(Gentle Music) There's so much activity going on as we kick off another edition of This is Utah from the one and only Olympic Park in Park City.

We are surrounded by greatness.

And so we decided to showcase some local athletes who are also doing great things too.

From the passion and determination of an avid skier who leaves age expectations in the dust.

To a young figure skater who is quickly rising in the ranks and raising alarm about inequities in the sport.

Plus we dive into the life and legacy of a basketball legend who changed the game in the 1940s and is still inspiring athletes today.

This is Utah is made possible in part by the Willard L. Eccles Foundation.

The Lawrence T. and Janet T. Dee Foundation.

And by the contributions to PBS Utah from viewers like you.

Thank you!

(Upbeat Music) - Gliding gracefully and carving fresh lines, Hall of Fame ski instructor, Junior Bounous, is a living legend.

He was an extreme skier before the term was even invented.

Today, Junior still shreds the slopes, sharing his secrets to enjoying every twist and turn along the way.

- [Junior] I'm like hundreds of other people looking for the first snow, and going and feeling it again.

Every time I drive up Little Cottonwood Canyon, it's a pleasure.

Every time I ride a lift to the top of the mountain, it's the same to me today as it did 60 years ago.

Marching the senior skiers, they quit skiing because they've lost their ski buddies.

- Yesterday, you got what, six or eight untracked powder runs in?

- I know.

I know.

- [Steve] You were back to giggling like a little kid.

(both chuckling) - You know, it made me feel like I was 80 again.

- Yeah.

(laughing) (bright speedy music) (bright speedy music continues) (bright speedy music continues) (bright speedy music continues) ♪ Ba dum, ba dum, ba dum, ba dum ♪ - So when you and all these other Alta instructors finally developed, you know, a powder skiing technique for yourselves, then you had to teach it to your students.

And one of the ways that I learned how to ski powder from you, was being taught how to sing a song.

- The singing distracts mentally, as well.

And then, but it aids rhythm.

Counting works like a cadence.

Right, left, right, left, right.

- And so, if you're feeling a rhythm and a bounce, then you're being aware of what the snow is doing.

If it's really, really ice, that's a very different piece of music.

- Fear, stiffness, are enemies of good skiing.

Alf Engen was probably the most influential person on my skiing and philosophy, and being able to communicate and ski with people.

- Well, and that was also a pretty important standard that you, I believe, learned from Alf Engen, of hiring people who were ski instructors, who were overall nice people and who you knew would be kind to clients, more so than their actual ski level.

- I can train an instructor how to ski and how to teach, but he's always said, "I can't make up for what their mother didn't teach them in manners."

- Yeah.

- Junior Bounous was the original ski school director for Snowbird when it opened in 1971, which is the year the team started as well.

The Snowbird ski team and the Bounous family are pretty much inseparable in terms of the memories that I know I have of the different decades up there.

Junior was always kind of this larger than life figure that we all knew when we were kids.

Steve, of course, was the head coach then, but Junior was always around, always skiing.

Literally, skiing every day.

- I grew up in his ski school, and there were a lot of people who just wanted to talk about form and technique.

Junior's mentality is, let's go have fun.

And he'll give you a pointer or two along the way, but at the end of the day, he's about enjoying being in the mountains with friends.

And that's why so many people gather and are gravitating to Junior wherever he goes.

- [Skier In Striped Hat] 95 years yesterday.

- [Junior] Do you get it?

(mellow music) Skiing gives you a feeling between earth and air that gives you a floating sensation.

I don't know how to describe that flotation.

- Back before you had created a powder skiing technique and figured out all of the gear and the skis and stuff, you said we were fighting powder.

Learning how to ski powder, it can sometimes feel like you're fighting the powder.

- [Junior] Yeah.

Yes.

- [Ayja] And then you were able to transition into floating through powder.

- You know, the biggest help in powder skiing was the development of skis that will float.

Jim Shane was the one that came up with ideas.

He discovered that instead of sanding the tips, you had to sand the tail, and that's when the tail was soft and it would let the tips float.

He said, we gotta move the bindings back and shorten the tail, not just soften it.

And that combination, we had powder skis.

- [Dave Fields] Junior Bounous was jumping off cliffs long before it was cool.

He could catch a lot of air and land it smoothly and make it look easy.

(bright music) (bright music continues) - The pipeline goes to the Twin Peaks, but it's this angle.

I was the first one to ski it ever.

It's 45, 50 degrees.

First time was in '71 when we opened.

Then I skied it for my 80th birthday.

(bright music) - So Junior knew what could be where Snowbird is today.

'Cause I used to come over from Alta and ski Peruvian Gulch or even sometimes Gad Valley.

As the plan started to come together, Junior was instrumental in figuring out the right place to put the lifts and the runs, and how you could make a ski resort work on what is really steep fall line terrain from top to bottom.

- I had skied this area and knew the terrain from working at Alta, and so I recognized the challenge immediately.

Ted Johnson, when he hired me to do it, he said, "You go to work, you have the resort open to ski by the middle of December."

And I never received another instruction after that.

- He walks in my office at Snowbird and I'll have a map out on the table and we'll start talking about lift placement and snowmaking and things we're doing on the map.

And he remembers every detail of when that run or that area was first developed.

- And so I spent my first two or three weeks in an architect's office, looking at topog maps, knowing where cliffs were.

Fun days.

Challenging days, yes.

And this is a white lupine.

And I've only seen two or three plants.

One of Maxine's favorite summer hikes, of course, was always wildflowers in Little Cottonwood Canyon up here in Mineral Basin.

And she liked to take a book and try to identify all these flowers.

Since her passing, Snowbird and Bounous's have combined together to build a ski bench with Maxine's name on it.

We had 70 years together.

She skied into her 90s.

I've been very thankful that it lasted that long.

Southern Utah.

It doesn't matter.

Colorado, Utah mountain, alpine terrain, Red Rock desert.

It's so beautiful.

It is all enhancing my life.

And I will continue it as long as I can.

(chuckling) - Members of the Utah Figure Skating Club, of which I'm not one, started on an outdoor rink, very similar to the one I'm on right now.

A lot has changed since, back then in the 1950s, for one athletes practice indoors and a new generation of leaders and skaters are reshaping the idea of who belongs on the ice in Utah.

-I feel like she was made for it.

(skates clanging) She was quite fearless when she first started.

- So I guess it wasn't that good of a run.

Most of the time, my mind's kind of blank when I skate.

(soft music) You can be so stressed and then you step on the ice and it's just like all goes away.

(soft music) - It really is impressive.

She has not been skating long in the world of figure skating for how much she's accomplished.

(soft music) - I am Elidi Lawson.

When I first started skating, I'd see people doing things, not really know anything about the movement.

I'd be like, I should try that.

(soft music) Most kids start at like five years old, three years old, but I started at 10.

- 10 is considered late In figure skating.

(soft music) - Sometimes I feel a little guilty because she started asking me when she was probably three and I just kinda dragged my feet a lot.

(soft music) Because I knew what she would have to face and what she would have to experience.

Being black in Utah and having these biracial daughters, I always wanted them to be proud of who they are.

I always tried to find people that looked like them, and so I remember taking Elidi to California, went to LA to see Misty Copeland.

That inspired her.

We joined the Utah Figure Skating Club, which is actually the oldest skating club in Utah.

The club was dying.

There wasn't any leadership and they would have to merge with the Salt Lake Club.

I called to the current president and said, what position do you have left?

And it was the president's job and I took on that role.

(group cheering) (engine roaring) - There's not a lot of diversity in the rinks in Utah or like pretty much anywhere.

- It is really hard.

There's not a lot of black people in skating.

Very, very few.

Isabel surprised me.

She has an advantage, I mean, that she's watched her big sister do these things.

When you are judged on how good your costume is and you show up with things that don't match your skin tone, that's gonna affect how you skate mentally because you think, well, I'm already going to get minuses for the fact that my presentation isn't as good as it could be.

It makes you feel like you don't belong.

When we first started, we looked everywhere to find brown tights that fit her skin tone.

The first skating competition she had, like we just couldn't find the right shade.

So I bought Tan, which was like really Caucasian color and she was so embarrassed by it.

We still haven't found skating gloves for skin tone.

I have to dye 'em or paint 'em so that it comes close to matching.

Skating is an extremely, extremely expensive sport and I think that's also a barrier.

You think, well, there's not enough black skaters in the sport.

Why should I invest in it?

But what if you invested, that would help more people feel like they can do the sports.

- I hadn't realized that there's just not a lot of diversity in skating and so it's just been really fun to see her grow and develop.

Skaters, we take a lot of hard falls.

I think most of us have tailbone injuries or wrist injuries at some point.

- I had tried my double axel off the belt for the first time and Kelsey thought I was really close, like I was gonna land it the next day.

But then the next day in the morning I was training off ice and I rolled my ankle.

None of my jumps feel as normal as they used to, but slowly but surely we're gonna get back because I'm like landing so early.

- I remember when she first landed her axel, her goal was to just land it in competition for the first time.

That was probably her worst competition.

It was so painful to watch.

She fell on every single element possible, but she landed the axel, she landed the the axel.

She reached that goal and we celebrated.

I hope that I can make enough changes, at least in Utah for people to be more welcoming of the diversity.

- When I first started, I felt like really lonely.

I didn't feel like an a skater like part of the ice rink.

- That is so important for people to see that they belong, they can do this.

(soft music) - A University of Utah student stepped on a basketball court and by the time he stepped off, the game was never the same.

That student, Wat Misaka, shattered racial barriers in basketball and beyond, leaving a legacy that still inspires young athletes.

(people chattering) - I think people tend to underestimate Asian Americans, Japanese Americans.

We are athletic, we break barriers in history and Asian American stories are like integrated in US history throughout, but we just don't hear about the stories.

I'm Kimari Perng.

I'm in 10th grade right now, so I'm a sophomore.

I've been playing volleyball since I was in first grade, I think, competitively, since I was 11.

At first I wasn't really interested in history.

It was probably my least favorite subject.

But my teacher reached out to me and she asked me, hey, would you be interested in doing this national competition for history?

And I'm like, I've never heard of that before but okay, I'll give it a shot.

So I made a documentary for National History Day.

- Cool.

It's about Wat Misaka, first person of color in the NBA.

I'm really interested in Asian American stories 'cause I feel like they're stories that are untold about our history, but are super important.

And so I was just looking, like, famous Asian Americans up and I saw Wat's name come up and then when I was doing like more and more research, I realized he's not just the first Japanese American or the first Asian American, but the first non-white player in the NBA.

And he, like, broke the color barrier like Jackie Robinson did.

And he's from Utah so - He's from Utah.

- Yep.

- He's from Ogden, right?

- Yep.

- History, once you get involved you're like, I can't get- - Yeah, right.

- Uhuh.

- Like, it just took one thing and then I was like hooked.

When I'm making a documentary, in my head, I can just see the documentary already playing out.

This is Wat when, during a Knicks game they were recognizing him for being the first Knicks draft pick, and being the first non-white player in NBA history.

They announced it to the whole stadium.

That was so cool.

So Wat Misaka was born in Ogden, Utah.

He grew up on the famous 25th Street.

He went to Weber Junior College, which is now Weber State.

He played there, they won the ICAC championships twice and then he moved to University of Utah.

It was there, that he won the NCAA championships and NIT championships when he got back from the war.

And so it seems like the winning kind of followed Wat around wherever he went.

- In '44, it really was a local team, and you know people, I said, boy, it sure was a fluke, the team from little old Utah could win the national championship.

I keep saying that the fluke was in that we had so many good basketball players coming up at the same time from such a small area.

I think there are five of the team that signed pro contracts and the whole state went wild.

- I learned that he was a really good athlete.

He earned the name nickname Kilowatt for being like so quick, speedy on the court.

And I've seen some of the videos.

It's crazy how quick he is and how good his defense is.

- When I won, my most valuable player thing was coming across the center, getting the ball coming across the center.

A lot of 'em, like myself, would shoot with one foot off the floor.

You know, they shoot with a little hop, the shot - Real quick.

- Shot just about gone.

- Try the one footer.

- Yeah, like this.

(Wat laughing) - What I learned about Wat's story is that he never gave up.

Even when facing the racism and discrimination going on towards Japanese Americans during World War II.

(mellow music) Basically, after Pearl Harbor, the Japanese American US citizens were declared aliens or enemies of the US, and so they put them into Japanese internment camps and forced everyone from the west coast to move inland.

I didn't know that my family was, like, affected by this.

I even, like, didn't know about, like, my grandpa being in the camp for a while.

And there were so many untold stories in history, and they need to be shared, especially like Wat Misaka's story or the Japanese internment camps, both things that I didn't, like, learn about in schools.

- After we came back from Madison Square Garden where we'd won the NCAA basketball championship, and that was the first piece of mail that my mother gave me as I stepped off of the train, with my little greetings from the President inviting me to join the armed forces of the United States.

- He went overseas to Japan while they were imprisoning other Japanese American citizens in these internment camps.

It was really interesting to see, like, that footage from Wat in the camp at Topaz.

He was visiting though, 'cause he didn't live on the west coast, so he wasn't incarcerated, but he was representing them by playing basketball.

- [Announcer] At this time, please direct your attention to the east rafters for a special presentation as we reveal the banner of Wat Misaka.

(audience applauding) A few words from Nancy Umemura.

- We love and appreciate you more than we could ever say.

My father would've turned 98 last month and thank you to the Utah community for supporting Wat and our family for nearly a hundred years.

Go Utes.

(audience applauding) - Wat Misaka was a very humble guy.

In Japanese, it's like being (speaking in foreign language) or like you don't want the spotlight, kind of.

He was just kind of quietly going on with his life and people just didn't recognize that he was the one who broke the barrier.

- So Kimari, I'm so touched and thrilled with your project and we're just very honored that you chose to do this on our dad, but I did bring a few things that I wanted to show you.

This is the blanket - Oh my God.

- that was given to the 1944 team.

- [Kimari] Oh my gosh.

I saw this blanket and you know Wat was in the, a movie about Topaz, holding it up with, I think (indistinct) - Yeah.

Wow, this is so amazing.

- And then when he was sent to, you know, Hiroshima shortly after the bombing to interview people, he was part of the Fifth Air Force.

'Cause the Air Force was part of the army at that time.

Yeah, so that was his fifth Air Force patch.

This was the jersey that the New York Knicks presented to him.

- [Kimari] Oh, wow.

This is like incredible to see like in person, I watched videos of him, like, holding this up at Madison Square Garden or seeing these pictures and putting them in my documentary.

But to see them like here, like physically, it's really impactful to see it.

I feel like national history today opened so many doors for me.

I've never been so invested in history that I am right now.

At the state level, I won the Glen and Carol Minor prize for Utah history, and then I got to go to DC for nationals.

I wanna be a filmmaker when I grow up, and I wanna keep doing documentaries.

I wanna keep sharing stories and yeah.

Of course, the through line in all those stories is courage and we want to know what gives you courage.

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Hit the like button, leave a comment and don't forget to subscribe!

Until next time, I'm Liz Adeola and This is Utah.

This is Utah is made possible in part by the Willard L. Eccles Foundation.

The Lawrence T. and Janet T. Dee Foundation.

And by the contributions to PBS Utah from viewers like you.

Thank you!

(Upbeat Music)