Whether they make the network news doesn’t matter much at this point. Nakauchi and Lee are having the time of their lives and are taking South Pas fans along for the ride. Going into Friday’s game against Blair, Nakauchi, a 17-year-old senior, led the Tigers in points scored (370), steals (91) and–of course–assists, with 162. Lee is right behind him, with 75 assists and 255 points. He’s third in three-pointers at 41, 28 behind team leader Michael Flynn.

With a record of 17-7 (5-2 in Rio Hondo League play), the faithful in South Pas have plenty to shout about. They’re showing it by filling the stands to capacity at the team’s games, both at home and away. Nakauchi and Lee say they haven’t changed their approach to the game; they simply continue to focus as they have since beginning to play ball when they were five years old.

“This is regular high school life,” said Lee, also 17 and a senior. “Wake up in the morning, brush your teeth, put on your boxers, come to practice every day and work hard.”

The fact that the two young men share such a rapport on the court is no accident; they both played in the Pasadena Bruins organization and both were included on a Yonsei trip to Japan as junior high students.

“Some of the fundamentals we learned early; those are the things you’re already expected to know in high school, so maybe we got the jump on other players,” Lee said.
Nakauchi added, “From the very day we start, we’re already going up with our left hand, so we’re more fluent with both hands. You find a lot of players coming out of those leagues who don’t have a dominant hand.”

“They’re the glue on this team; they keep it together and they’re extra coaches on the floor,” said South Pasadena head coach Ali Parvaz. “They have a combo working; since they’ve played together from a very young age, they’re very fundamentally sound players. Sometimes we get into a huddle and they say what I’m going to say before me. So I just turn ‘em loose.”

Parvaz was unabashed in calling Darin the kind of player every coach dreams of having. Darin’s father was modestly in agreement.

He’s a pretty good kid,” said Dan Nakauchi. “We’ve always believed that you learn a lot of life lessons through athletics. I think Ryan and Darin are good examples of that. Not only are they pretty good athletes, but they’re good students and good people.”

Sharon Lee is convinced that the Yonsei trip has helped to shape her son’s outlook on life far beyond basketball.

“To this day, Ryan says it was the best experiemce of his life,” he said. “He had a great time and made a lot of friends and I think it brought out the cultural side in him he probably didn’t realize existed until he went to Japan.”

Both players are also solid students, with Ryan claiming Darin “gets better graades than I do.” Nakauchi has applied to San Francisco State and DePaul; he hopes to play ball and study international business wherever he winds up for college.

Lee is considering pursuing business marketing at Florida, Michigan or the University of Pennsylvania, but he admits he’d really like to find himself at UCLA.
For the moment however, both Nakauchi and Lee are happy to be wowing the home crowd in this close-knit community, who have fully embraced them as their own.

“These are my boys. I may not look like their mom, but I feel that I’m like their mom,” Mrs. Flynn insisted.