Talk:Teiko Nishi

First Asian American to start in NCAA Division I basketball

I have read every newspaper article I can find on Teiko Nishi, and none suggest that she was the first Asian American to start in NCAA Division I basketball. The only places I can find that claim made are Wikipedia (List of Japanese Americans and Japanese American) and sites like Answers.com that take their content from Wikipedia. There appears to be no evidence from reliable sources to verify this assertion. I also notice that a woman named Myra Miyasato lettered for the Bruins in 1975, ten years before Nishi. I assume, based on her name, that Miyasato is Asian American. Cnilep (talk) 18:51, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't know anything about this, but I see that a woman named Myra Miyasato is mentioned here and here as having coached the Cal State Dominguez Hills Toros 1976-1981. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 01:57, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Fanbase here [1] mentions Myra Miyasato. I am not sure if fanbase counts as a reliable source, but it would appear she played both Softball in 1975 and women's basketball in 1974-1975 both at UCLA. That was UCLA's inagural year. However I am not sure that women's basketball was part of the NCAA at that time. Actually I did some searching and from its formation in 1974 until 1984 the women's basketball team at UCLA was not part of the NCAA but part of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW). It was not until 1981 that any NCAA women's sports existed. Thus while Miyasato was not in the NCAA, if she was in fact "Asian American" this would create a situation where Teiko Nishi might possibly have the distinction claimed for her without Miyasato being a direct refutation. There is also the fact that the claim is "start" not just play. On the other hand, do we know that Myra Miyasato is Asian American? For all I know this is a married name. Beyond this, maybe she was only half-Asian with a mother of European descent. Would she still qualify as an "Asian American"? On the other extreme, what if Miyasato was an inter-national student on a student visa at UCLA, would she qualify as the "American" part of "Asian-American"? At a minimum I would say that the "first" claim for Teiko Nishi needs to be considered in the light of no NCAA women's basketball before 1981.John Pack Lambert (talk) 06:36, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Put another way, Nishi was a member of the first UCLA team that was part of the NCAA if the article on the UCLA Bruins women's basketball team is correct. There is the discrepancy of saying she started playing in 1985 and later mentioning her playing in the 1984-1985 season. The whole mater is a little unclear, but the fact of the matter is that any claim for her is built around a hard to justify ignoring of the AIWA and the first decade of UCLA women's basketball.John Pack Lambert (talk) 06:41, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Notability

An IP editor has removed the unsourced - and despite my best efforts probably unsourceable - assertion that Nishi was the first Asian American woman to play Division I ball. However, two of the five sources currently cited (Garcia 1987; Garcia 1988) are newpaper profiles specifically about Nishi as a college basketball player. The Los Angeles Times is, in my opinion, "reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject." On the other hand, Nishi did not play professionally or in a world championship or Olympic games. Is this sufficient to satisfy WP:PEOPLE? Cnilep (talk) 12:49, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I would say she satisfies notability. The question will boil down at some level to a debate over whether the Los Angeles Times counts as a local paper for things in Los Angeles put a major paper elsewhere, or whether running an article entirely about one player no matter at what university on the part of the LA Times makes said player notable. I would go with the later view. On the other hand, I would say that Nishi's "first Asian American women to play NCAA baskeball" is not only virtually unsourceable but it is quite possibly the result of the AIWA to NCAA shift that allows a slight of hand that creates true statements that give a false impression.John Pack Lambert (talk) 06:46, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

rdc

rdc is my abreviation for "removed duplicate category". I guess I am being too optimistic in hoping others will understand it. The reason I removed Teiko Nishi from the "College women's basketball players in the United States" category is because she is in the category "UCLA Bruins women's baksetball players" which is a sub-category of the other category. Wikipedia policy is to put the article in the smallest applicable category. An article should not be in both a mother and a daughter category. It can be in multiple daughter categories. For example if Nishi had also played women's basketball as a student at another university or college, she could be put in the relevant category.John Pack Lambert (talk) 06:06, 23 February 2011 (UTC)