Yosh Uchida

Yoshihiro "Yosh" Uchida (born April 1, 1920) is an American businessman, entrepreneur, and educator who is best known for his contributions to judo. Uchida has been the head judo coach at San Jose State University for over 60 years, and has played a leading part in the development of the university's judo program. His brother George Uchida was the 1964 US Olympic Judo coach.

Uchida is the child of Japanese immigrants who worked as farm laborers in California's Imperial Valley. Yosh studied biology at San Jose State, and in 1940 was made the student-coach of the Physical Education Department's judo program. During World War II, while members of his family were sent to internment camps, Uchida was drafted into the United States Army during World War II and served as a medical technician. He returned to San Jose State in 1946 to complete his degree and to restart the judo program.

After graduating in 1947, Uchida remained the coach at SJSU, a part-time position, while working as a laboratory technician at O'Connor Hospital and then at San Jose Hospital, before buying and operating a medical laboratory in 1956. During this time, Uchida and University of California, Berkeley judo coach Henry Stone began developing rules to allow their students to compete against each other, including a weight class system, moving judo away from a martial art for self defense to a sport for competition. Stone and Uchida persuaded the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) to sanction judo in 1953; the first AAU National Championship in judo was held at San Jose State in that year.

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