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Jim Pedro, Jr.:
Olympic Medalist and Local Hero
by Wayne Muromoto
Out of the whole US Olympic Judo team, only Jimmy Pedro, Jr. won a medal of any sorts, a bronze in the 156 lb. (76 kg.) class. While it won't garner him any big revenue Nike endorsements with six-figure bucks, he brought a measure of recognition for himself and the sport of judo in his hometown. And in a small way, he hopes that it's the first step in paving the way for the upgrading of American judo, particularly in younger kids moving up the ranks.
American judo hopes got crunched in the recent 1996 Olympic Summer games. The US team suffered through losses that knocked every entry out of the top three contention except for one bright star, Jim Pedro, Jr., who fought his way to a bronze medal. It wasn't that the Americans were lousy. It was perhaps because, as Pedro contends, American judoka have to keep fighting long before and after the matches themselves are over. And the struggle takes its toll.
Pedro, briefly interviewed in Furyu #5, is 25 years old. He graduated in 1994 from Brown University with a solid 3.7 grade point average in economics. His climb to the Olympic team is, in some ways, one step in a long career that began in his youth with the Massasoit Judo Club in Massachusetts. As a child, he was introduced to judo through his father, Jim Pedro, Sr., who himself was a competitor and active judo player. Jim Pedro was on the 1992 US Olympic team and won a bronze in a World Championships.
The 1996 Olympics was a highlight of his medal-winning career. But it didn't look like it was going to be all that auspicious at first. Before Pedro went up to the mat, other members of the US team were being mowed down by the tough international competitors that had gathered at the Georgia World Congress Center. Finally, on the fifth day of judo competitions, it was Pedro's turn.
"It went incredibly well," Pedro says. "I had a great day."
His first competitor, from Great Britain, was ranked fifth in the world. Pedro downed him in two minutes with a Seoi Nage throw for an ippon (a full point).
The audience, waiting for an American win, erupted.
However, his second match was against a tough Mongolian competitor. Pedro had the favor returned. He was thrown with a seoi nage for an ippon. The loss put him in the consolation bracket. Aroused, Pedro fought all the way through, winning all of the remaining four matches. He won by ippon using arm bars against the contenders from Argentina and Georgia. He beat the tough Schmidt from Germany for the third match with another ippon, and then entered his fourth match against a player from Brazil. By that time, the American crowd was rooting wildly for him.
Through the turn of events, Pedro's first opponent was mowing down the opponents, and according to the tournament setup, if the Mongolian player won all his matches, and if Pedro won the rest of his matches, then the American would be in line for a bronze medal.
Thirsting for American representation on the medal stand, the crowd began to chant "USA!" to encourage him in his final match. At the outset, Pedro was losing by a yuko, a partial point. Fighting back, he unleashed an uchimata throw that upended his opponent. The throw was clean enough for a full ippon.
"I was ecstatic," Pedro says of winning and the awards ceremony. "But I wasn't overcome with emotion. . . (My friends and family) were all happy for me; I was brimming with happiness. There were no tears. But I knew I had waited a lifetime for this moment."
Pedro remembers looking up into the stands for his family. "Usually my father is like a rock; he's very powerful-looking, very stoic. But that's that first time I ever saw him with tears in his eyes. I just know he was the happiest father."
When Pedro returned to his birthplace of Danvers, Massachusetts, the whole town turned out for him. It was the first time that anyone from that small town had won an Olympic medal, so he was a celebrity. A parade circuited through the town's main street. "They put us on old fire trucks, my whole family, and we were waving and they drove us through the whole town, a few sidestreets, and then up to the town hall."
Pedro was honored, he signed autographs and pictures, and he received awards, accolades, a resolution, and the bestowing of a "Jim Pedro Day." The small-town fanfare must have been both funny and touching to Pedro. He seems genuinely amazed, for example, that the town's local McDonalds gave him free food--all the food he could eat (he kept talking about in awestruck tone to the other judo players at the clinic where this interview was conduced)--and the owner of the local gas station offered him free gas. "Now everyone in the town knows me," Pedro says.
The hype, at least in that little spot of America, actually preceded him. During the Olympics, local media covered him, interviewed him, followed him around Atlanta, and huge pictures of him made the pages of the Boston Globe and Boston Herald newspapers.
After winning the bronze medal, Pedro also received calls to make appearances at celebrity benefits and the like.
While localized, Pedro hopes that the media coverage--if anything--will help the general cause of judo. Pedro had planned to start his own judo club when he returned from the Olympics and the press he received inspired parents and kids to sign up in droves. "It had people so excited about judo. . . If judo was publicized (like that) on a regular basis, it could really take off. The little kids want to do something. If they see a judo guy on TV winning, it'll stir up interest. I just don't think (judo) people realize that or care enough. If kids are simply aware of judo, they're going to do it."
And that was the bone that Pedro had to pick, if there was any negative part to his experience. He was able to see how other American athletes basked in publicity, sponsorship and corporate support. "Look at beach volleyball," Pedro says. It was the first year for the sport in the Olympics, and yet, because its members secured a host of corporate sponsors, they "got a ton of coverage."
It's a simple, practical formula, Pedro contends. Without public awareness and corporate sponsorship, there is not enough new blood entering the sport and very little support, financial or otherwise, for the competitors, who are then compelled to eke out their survival somehow while training full-time and traveling to seminars and clinics.
"We need public relations, more press. We don't have any sponsors. We need to get corporate sponsors for our Olympic judo teams," Pedro says. For the immediate future, Pedro's plans are up in the air. He doesn't plan to be competing as much as previously. "I'll see what it's like until the Fall 1997 World Championships in Paris," he says. Recently married, Pedro and his wife Marie are nursing a new baby daughter, Casey Suzuko. The responsibilities of heading a family will put some restraints on his formerly nomadic life of being an itinerant judo player.
"I need to start bringing in money. Putting my life on hold another four years, with no money in the bank. . ." Pedro shakes his head. Reality breaks in, and he has to fight not for a bronze medal, but this time for his family.
But for a little while, he relives the moment and sets aside the pressures of everyday life. Pedro puts on the bronze medal around his neck for a photograph, smiles, and fingers the hefty round piece of metal. The days of this hot August summer of 1996 will be an Olympic moment for Jim Pedro, and for American judo.
Jimmy Pedro will be starting a judo club in Lawrence, Massachusetts. For further information you may call or fax: (508) 689-4791 or write: Jimmy Pedro, 151 Weare St., Lawrence, Massachusetts 01843.
Copyright ©Tengu Press and Wayne Muromoto. All rights reserved.