Charles "Sparky" Kawamoto

Kawamoto was born in Hilo, Hawaii on July 6, 1908, to Seki Kawamoto and Annie Hila.^[1] He graduated from Hilo High School in 1928, where he would later coach.^[2] After high school, Kawamoto played in the Big Island Barefoot Football League from 1928 to 1934 where he played for the Waiakea Pirates and won league championships. Kawamoto would also coach football and play baseball.^[3][2]

Though he initially knew little about swimming, Kawamoto started the Shinmachi Town Swimming Club in the mid-1930s, which became the highly competitive Hilo Aquatics Club in the 1940s. Kawamoto would turn over coaching the club to Ed Kawachika, one of his most successful swimmers in the mid-1950s. In his early years, prior to having access to pools, Kawamoto used the Wailoa River for training, and Hilo Wharf and Radio Bay, just off the Eastern Hilo coast, where there is presently a yacht harbor, to hold swim meets. The team was sometimes referenced as the Wailoa River Club.^[3] By the mid to late 1940s, Hilo Aquatics met at the Naval Air Station Pool at the old Hilo Airport.^[2]

In 1951, he coached at Hilo High School, a highly successful team that produced two Olympians and several All Americans. Kawamoto would take Hilo High School to several Hawaii Territorial State Championships but would have challenges winning consistently against powerful teams from Honolulu, such as Punahou. Kawamoto told his swimmers there were three aspects to success; discipline, rigid training, and the "fighting spirit."^[1] He would have a fifty-year career in swimming, with much of it as an unpaid volunteer.^[3] Local YMCA official and coach Yoshita Segawa described Kawamoto as "a guy from the street who wound up with a coach's dream by training small town kids to become world class competitors."^[3]

Yoshi Oyakawa, who became Kawamoto's greatest protege, and Hawaii's first Olympic gold medal winner, swam with Kawamoto at the Hilo Aquatics Club beginning around the age of 16, and briefly at Hilo High School. Oyakawa won a gold medal in the 100-meter backstroke at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics.^[4]

Sonny Tanabe, who Kawamoto also trained at Hilo High School and the Hilo Aquatics Club, competed for the U.S. in the preliminary heats of the 1956 Olympic men's silver medal-winning 4×200-meter freestyle relay. Kawamoto coached both Oyakawa and Tanabe in the 1952 Olympic trials in Detroit, Michigan.^[5][6]

Other outstanding swimmers include Edward Kawachika, who swam for Hilo High and would coach and captain The Ohio State University's swim team, Dennis Baker, who swam freestyle for Hilo High and set freestyle sprint records, Laurence Kaholo Hao, a national level competitor who swam for Hilo High and Indiana University, Masami Takahata, who swam for Kawamoto's Wailoa AA Club in the 1940s,^[7] Yoshinobu Terada, a national level swimmer who competed for Kawamoto's Wailoa Club in the 1940s, Joe Kalua, who swam for Hilo High in the 1950s, Walter Silva Jr., Roy Tanabe, Curtis and Robert Carlsmith, national level competitors who swam for Honolulu's Punahou Prep School,^[2] Carl Fujita who swam for Hilo High, and Masa Onuma, a Hilo High freestyle and distance swimmer who competed nationally.^{[8][1][9][10][11][12]}