The coach for the Japanese Women’s Olympic Basketball Team, Tom Hovasse, was born in Colorado, and his sister Charlene Llewellyn, lives in Nederland. Hovasse is her youngest brother.

Llewellyn says that her father was in the Air Force and they moved all over the country. They ended up in Colorado Springs when her brother Tom was six or seven year old. They had a basketball hoop in the garage at the time.

Havasse was a star basketball player in high school and went on to play at Pennsylvania State University. He was in the National Basketball Association with the Atlanta Hawks. Havasse played in Portugal and ended up in Japan.

He is the first American to coach the Japanese Olympic Women’s Basketball Team. It was a big deal when he was named head coach, because he is a tall white man (6’ 8”) and speaks fluent Japanese.

Llewellyn said Hovasse has served as the coach for the Japanese Women’s Olympic Basketball team for four or five years. During this year’s Olympics, Japan played the United States, which won the gold medal with a score of 90 to 75.

Japan’s women athletes on the basketball team are under six feet, but it was a good game, Llewellyn said. The Japanese Olympic team won all the games in the Olympics except for the two against the United States and won the silver medal.

In Saitama, Japan, Havasse told the media that it was unthinkable when he was hired as the head coach of Japan’s Women’s Basketball Team. He was not misquoted when he said he would have his team playing for gold at the Tokyo Games against the United States.

“They thought I was crazy,” Hovasse said. “They don’t think I’m crazy anymore. We have a legitimate shot if we continue to play with this level of energy and determination.”

Today, Havasse lives in San Diego and Japan and has been married to his wife Eiko for about 24 years.