{"id":40744,"date":"2025-09-24T13:59:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T13:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/40744\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T13:59:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T13:59:09","slug":"mel-wakabayashi-honoured-in-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/40744\/","title":{"rendered":"Mel Wakabayashi honoured in book"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Seattle author Doug Levy\u2019s book, \u201cHero Redefined,\u201d focuses on Olympians who may not have won medals, but who made a huge impact, including the late Mel Wakabayashi.<\/p>\n

A former Chatham Maroon skated his way to unsung hero status.<\/p>\n

Mel Wakabayashi is the focus of a chapter in author Doug Levy\u2019s book, \u201cHero Redefined: Profiles of Olympic Athletes Under the Radar.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Seattle author is in town this week to talk about the book and attend the Chatham Sports Hall of Fame ceremonies where Wakabayashi was enshrined in 2005. He passed away two years ago.<\/p>\n

Levy\u2019s book centres around stories of individuals who were unsung heroes; people who made an impact on their respective sports, but not for hoisting a trophy or medal.<\/p>\n

As a fan of the Olympics, he wanted to focus on stories away from the medal podium.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the U.S., we\u2019re very focused on the winners. The theme of unsung heroes was really interesting to me,\u201d he told The Voice. \u201cA couple of athletes in the book were the drivers for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neither athlete was Wakabayashi, but Levey said his tale was captivating.<\/p>\n

\u201cI took a couple of athletes I knew I wanted to profile and I researched a lot of other Olympic games and examples of sportsmanship. Mel\u2019s story really interested me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wakabayashi, born in 1943, was brought into this world in an internment camp in B.C. and then moved to one in Northern Ontario. Japanese Canadians were rounded up during the Second World War and sent to these camps.<\/p>\n

Chatham-Kent was home to an internment camp just north of Rondeau Provincial Park on Talbot Trail.<\/p>\n

But it wasn\u2019t just spending time as a toddler in a camp that caught Levey\u2019s attention. It\u2019s what Wakabayashi did despite the many hurdles placed before him that garnered the interest. His family moved to Chatham after the war. He played for the Maroons in the early 1960s before lacing up the skates for the University of Michigan, earning MVP and first team All American honours.<\/p>\n

The Detroit Red Wings signed him in 1967, but he never made it to the NHL level.<\/p>\n

Instead, he opted to head to Japan to play professionally there.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe fell in love with the game of hockey at a time when (NHL) hockey was not a friendly place to non-Caucasian players,\u201d Levy said. \u201cSo, he goes to Japan and really raises the level of that game in that country.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1980, it was Wakabayashi who coached the Japanese men\u2019s Olympic hockey team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw him as a really quiet hero who really changed the game of hockey for an entire country,\u201d Levy said.<\/p>\n

Wakabayashi, along with brother Herb, had a lasting impact on the sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe game of hockey before and after Mel and Herb came and went was very different,\u201d Levy said. \u201cThe Wakabayashis left it in a better place than they found it. That\u2019s a pretty good indicator (of being unsung heroes).\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the two Olympic athletes that inspired Levy\u2019s book, one was Swiss marathoner Gabriela Andersen-Scheiss, while the other was U.S. runner Manteo Mitchell.<\/p>\n

Andersen-Scheiss persevered through dehydration to limp to the finish line of the inaugural women\u2019s Olympic marathon in Los Angeles in 1984. Mitchell was a 400-metre relay runner.<\/p>\n

Both encountered adversity in their respective events.<\/p>\n

Andersen-Scheiss was 39 when she raced at the Olympics. It was a hot, humid day, and she missed the final water station as she ran.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe got severely dehydrated. She entered the stadium and looked like she was going to faint,\u201d Levy said. \u201cAnd yet she didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rounding the track despite severe leg cramping, Andersen-Scheiss\u2019s final staggering steps that day defined perseverance, and with a full L.A. Coliseum crowd cheering her on, she managed to cross the finish line.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to 2012. Mitchell, in a qualifying heat at the London Olympics, took off from the starting line as per normal, being the lead in the four-man team. But at the 200-metre mark, halfway through his stage, he heard something snap.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe knows that something is very wrong,\u201d Levy said.<\/p>\n

What was \u201cvery wrong\u201d was the fact Mitchell had fractured the fibula in his left leg. He somehow managed to complete his section of the race, passing off the baton to the next runner.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are fantastic stories about people wo did uncommon things,\u201d Levy said of his book.<\/p>\n

The author will be at Turns & Tales at 11 a.m. on Sept. 25 for a book-reading and signing event.<\/p>\n

He\u2019ll then take in the Chatham Sports Hall of Fame ceremonies that evening at the Bradley Centre.<\/p>\n

\"\"Author Doug Levy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Seattle author Doug Levy\u2019s book, \u201cHero Redefined,\u201d focuses on Olympians who may not have won medals, but who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[288,93,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-40744","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}