Basketball all in family for Kaimuki's Miyasakas

By Wes Nakama
Advertiser Staff Writer

The Miyasaka family, includes, clockwise from left, Richy, 18, Richard, Jimmy, 16, and Phillip, 13. Richy and Jimmy play for the Kaimuki varsity, dad Richard is an assistant coach and Phillip is the team manager. Mom Anne is the team's unofficial videographer. Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser

When the Bulldogs (4-0) board the team bus in Kapahulu and head to Kalaheo (3-1) for the 6:45 p.m. showdown, it also means the start of more quality time for the Miyasaka family.

And they've had plenty of that over the years.

After father Richard, an assistant coach, was diagnosed with lymphoma in the early 1990s, he and wife Anne Matsushima — the team's unofficial videographer — made the decision to home-school sons Richy and Jimmy. Richy had gone through the third grade at Liholiho Elementary, and Jimmy had just finished second grade.

"At our church, Honolulu Bible (in Palolo), there's a lot of home-schooled kids," Richard said. "Plus, my wife said if the (cancer) treatments did not go well, then at least the boys would get to spend a lot of time with their dad."

The treatments did go well, but the home-schooling also went so well the Miyasakas decided to stick with it even as Richard's lymphoma has been in remission for several years.

Richy and Jimmy each were home-schooled through the eighth grade before enrolling at Kaimuki, where both are straight-A students and guards on the basketball team.

Younger brother Phillip, the team manager, is still home-schooled. He will enter the ninth grade at Kaimuki in the fall.

"For us, it wasn't something out of the ordinary," said Richy, a senior. "Our friends would say, 'Oh, you're watched by your parents all the time.' But it felt normal."

Richard, an accountant by trade, said the process is relatively simple. He orders home-school materials from the University of Florida, then follows the workbooks and matches the curriculums being taught at the traditional schools.

Once a year, the kids would take the Stanford Achievement Test before advancing to the next grade level. Their progress would then be reported to the local school district — in Phillip's case, it's Kaimuki Middle School.

Richard would teach most of the core subjects and Anne, a Kaimuki optometrist, would teach science.

"We have a separate study area in our house, we go over the materials step-by-step, and we get video materials too," Richard said. "It's just like training for a marathon. You just gotta set aside the time and have the discipline to do the work every day."

The Miyasaka kids certainly did not suffer academically: Richy is taking advanced placement calculus and has a 4.1 grade point average, Jimmy has had straight A's on all of his report cards so far at Kaimuki and Phillip, at age 13, is taking trigonometry.

The Miyasakas' home-school curriculum included music — the boys have taken piano lessons — and of course, physical education. The kids have learned kung fu, and Richard and Phillip can be seen running along the Ala Wai Canal three times a week, something Richy and Jimmy also had to do to pass PE.

And as for camaraderie and the other social aspects of school, that's where basketball came in. Richard, a 1974 graduate of Kaimuki, did not play hoops in high school but became a gym rat after graduating from the University of Hawai'i.

"Part of my restrictions during treatment was I had to stay out of the sun," Richard said. "So basketball fit in nicely, it was something we could all do together. And we did it year-round."

Anne has coached the boys in youth leagues, and Jimmy has gone looking for pickup games even during family vacations on the Mainland during the summer.

For Richard, basketball may mean the most.

"It's probably what saved my life," Richard said. "A lot of patients have side effects when they go through treatment, but I went through unscathed and never had to stop. I attribute that to the shape I was in from playing basketball all the time."

Tomorrow night, the Miyasakas' main concern will be Kalaheo and holding onto first place in the East.

And whatever happens, win or lose, they can always talk about it at home.