During our college years, Sensei Peter spent our parent’s hard-earned monies that they invested in our education on: lunch and snacks at old Hemenway Hall, shooting pool, relaxing in Hamilton and Sinclair libraries, practicing karate, training to become AF officers, and…going to class, haha.  The truth be told, I am sure that the biggest slice of our day’s pie-chart was actually spent…..playing foosball or table soccer.  Yes, that old game with the little plastic men and ball that was so popular before the advent of video games forever banished it to fond memories of the 1970’s.  We played many hours each day until no one could defeat us at the University of Hawaii.  On weekends, we would roam the various pool halls, game rooms, and other college rec rooms in search of viable competition.  Since the challengers would usually have to pony up their quarters, Sensei Peter and I usually got to play most of the night for free.  The favored commercial brand back then was the Tournament Soccer machine (I hate to admit that I still own a commercial coin-operated TS table at my home and Sensei also had a table at his home for many years).  Playing with other skilled players was very similar to kumite (minus getting hurt, other than one’s ego).  In recognition of this, the TS logo was “Handle to Handle Combat”.

My first glimpse of the game was at Hemenway Hall, shortly after I arrived on campus.  I was mesmerized by a local player (an older student, a veteran who had learned the game while stationed in Germany)…like a bad movie, we only knew him as (cue music) tun-tadan….Foosball Charlie.  I guess I was a natural at the game, and after 6 months of playing at every opportunity, I was finally able to defeat the “legend” himself and never saw him again.   Sensei wandered into Hemenway shortly after me and also got hooked on the game.  We reigned over the machines during our years at UH.  The last time we took on challengers as a team, we were both young AF officers, coincidentally on TDY at Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio.  We went to a dance club where there was a row of tables, crowded with players and onlookers.  Once we got on the table, no one was able to dethrone us for the rest of the night.  We came, We saw, We conquered, and left the club with overinflated egos

The Tournament Soccer tables have been gone for decades, but I was recently surprised to come across a Youtube video of a Tornado Soccer World singles final.  Amazingly, the Tornado machines long out-lived the TS machines.  When I was on active duty in California back in 1976, I actually had the honor of playing the defending Tornado Soccer champion at a LA tournament..not surprisingly, I lost, 3 sets to 2.  The video below brought back memories…memories of how we spent (as in wasted) so much of our time in college – but still managed to graduate, haha.  Sensei and I were quite good at Karate, but I daresay, we were even better at foosball.  It may be my ego talking, but if you take a glance at the guys playing below, I believe that we might not have beat them, but we would have gotten in a few licks, haha. (See if you can follow the ball, once the actual shot is executed) Note the quality of the video, complete with close-ups and background narration.