Hard to say why the USA is so far behind the world in Olympic Judo. If you go back and look at the Pan American games and other international Judo events we participated in you would think we were on top of it. It looked like Ben Campbell was a favorite for the Olympics in 1964 after taking the heavyweight Gold in the 1963 Pan American Judo. He defeated Asada, Japans Heavyweight College Champ, in the 1963 Pre-Olympics and the later in 1963 threw Japans Oka and Welsh Heavyweight Camp in a big international Judo tour in Europe and Japan. Jim Bregman was our first Olympic medal winner and went with a great American team that should have won more medals.
One problem we faced here was available training facilities like other countries had, like Japans Kodokan, etc. IMHO, we were second to Japan during the 1950s and early 1960s, but by 1963 other countries began to take more interest in International Judo and it was only a matter of time that the USA would fall behind. We really had little to offer Judo competitors in the way of training halls, funding, and coaches. Another IMHO: many of our best Judo competitors lacked teaching and coaching experience they were playing the sport and not learning how to coach. And the less-than-competitive sensei and coach types were shut out by the Judo body politic of those times. What we needed then was sponsored organizers and some large Judo training facilities. It was growing of course, but not in time to save us from all the nasty internal and external Judo politics of the AAU and other groups.
If I had the answer to your question then the problem would have been solved in 1963. My opinions are just that -- opinions. Since my interest in Judo was not to compete, but to just participate and someday maybe teach it, I lost interest in what sport Judo was going though.
Rick Mertens, Executive Director of the AFJA/USJA for many years, had the right idea back years ago. He, and many of us, wanted to build up strong grass roots Judo by organizing juniors so that someday those kids would grow up to be great senior Judo players -- and coaches as well. We had more than 25,000 members in the mid-1970s and it looked like we could grow and grow, but the body politic blocked our progress.
I came to realize the very essence of the problem back in 1974 when a young boy joined my club that had more natural ability in sports than anyone I had ever known. This kid did everything great. He was the top little league baseball player in the area; the top swimmer, runner, and he wanted to compete in Judo. He learned every technique right away and took first place in every event we went to. It was scary! This kid was great! I took extra time to coach him and I believe that if circumstances had remained at the same at our club he would have gone on to be in the Olympics some day and a winner too.
Well, all good things must end Newtons secret theory of err-relativity. What appears to go up must not be able to succeed. This particular club was in a local community school and others just wouldnt leave it as is. It was just too much for some people that the Judo club was ten times the size and income than the other activities. So, the club funding was diverted to some senior citizen programs and I had to cut the hours and make way for the sewing circle, so to speak. So many of the members went elsewhere including Mr. Natural Ability. His father pointed him into baseball and he ended up playing major league baseball, then getting hurt and dropping out and never returned to Judo. This is just one in a millions stories that defines the failure of American Judo, IMHO.
That's life.