulations on the gig with the IJF. Everybody's in support of you. Everybody loves hearing your commentary. You make it fun. You make it light. And, you know, you're helping us promote the sport of judo, which is terrific. Thank you so much, Jimmy.

Thank you for that. So now this whole reason why we're getting into this podcast series is because of the election. And, you know, you're helping us promote the sport of judo, which is terrific. Thank you so much, Jimmy. Thank you for that. So now this whole reason why we're getting into this podcast series is because of the election. And you've never ran for a board of directors seat before, correct? Correct. So why now? Well, I've done everything there is to do in the organization, right? So, I mean, I was a young, aspiring junior athlete, competitor, junior national champion, who had the ultimate

dream of representing the United States in the Olympic Games. So I came up through the rank, I came up through the system. You know, I was actively involved in the politics way back when I was an athlete, because it was an open session where every member of the organization got to have a say at the board meeting. So as an athlete who has made an Olympic team, a lot of the organization got to have a say at the board meeting. So as an athlete who made an Olympic team, a lot of the athletes used to show up and we had good representation on the board. Our voices got to be heard way back when I was an athlete. And then I went on to become a couple of time Olympic medalist. I then went on from athlete to become a coach. I took the next generation after I retired from the Olympics. I took a coach. I took the next generation after I retired from the Olympics.

I took them and I helped develop the next generation of talent. I identified a bunch of kids. I took them around the world. We developed them. And then I naturally made the transition from sort of U23 coach to senior national coach and Olympic team coach, where we went on to win two Olympic sorry two Olympic teams we ended up winning four Olympic medals but we had you know great results in both games we had two golds a silver and a bronze medal in the Olympics as a coach and then I went on to the business world and I started developing my own companies obviously after after having been in judo for a very very long time

and running a very successful dojo and running my team, I had to make money for me and my family, right? I had kids that wanted to go to college, you know, and, you know, I wanted to own my own home and I wanted to do lots of things with my life. So I've spent the last decade, you know, building my businesses, which I've done really, really well. Fuji Nats today is a global company. Fuji Sports is also a global company. Two separate identities, but both doing great

in the marketplace. And more importantly, we're heavily involved in the sport of judo. I see what goes on at the IJF level. Our mats are IJF approved mats. They're on the floor at all the European championships. And we're a major sponsor of the European Judo Union as our mat company. And in the United States, Harashita Enterprises is one of the sponsors of USA Judo. We've been so for the last 20 years, but we outfit the team with either Mizuno Gi's or Epone Gear Gi's. And again, we're heavily involved in the Judo. We're sponsoring the World Veterans Tournament that's coming up in Vegas in November. We'll have a booth there for both companies, the mats company as well as the sports company.

And now what I've seen is I've seen a decline in the production of good athletes in this country. We've always had talented kids and we still have a group of very, very talented kids right now that are doing really well for themselves. But heading into LA 2028, I feel like A, we're behind the eight ball, meaning we've got to really come together as a nation. We've got to start training more together. We've got to have professional and organized camps for these kids, professional tours, and we've got to lay out a plan for them of how we're going to maximize that team and their ability to capitalize and win a medal

where the Olympics is in here in 2028. And I feel like we're very far behind in that process. Not to say that we can't still get something done, but it's going to take a considerable amount of money, it's going to take a considerable amount of planning. And I just feel like right now after having been an athlete, a coach and a businessman, now's my time to give back to the sport. I feel like my peers and the people that I the connections that I have around the world in

judo, they want to see Team USA win, They want to see us be successful as a nation. It's important to the IJF, and it's also important to all these other countries that judo becomes a popular sport in the United States. And the one obstacle for us getting there, number one, is money. We need money to do that. So I have the connections, and I believe that I can raise money for our nation and for our athletes if I'm in a position of power. And they know that the money that they're going to give is going to go to the right place.

It's going to support our team. It's going to go to our athletes. It's going to help professionalize coaching in this country. And obviously, I'm running for a coaching position on the board at USA Judo for that reason, so that I can start to make a change from within. And ideally, my ultimate goal is to become the next president of the of the board of the United States judo. So we can have a visible, charismatic person who has a vision for where we want this sport to go, and what we want for the kids

and the next generation, because I see it as LA 2020 is our last chance as a nation to help promote the sport of judo in this country properly we've got to create stars from our athletes we've got to put money in their pockets we've got to treat them as professionals we've got to professionalize coaching in this nation we've got to build dojos we've got to help the coaches with growing their dojos and growing the sport of judo in America. And that's going to come from a lot of marketing efforts. But I feel like the world that I live in, we're connected to the UFC. We're connected to jujitsu. The connections that we have, I feel that we can open those doors and utilize that

to promote our great sport and to make it bigger in this country that's my ultimate mission that's amazing and hopefully in the end help the kids win medals you know i'm no longer a coach i'm no longer an athlete but now i'm in a position where i'm a businessman i'm well established and i feel like now is it's it's time to take our sport to that next level and if we don't capitalize now where all eyeballs are going to be on judo and all eyeballs are going to be on america in 2028 and we're going to have a full team on the mat if we don't do it now our sport's going to die 100 after 2028 it's going to get very very hard to qualify it's not really going to it's going to cost a fortune for kids to get around the country if we don't professionalize

it from top to bottom now then it's never gonna it's going to bottom now, then it's never going to go in. Yeah, 100%. It's paramount. And I can't stress the importance of this cycle. I mean, you look at Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, tons of money coming in. CJI just happened. Even wrestling with a scholarship, there's like a name likeness thing where you could get a scholarship and get $100,000, $200,000, $300,000 straight into the pockets of these 18-year-old kids. It's a different ballgame that they're playing now. It happened like two years ago. So it's very, very very recent but that kind of hurts judo even more you know i know

we're not directly competing against each other but in terms of grappling right it's getting hurt for the kids we are we are we are 100 we're competing with the ncaa we are competing against wrestling because i've lost a ton of kids at my academy who have gone on to wrestle they're at rutgers now or they're search boys whose kid is at cornell he's getting over a hundred thousand dollars a year and he's gray shirt in this year he's not even wrestling he's gonna make a hundred thousand on his name image likeness and he's getting a full boat to wait gray gray shirting you mean red shirting or is that a new term he's it's a it's a new it's a new term that they use they say he's sitting he sitting here, he's taking a year out of college He's going to train there, he's going to be in their wrestling club

But he's being paid But it's different from redshirting It's not actually going Not attending classes, just there to wrestle To get better for the year So you get gray shirt, then red shirt, and then wrestle And then you can still collect the salary this whole time Oh my god

That's what US Judo is up against that's brutal obviously obviously jiu-jitsu is becoming a very very popular sport and really where where we miss the opportunity is we have no we have no media events we don't have anything cool and exciting happening in the united states to promote our athletes as stars yeah we need to start creating those events like a who's number one type of event. And in showcase, okay, maybe it's Jack and Eska against the next upcoming kid in his division. We have a featured match. We bring in Dominic Rodriguez and he fights the next kid behind him as a showcase match.

We start creating stars in this country and putting them on the mat live television and let them compete maybe at some of these jiu-jitsu events we integrate judo as part of the uh the show yeah and if we do that we're going to showcase judo the great sport that it is that dynamic throws that it does and we're also going to build a name for our kids so they'll start getting a following maybe they start doing seminars for jiu-jitsu academies like you're doing, like Justin Flores is doing, like Jason Morris is doing. The opportunity has come for us judoka. They want to learn takedowns. Yeah, 100%.

And I feel like we've got enough great judoka in this country to go spread the word. Yes, absolutely. We need more ambassadors doing what you're doing to help grow our sport. So do you not want to be in the Olympic coach's chair come 2028? It's not my job anymore. Wow, that kind of blows my mind a little bit. I thought that was the slot that you were gunning for, sitting mat side, coaching the athletes.

I've been there and I've done that, Shintaro. I coached at the Olympic level. I achieved my goal as a coach. We won two Olympic goals. We won a silver, we won a bronze, and we had two sevens. That time has come and gone. I'm no longer the guy that should be there. In order for the sport

to perpetuate, we've got to have a transition plan. Every four years, every eight years, we should have a new crop of people coming up as coaches. They rise to the top, they become the Olympic level coaches, and then they transition and they help that next generation of what we did. And you bring them along, and you start with the new generation.

Because at the end of the day, for a team to win, they have to build trust with their coaching staff. And that coaching staff starts at the development phases. It starts at the early stage when they're cadets. And then you've got the group that goes from cadets to juniors. And that same coaching staff, as long as they're doing a good job, should follow that group because they get to know them. They built that trust.

Then that junior team works with the senior team, and they start getting invited to senior events. And the junior coaches work with the senior coaches. And there's a development model that needs to be established here in this country and there's a natural transition and progression from low to high yeah and i i know firsthand that no single person can do that on their own not you cannot have a club and teach junior athletes and at the same time think you're going to have a really good junior team and also coach the olympic team your time you don't have enough time in your day to focus on

everything you've got to become a specialist at one thing yes if it's going to be a junior coach then you focus on the junior level and you hand them off to the next people just like wrestling does you know just like a lot of great sports yeah even in judo in japan yeah kokushikan middle school university they all pass it along. And then they all have different places, instructors in place, right? It's like you kind of just push them along the pipeline, you know? And so, like, first and foremost, I'm running for coach. I'm running for the coach director position on the board of USA Judo.

Number one, I don't want to be the Olympic coach. I promise I will not be the Olympic coach, 100%. That's not my objective here. My objective here is to set up a system for coaches in this country so that there's an education process. If you want to go open a dojo and you want to be a local coach, here's the pathway to get there, not just safe sports certification, pay your money, do the concussion protocol,

do these simple steps and you can go run a dojo. There should be some base level of knowledge that you need to have to do that right and if you do that we're going to make it easy for you and we're going to let you be a club coach but if you want to go to that next level you want to become a regional coach here's the additional tools that you need in your kit here's the additional things that you can learn to go to the next level right and we're going to have that for local regional regional, national, international, and eventually Olympic-level coaching with different modules. Maybe we need to know strength and conditioning now

if we want to get into the international coaching scene, for example. We've got to know something outside of just how to run a course. So all these curriculum are already set in place and you guys already worked it out, or is that something that you're working on currently working on currently that's something i would like to implement we have an outline of the modules that we want we haven't written every course obviously but we understand the different sports sports strength and conditioning science and nutrition is part of it you know it's not an expert level but it's basic level things that you need to know how to

periodize and train your athletes for success right how do you develop a judoka in this country like there's all different levels of understanding that these coaches need to know to bring their kids along but at the same time we also need to be sending ambassadors coach ambassadors out to the different areas to help teach the coaches that want to learn listen I know there's a lot of coaches that want to learn yeah like they want to learn for first of all judo's changing so quickly in the world at the world level right now the rules change almost every month there's a new rule that comes out and not keeping our coaches current in the rules is a problem huge problem so we've got to like we've got to send ambassadors out and send clinicians out to help make judo better and

stronger in this country number one number two judo better and stronger in this country number one number two we need more certified coaches in this country if you think about like one of the major obstacles for united states judo to grow is that judo is not accessible and what i mean by that is there's not enough clubs that are open even if we created a huge demand let's say we created uh we had a couple of olympic champions which already happened right let's say we went out and marketed and promoted our sport heavily to the world of jiu-jitsu and wrestling and we convinced all these kids to join judo where are they going to go to do judo nowhere i mean i hear it all the time i was going to do judo in this

place the closest dojo is two hours away this is jiu-jitsu school down the street i'm going to go do that you hear it every day so we need to create we need to create usa judo affiliates you know american affiliates so we need to create like an affiliate program where there's a base curriculum that everybody can teach and they're taught how to teach it and they understand how to teach all of these different moves and then but by increasing the knowledge increasing the number of certified coaches in this country people that can actually teach judo then we're gonna give the people a place to go we're gonna be able to expand our sport and then at the same time if you give those coaches the resources to be successful right here's how you run a dojo you

don't you don't introduce Randori in the first year as an example. You start with the basic fundamentals. You have to have a kids class and an adult class. You have to have a beginner class and an advanced class. Maybe Randori is a separate night altogether where anybody who wants to Randori can come, but it's not forced upon people. And you start growing their dojos. Jojo's. So the more people that are in the sport, the more money that comes into the organization from membership, the more people that are watching the sport, the more they're going to give back and the faster we're going to grow this thing. So that's, you know, it's all got to work hand in hand with each other, but this is the plan. This is what I want to do. And I think right now I'm

equipped to do it. So is this going to be all part of the American judo system, which is a platform that you get from USA judo membership? Is it part of the thing or? It can be part of it american judo system which is a platform that you get from usa judo membership is it part of the thing or it can be part of it it can be separate at the end of the day it's like i'm running for a board position i don't want to have any conflicts of interest right we're already we already have the agreement the american judo system already has an agreement with usa that existed well before i ever became, hopefully, a coaching director. That already exists. And I'm not sure everybody who listens to this podcast actually knows that if you are a member of United States Judo, you actually get free access to AmericanJudo.com. So go on.

Use the same email. Log in. You get free access to all the videos that I've done um uh travis stevens has done colton brown has done any olympian that wants to come teach on that platform we welcome all of you to come teach your techniques it's all free for usa judo members right now go log on and watch the judo the other thing i do every single month is i do a live class for people they can watch class they can text me questions during the class if they have questions about it every month we're doing a live class that's all included as part of their membership now the idea would be sure it

would be to use that platform because we spent a lot of money on that website and we have the ability to upload curriculum we have ability to upload videos i thought it would make sense to kind of integrate both of those things kind of you know because you somebody there it's optional you don't have to do as a coach to reach the next level but if you want the system will be there for you to learn you can pay you can learn and the idea for us would be to give back all of the money that coaches pay to get certified or to to further their career development, you know, to take more courses, the idea would be to give the money back into the coaching program so that

we can then fund coaches to go do clinics and seminars and things like that, or maybe to help fund our first national coach. So these are great ideas. I love every single thing that you've said so far. So what has been done in the past term, the term before by the board who are in charge of the positions that you're going for? And what is wrong with the current system now? Like, is there something wrong with the current system? I'm not really familiar with the coaching side of things. I know I have a certification. I know I can coach at these tournaments, but that's all I really know. I don't really know the inner workings. So, you know, I don't like speaking negatively about anybody. I don't really know the inner workings so you know i don't like speaking negatively about

anybody i don't think it does anybody good to call anybody out because everybody's volunteering yeah yeah yeah that's i'm not trying to do that you know i'm not trying to say bad about this guy or that guy but i'm just kind of trying to get a feel of where usa judo coaching is that well here's the problem here's the problem shintaro it's very fragmented okay the system right now is broken and it's fragmented as the current coaching program in the united states is not connected to the olympic program in the united states so eddie liddy is the high performance director of the united states judo he's in charge 100 of the budget for all of the athletes 95 of our budget comes from the United States Olympic Committee. So I'm going to give you

hypothetical round numbers. U.S. Olympic Committee says to Ed Liddy and USA Judo, you have $500,000 as a country this year to budget to go support Team USA. Go figure out how to spend the money. Now, sometimes that money is earmarked for, let's say, the top five athletes in our country. The USOC says, okay, you've identified the best five guys. We want to give each of them $20,000. So $100,000 of your money has to go to these five people. Okay? Another certain percentage has to go to the world championship team.

Another certain percentage has to go to the Pan American team. After that, the extra money in between there's another like 300 000 left or 250 left whatever that number is that's discretionary ed liddy has the ability to create budgets and programs and use that to fund his people or fund the team in the united states but the coaches that are selected to go to the international trips for cadets, for juniors, for seniors, those coaches aren't connected at all to the current coaching program in the United States. The current coaching program in the United States is essentially meaningless. It's discretionary. But if you want to become a national coach in the United States, there's no difference between national, international, or local and regional other than somebody decides, Shintaro, you're a good guy.

You've been in judo for a long time. I think you'd probably make a good national coach. I'm going to give you a national coach's badge. Yeah. Because you've developed some good people. I'm actually an international coach, by the way. But what did you do to become an international coach what what what techniques did you show what courses did you pass or did you shake somebody's hand pay your money and get an international i thought it was a seniority thing how long you've been

coaching how many people that you've put into these tournaments but i guess i don't really remember like what i i don't think i have like uh i took a course or anything like that i thought like safe sport was a part of it concussion training was a part of it i don't really remember like what I don't think I have. Like I took a course or anything like that. I thought like safe sport was a part of it. Concussion training was a part of it. I don't know. I really kind of, I just kind of have it, I guess, you know,

right. Every single, I mean, it's basically done. You calling me out here. I'm saying like, I'm not saying you shouldn't be an international coach, but at the same time,

like, shouldn't you know what some of the international rules are right now in the sport of judo you know before the igf get guy i kind of didn't you know i was like oh shoot i didn't know that was a shido and then that was the first thing when i got to the igf they're like hey man like you you're calling all these rules wrong like how are you unfamiliar with this stuff and i was like yeah you know i don't really watch that much judo i watch highlights and i watch my favorite players but i don't really pay attention to the and then ever since then i've been really focusing on that stuff but yeah if i'm an international level coach i probably should have a base knowledge of uh all the different rule

changes ongoing in that year right and it and like once a once a year for you to go online and and like watch the videos that we create or the igf creates like dares to bring this stuff online here's the new rule changes from this year, 2025 rule changes of this. As an international coach, to keep your international status, you should go online. You should watch the videos. At least be, our video, our player on American Judo System,

we can tell if you've watched the entire video or not. We can tell if you fast-forwarded through that video. So you can let it play. We can ask three questions. Hey, Shintaro, the new rule change for Shido has changed from this to this. True or false? So you'd answer the question.

When you pass the test, it'll say, congratulations, you've got a 70%. You passed the test. And then you'd keep your international badge. At the end of the day, it's helping you become a better coach because you're current on the international rules.

So right now there isn't a system like that right now. Right now, every coach, whether you're an Olympic level, international, national, local, or regional,

you do the same thing. Every year you got to do your concussion protocol. You got to have your core. It's not like time and seniority matters to get to the certain level of a coaching. How does it work currently? It is, but it's all discretionary. There's no – it's not written down anywhere that says, okay, Shantaro, after being a national coach for three years,

if you produce X number of international players, you're qualified to become – there's nothing in writing that differentiates between the different levels. It's all done based on one or two people's experience and says, oh, he's a good guy. He has a lot of good athletes. We're going to make him this level. My goal is not to control coaching.

I don't want to control coaching in this country. Whatever level you're at now, you're at now. Stay at that level. Oh, good. I thought I was going to be voted here. in this country whatever level you're at now you're at now stay at that level oh good i thought first to stay current you should have to have some continuing education stuff yeah new material that's being put out by the ijf so that our coaches are irrelevant and they understand what's going on in the world of judo and therefore they can pass that knowledge down to others. Yes.

Okay, so there's 12 board seats, correct? So I'm running for the coaching director position. Which is one out of the 12 positions. It's one out of the 12, but also it's, well, I don't think there's 12 positions up for election right now. No, there's six. There's two athlete reps. Right. There's two athlete reps.

There's one independent director. There's an at-large position. There's a group B member, and there's two athlete reps there's one independent director there's an at-large position there's a group b member and there's one other person there's six slots up for election there's 12 board slots period and then you will if elected in have the coaching position so when you come up with the idea and the plan you present it to the board correct yes and then they vote yes no maybe is that how Is that how it works? Correct. So you're going to have to have some alliances on that board to be able to push these ideas in, right? Correct. So do you have certain people that are already on board within the groups ready to go?

Like, oh, we support Jimmy. This is what we want. I mean, I'm sure like a lot of these athletes who worked with you before, like Colton, like Marty, who are in the contingent for these slots, they must be all for it, right? Yes, I would hope so. Yeah. Yeah. So right now, right now, the six seats up my team that I'm going with. And I every first of all, in order to vote in the election, everybody before September 27, has to go online and register to vote. Nobody's voice is heard unless you go online and you register to vote now. If you're an athlete register to vote, if you're a coach register to vote, if you have a USA judo membership and you're over 18 years of age go register to vote. Number

one, at least your vote will count and you'll be able to participate in the election. Between now and then, then you can do your research on who you you know who's running for which position in which how you can vote so the only people that can vote for my position are actually national registered coaches okay so you have to be a coach and you have to register to vote as a coach in order to be able to vote for my position on the board so if you're an athlete and you're registered as that that you can't vote for the coach position yeah you have to be a registered coach to vote for our but you can be a registered athlete and you're registered as an athlete, you can't vote for the coach position. You have to be a registered coach to vote for our slot. But you could be a registered coach and a registered athlete as well, right?

But you could only vote for one of those slots. Correct. And which one has more impact, do you think? Like which one has more – I would guess there's less coaches voting than the athletes because the roster is every person who's ever been on the roster. So you could probably make more of an impact voting for that coach's slot is that something that you think is correct yes yes because there are going to be less coaches voting for sure than there are general athletes but at the end of the day whoever gets that slot i'm one of 12 on the board so whoever becomes the

athlete director their vote is equal to mine i don't have any more power just because there's one coach and there's three athletes on the board. So but each slot is an equal power vote on the board. In terms of my team, I've assembled a team of individuals, not only that will support me, but really want to see our sport take off to another level. There's one one guy right now who's working closely with me on the Judo Today program. His name is Hector Lanz. Hector is out of Florida. He's a self-made businessman. He's a millionaire.

He runs his own medical device company, medical supply company worldwide. Hector and I have started Judo Today, which is a nonprofit organization. Its number one goal and objective is to get Judo in schools throughout the entire country. He is running for the at-large position. And I would like everybody who supports me to support Hector for the at-large position. His name is Hector Lanz. Right now we've got Judo approved, Shintaro, in 60 schools in South Florida. I say Judo approved. That means that Florida. I say Judo approved. That means that they will hire a teacher and the teacher will be paid a full-time salary as a teacher to teach physical education in the school system in Florida as an accredited course. So the person to get science or Shintaro Higashi, you want to go teach

Judo in Florida. You've got a job in Florida, they'll pay you 50 grand a year, whatever the number is based on your experience and credentials. Obviously, if you have a master's degree, you get paid more. If you have a PE degree, general ed, you get paid less, whatever it is. You're a first year teacher in Florida, that's the salary you get. But you get paid full time to do the job and you get full benefits as any other teacher would. You get out at three o'clock and your job is in three classes or four classes a day you're going to teach judo as a phys ed credit for the kids in that school right we've got it approved in 60 different schools right now

there's six up and running in florida but we need 54 other coaches the problem is we don't have accredited coaches that can go into that school system and coach which is why we've got got to certify more people, educate more people and get more instructors, because our goal is to take this and go nationwide. We've already we've written letters already with Hector and his son. We've written letters to Governor DeSantis. We've written letters to Governor Abbott in Texas. We've appealed to them that we want to get judo, not just in private schools, but we want to get it in all of the public high schools we've reached out to the igf and their judo in schools program and we've partnered with the igf who's given us an official letter of endorsement we're trying to set up a meeting between maria's visa and either governor desantis or governor abbott to launch you in

schools with changing the youth in this country right right? Helping our youth be more respectful, be more disciplined, be more fit and athletic, you know, to lead by example and be true leaders and not be influenced by others, like to be good citizens. And judo, as we know, with the moral code we have, helps create better citizens. So this is what we are appealing to right now. We want to take this program nationwide and i can tell you what i've gotten so many emails from so many other teachers who already have judo in indiana or in new york or like who want to be a part of this i want to like take the lessons that they've learned and say okay what curriculum can we teach and how do i expand this in my territory so if we can make judo popular in schools and slowly get it into high schools and elementary school, then we're going to be able to get into the collegiate level. If we get it to the collegiate level, it's a whole new ballgame for us as a nation.

Wow. So that's just step one. So Hector's helping me get judo today off the ground in Florida, Texas, and eventually throughout the United States in partnership with the IJF. He's running for at-large position. I also have, as the independent director, we have a guy who's a lawyer. He's a high-powered attorney. He's also a very wealthy individual. His name is Thomas Equals.

So look up him online. He runs his own law practice. He's very successful. He's a martial artist. He's like a seven-time world champion in karate but he also wants to see the sport of judo succeed in this country and he's on board with helping us with his resources to help get money into the sport and to help professionalize this this you know judo in america as as a thriving sport in this country so go ahead no sorry i

didn't mean it you asked me for my team yeah i'm yeah put together the team so we got jimmy pedro coach director we got hector lance as the at-large position we got thomas equals as independent director on the athlete side i would like everybody to continue to support marty malloy right marty malloy she's running for re-election and i've told all my athletes you're going to to vote for Marty Malloy for the position of athlete director because she understands a professional system, what it's supposed to look like. She was a San Jose athlete. While I was the coach, she had her own coach. I was the person who helped lead, guide, director internationally.

But at the end of the day, it was a team effort between me and the jose state team to help produce marty maloy and make her the best athlete possible yeah i don't care where the kids are from what team they're on to me they're all part of team usa yeah and i want every single one of them to win so i would like you to support marty molloy for athlete um the athlete rep position and i also want you to support angelica delgado for athlete rep she's fresh off the Olympics. She's passionate. She's part of a different program, right? She's part of Kitsusai, which is one of the national training centers right now.

And Angie from a different group. Colton's from New York. You got Marty from California. So they're all spread throughout the country. We'll have good representation on the board, people with their own minds. But I believe we can move this sport forward if you vote this group in. And last but not least, Jason Morris is running for the Group B member. So he's going to represent Group B, which is right now he's running against the current president, which is Joe Reagan. He's also running for that Group B position.

I encourage all of you to vote for Jason Morris for that role, because listen, there's enough history in this sport. And I've, I've, uh, for the last decade, the sport's done nothing but downward in my opinion, for a number of reasons, I'm not pointing blame anywhere, but the sport has had a spiraling downward trend. We've had kids that have popped up in one. And I don't mean the international success that the athletes have has gone downward, although we haven't produced Olympic medalists, world medalists, Grand Slam medalists. We haven't done that in the last decade. We have produced some Paralympic medalists, which also count heavily. They're professional athletes. They're given every day to be the best they can.

But these people need more support. In order to win, they need more money, they need more support, and they need professional coaching. And as the coach director, my number one goal is to raise enough money to have full-time paid staff for our coaches so that our athletes are up against the rest of the world with paid staff. At least we've got professional people taking them around the world and doing it as a job.

So vote for Jason Morris because Ie reagan is much of the same yeah if you want the same to continue you want the trend to continue keep voting the people in that you've been voting for the last decade nothing will change in fact if you don't vote me in i'll walk away all i'm going to do is create a lot of work for myself by taking on this job but i'm willing to do it and i want to do it because I think it's important that we put our best team on the mat in 2028, that our sport becomes a high visibility sport going into the Olympics. We're going to create some stars.

We want to have medals at the games. And the only way we can do that is we've got to like increase the number of participation. We've got to help clubs. We've got to have more certified coaches. We've got to have professional athletes. We've got to have a professional sport in our country if we're going to win yeah wow that was uh incredible so what does group b represent it's all of the state organizations so if you look at okay okay that's a state new york state judo you know so new york

state has a vote mass judo has a vote californ California has a vote. So all the people that have the state presidents will vote for that group B position. Gotcha. Okay, so the board, you get on the board. You have your people, right? That's six people already that you kind of endorsed right now. So whoever, right? All the people, Hector, Jason, Angelica, all these guys, you guys all see eye to eye on the Olympic quad qualification

and then the Keith Bryant situation? Not necessarily. I haven't discussed that with any of them yet. I haven't discussed any of that. The idea is that I need people who will back me, who will help see the momentum. At the end of the day, I might not agree with anything Jason says, or I might not agree with 20% of what he says. At the end of the day, I know who I'm dealing with. I'm dealing with somebody who wants judo to succeed in America, somebody who understands I want judo to be marketed and promoted. And we want our kids to be on the Today Show. We want our kids to be in front of mainstream media. And without marketing and without promotion, listen, Jason and I worked together years ago on real judo it was one of the first magazines produced monthly by the organization we understand

the importance of marketing our athletes and promoting our sport and you know what it left an impact you know why because i remember a picture of you on the front cover like this when you won worlds i remember that you see and that was like the thing because you know i grew up having that i put that on the wall you know not to gas you up or anything like that but like having that kind of a thing shows the kids now like oh man there is this guy who's a star i could be there i want to be there and inspires the kid we don't really have that now you know we have instagram but like no one's really on it from usa judo you know which is kind of a shame tangible yeah we have nothing tangible we don't have the next generation being inspired by the current generation.

Yeah. This is what we need. In order to have excellence in the sport, you have to perpetuate excellence. You have to keep your stars in the sport of judo professionally, whether it's running seminars, whether it's coaching the next generation. Like I got brought in right after I was a star. I got brought in as a coach. right after I was a star, I got brought in as a coach. I got to inspire the next generation of kids and help groom them and get them ready and teach them what it took to be successful.

You need to do that with the people that just came off of this Olympics that are retiring. As soon as the Judo system spits them out and sends them off to another world, by the time they come back, it's too late. We've missed the opportunity to inspire a generation and to help them make a living from the sport of judo all of our olympians should have a full-time job when they're done either teaching judo in schools or being a national team coach or doing clinics around the country and making a real salary by giving back to the sport of judo and until we

can do that as a nation we're going to keep flushing olympians down and we're going to try to resurrect from the dead some old guys that want to try to help yeah agreed so what do you think about the program and north carolina right now that they brought a guy from sweden or switzerland or one of those guys right you know that guy talking about eric he's swedish yeah so like that's a program that's happening right now. Is that a program that's successful? Or do you want to keep that going? Or do you want something similar? Like, what is your opinion on that? It's a great question, Centauro. I think, again, it's fragmented. It's not part of our development system. It's not part of our nation's system right now. I feel really bad for Robert. He's a good guy. He's trying the best he can with

the hand he's been dealt. But the reason why we would never shut that down is that North Carolina gives USA Judo a budget. There's a $350,000 a year budget for that training center. The national, he has a coach, he gets a certain salary, I don't know, $70,000, $80,000 a year to be the head coach of that training center then the rest of the money he can use to develop athletes why wouldn't we use the money from north carolina to develop team usa the problem is it's not part of the high performance program they just do a random camp there once or twice a year and that's good enough this guy needs to be integrated as part of our development program and my job as the coach

director is going to be working with and forcing high performance to come up with a plan for developing our athletes properly i want oversight of the budget and where the money's going and how it's being spent and i want a full integration of the national training center in north carolina into the development plan so that everybody in the country knows what's going on how to get funded if my kid wants to access the National Training Center what's available to him how does it work it shouldn't be Robert Erickson's job to go out and sell himself to the country we should make that part of our development plan where's our best athletes for a certain period of time every year they're going to that training center and they're training with the national coaches.

And we're inviting other people there to spend a significant amount of time to train together. You know, one thing I saw on social media yesterday, which was awesome, it was posted by, I think it was Danny Rodriguez posted it. It's Dominic Rodriguez's father. And it was Jack Inesco helping Danny Rodriguez prepare and train for the junior world well I love that who went to Ineska's dojo to help Jack prepare for the Olympics it was Dominic Rodriguez so it was both athletes helping one another reach their goals even though they used to be rivals yeah they were both head-to-head fighting each other off of the 73 kilo spot what what the country what the United States needs to understand and know is that we are not enemies.

It's not my club against Jason Morris' club, against Kitsusai, against UNESCO's club, against San Jose State. If we don't have each other to compete against on a regular basis, to train with on a regular basis none of our kids are winning international we've got to compete together often we've got to train together often by having that peer push you to do more work every day to get to the next level to to stay hungry to stay sharp a sharp iron sharpens iron if you don't compete you don't train together, you're going nowhere. We need each other. And so the country needs to train together more, needs to connect more, and needs to be educated on opportunities for all of the best kids in the country to either train at the National Training Center or to join Team USA on some road trips in Japan for a month or Europe for a month

and start training internationally with professional coaches that are going there and their only job is to make our kids better and then they report back to high performance and say hey this is this kid trained this kid didn't this kid was out of shape yeah you do you do like we need to professionalize the development of our nation right now. And it starts. So how much money does it take to do something like this? Because I know Keith's initial platform was like, hey, this is my campaign. I'm going to raise $4 million. And that's one of Nicole's biggest gripes with Keith Bryant right now.

It's like, hey, you promised $4 million to be raised. It hasn't been raised. Let's just say like you're going to raise that money. What would you spend it on first? For the coaches. I would spend it on a staff. I would spend it on a professional staff.

I told Keith Bryant from day one. I was sitting with Keith Bryant and Ed Liddy together and I said to them, your number one goal right now in 2016 is to go raise $200,000 for coaches in the country because you need two paid professional coaches at the senior level. You need a junior coach, and you need a cadet coach.

Their full-time job is working in the sport of judo, thinking and planning where our team's going to go, how we identify talent, what the path to excellence is going to be. And unless you can do that, I'm not going to be be involved but we're never ever going to have succeed at the highest level because that's what it takes and you know i i agree that a ceo and if he was hired to raise money he should raise money he should this should be a benchmark if you can't raise this amount of money yeah then you're no longer CEO. That's fair game. But they got to know ahead of time what the goalpost is.

How much do you think it should be? Give them the goalpost. How much do you think it should be? Well, I also think the board should raise money. I don't think anybody sitting on the board, if they haven't raised money, then what are you doing sitting on the board of USA Judo? Some board members, just to be a board member, you got to commit to raising $150,000, $200,000. If you can't individually go get that for the sport then you don't belong on the board and you

think about what that would do for our board if we made that the benchmark 200 000 per member that's 2.4 million dollars that we just raised we could do a lot with 2.4 million a year yep our high performance budget is somewhere between like five and seven hundred thousand so i gave you 2.4 million could you do something with that as a nation i say yes yeah 100 so and i also think the other thing needs to be done we need to rewrite the bylaws i'm hearing all this nonsense online that board members or at least forget me or some of the higher end board members but like these athletes that are board members, you're saying they can't make money from the sport of judo?

You should rewrite the bylaws so that they can. They're athletes that are given back to the sport of judo who have just retired. Wait, that's what it says? You can't make money as an athlete? Is that what it says now? Well, that's one of the gripes that Nicole Stout has right now with Marty Malloy and Colter Brown. She's accusing them of taking money money and it's against the bylaws because they were hired by USA Judo to go coach camps and

clinics. But listen, if you're an athlete who was an Olympian or an Olympic medalist and you just retired from the sport and you're going to give back by going and sitting and giving your time, energy and effort to sit on the board to help the country become better and stronger as a nation and then at the same time you're going to be told hey listen you can't do any camps and clinics and you can't help the next generation get better with your expertise then there's something wrong with the way the bylaws are written because these people we need them involved in the sport and they're not making money because they're a board member they're making money because they've spent a whole lifetime in the sport acquiring all of this knowledge and expertise of how to win

at the highest level we want them giving back to the sport we should be paying them to coach and if high performance is okay with it and the ceo is okay with it and the board is okay with it why all of a sudden now is it a problem because they don't believe the same thing that you believe on the board or that they go against your decision like we need to change the bylaws to make sure that we're keeping olympians in the sport and not getting rid of them and pushing them out yeah that's a great point man we got to keep the athletes in we got to keep the athletes in the coaches in and everything okay so that's the biggest. Your number one platform here, campaign message,

is that we have to grow coaching, period. That's your number one thing. We have to grow the number of people doing judo in this country. We have to create awareness of how great the sport of judo is for kids to get involved in, for people to train in. It will change your life. You'll get healthier. You'll get stronger. You'll become a better citizen. get more confidence we want more people

doing judo but if we create demand we need more coaches and people that are going to judo that are opening up judo clubs or running judo YMCA's or or doing judo as a full-time job the more people we can get teaching judo full-time in this country the faster our sport grows the bigger the sport comes and then from that we want to create professional teaching opportunities for the coaches that want to go teach in high schools or go teaching colleges we want to create jobs for them so they can have an opportunity i'm tired of running my own dojo i'd rather go to a school and teach pe and after school i've got a varsity team that I'm going to take and compete.

Like we got to get judo in high schools. Get the high school program back and get the college program back. That's how we grow. And then from that awareness, the sport will inherently grow. So do you think it's possible to see a pipeline in the future of like NCAA judo league? Like do you see that happening ever? Sure, why not? Wow.

That's big picture thinking it's it's a it's a sport that has gender equity you you've got a girl's program and you got a guy's program so when you put it into a college title nine you're not affecting the title nine ratio so you have equal wrestling's gonna run away with the woman's woman's sports in the next decade woman's wrestling will be as big as men's wrestling if we don't watch out. And they're going to take all of our female judoka to the sport of wrestling if we don't wake up.

Because all of those girls are going to go to Iowa or Ohio State or Penn State. They're all going to get recruited. They're all going to get full-time scholarships. They're all going to have name, image, likeness rights. And our best judo girls are going to leave to wrestling because they're going to make a lot more money over there and they can become stars in the sport of wrestling so absolutely crucial this quad it is one more thing jimmy uh what do you think about the olympic

qualification system coming up like do you have any ideas about that so i've been asking for two years how are we going to qualify the team in 2028? And I've asked the board members, please push and ask and request. What's the selection criteria going to be? How are we going to select Team USA? We're going to have a full team of athletes. What's the plan? The pushback and the answer I get all the time, which is,

I'm going to call it a BS answer, okay? Because the answer from high performance is, I'm waiting for the budget from the USOC. I can't make any decisions until the USOC gives me my budget. And I say, bull crap. Because you know what? A plan is a plan. How are we going to get to the top in 2020? What does it take?

What's the plan? Give me the ideal plan and give me how much is it going to take to make that plan happen? That's what a plan is. When the USOC gives you a budget, that's just a portion of the budget you need to execute your plan. If we know what the plan is, we can go out and raise the money to execute the right plan and to make it happen. And of course, if we can't raise the ideal amount of money, then we got to scale the plan back and we got to take some stuff out. But at the end of the day, the plan should be the plan. This is what we're going to try to do as a country.

And if we can do that, we can raise money because people know what is my money going towards. Well, this is the plan. This is what it's going towards towards we're going to fund this number of kids to do these number of camps these many tournaments with these coaches and this is the ideal plan to train our team for 2028 and if you can't give me that plan then you haven't put any thought into it yeah it's not my job if i full-time job to figure out how we're going to select our team i have an idea of how to do it but it's not my job i'm going to push whose job it is to get it done or i'm going to find somebody else that can do it but if you get in as a representative then you get to vote on those

the plan for the olympics right how it gets selected the procedure correct ultimately it's the board doesn't make those decisions i thought it was the board that makes that decision uh board doesn't make those decisions. Oh, I thought it was the board that makes that decision. That was my understanding of it. We... It depends on who's in charge of the board. It depends on the influence that the board has. Currently,

the current USA Juno board has no say or no discussion whatsoever about high performance. They leave high performance by itself and it's been run by itself for the last decade. We're over budget on high performance for They leave high performance by itself, and it's been run by itself for the last decade. We're over budget on high performance for the last three years.

Nobody's been looking into the details. That day ends. If I become in charge, that day ends, because we're going to start looking after it, and we're going to make sure that the money's being spent wisely, with the right programming in place to help all the united states people

judoka be their best at la so if you're in and you get to choose ideal way what would the criteria be well first of all i think that anybody who proves it's just the way and don't tell me you're waiting for the uslc budget we that's just completely i mean listen listen it needs a well-thought-out plan it also comes down to how much how much money we actually can raise because we do need the professional staff to take these kids around the world true the unique the unique position that we're in shintaro different from every other olympics is that we don't have to qualify yes our athletes for the games we don't necessarily have to run to Japan and to Russia and to all these different places to qualify our team for the games. What we do is we have to

prepare our team properly. So we would probably have some athletes that we would be targeting for Grand Slam level, World Championship level events, because they need to be at that level, because some of them are already at that level and need to compete against that high level so that they are ready to go we also have a young group we don't want that young group going to japan and going to paris grand slam and going to the world championships we need to spend our money wisely we need to put them at events where they're together with other like-minded people at the same level developing their judo getting used to winning when they compete they're together with other like-minded people at the same level, developing their judo, getting used to winning.

When they compete, they're used to winning, not going overseas, losing first round or second round and coming home. We need to get them a lot of matches. We need to get them a lot of training camps. We need to develop their judo. We need to teach them how to train properly, how to compete properly, understand a system of winning. And from there, then we can start to push them to the higher levels but it's gonna take a

significant budget and we're gonna need two teams we're gonna need an elite team and we're gonna need a developmental team to get them ready but the end of the day I think anybody that medals at the world's medals at Grand Slams they should get an automatic qualifier to be the Olymplympian because they've they've won at the highest level and maybe if they have to be in the top eight in the world they're automatically on the team everybody else is probably going to be a trials if you can't prove yourself and you can't if you can't medal in the world's medal at a grand slam or you don't put like three medals at grand prix tournaments or above in a year you probably don't belong to be

our number one guy but there also has to be criteria for everybody else to make it into the olympic trials because we don't want you know as an example right i'll just give you an example let's say travis stevens tomorrow says you know what i'm not going to do anything i'm going to show up to the trials at heavyweight and i'm going to represent team usa he potentially could go win a trial he's got a good shot right like he could win our trials in 2028 no do we want travis stevens sitting at a desk and doing nothing no for the next three no just saying is it good for the sport for him to sit home for three years and then in three years go win a trials and represent team usa in 2028 is that a good thing for the sport i'd say no

we don't want other people doing that either we want people that are doing judo full-time that are dedicating themselves that are attending a certain number of camps a year that are competing in our national champions competing in our president's cop we should establish we should establish a tour in america of A-level USA events. If you want to be in the trials, you have to have at least competed in X number of these events and attended a certain number of national camps so at least we get to see, touch, and feel and influence your judo where you're a training professional. We know you're fit.

We know you're taking the sports serious. In order to get into the trials, you have to have minimum requirements to get there. Otherwise, we're wasting our money and we're just putting some random guy who could win one event on a team. And it doesn't help us later on. It's not going to help us create excellence forever.

We want to create excellence forever, not have one guy be making Olympics. Wow. You have... That's really well thought out and well planned. I love it. Thank you. We're going to thank our sponsors right now really quickly. Drew, Jason, LeVon, thank you very much for your sponsorship.

JudoTV.com. Watch High Level International Judo. Discount Coach Chintaro. Thank you for sponsoring the podcast. And then also Higashi Brand. And then maybe Fuji too one of these days, right? How about Harashita Sports? The official e-provider of usa judo there you go

there we go we got a poem gear yeah check us out how does she in sports.com you should use code shintaro 10 that's exactly right so anything else jimmy registered to vote obviously the registration closes on friday september 27th so there's not too much time for, you know, but, you know, I've been promoting the vote, go vote, go vote. And then when is the election exactly? I believe it starts October 7th. Okay, so we do have a little bit of time for this episode to air before the people actually, you know, go out there and vote. So that's amazing.

Register to vote. Vote for Jimmy Pedro for coach director. If you want to see our sport go to another level, I will help get it there. And I need you to vote in my team as well. So you've got Hector Lanz. You've got Thomas Equals. You've got Angie Delgado, Marty Malloy, Jason Morris.

Vote us in. Let us help the next generation do what we did. And that's win Olympic medals. Wow. Amazing. Thank you, Jimmy. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me

on