By this time anyone who watches ESPN sports realizes that America has lost one of its greatest sports legends.
Friday, College Hall of Fame basketball coach John Wooden passed away at the age of 99.
After graduating from high school, I traveled to Los Angeles, Calif. It was there I realized just what I wanted to do with my life.
In my case, I was fortunate enough to see one of my high school rivals play basketball for Mr. Wooden. His name was Lucious Allen, and he played high school basketball at Wyandotte High School in Kansas City, Kan.
Now I never claimed to be a hotshot basketball player, because I was cut from the junior varsity team after my junior year. But I did get the chance to play against Allen my sophomore year, and it made me feel special that I scored eight points against one of the top basketball players in the nation. That was long before McDonald’s All-American high school games and ESPN, but knowing Allen gave me sort of an in when I ventured to UCLA.
Not being a student at the school made it somewhat difficult to get tickets to see the Bruins and after stumbling into Allen at the student union one fall day, we reacquainted ourselves with each other.
That day, I asked Allen if it would be okay to watch a Bruin practice. He said he would get back with me and see if Mr. Wooden would allow a visitor watch practice.
After hanging around campus for several days, I ran into Allen and he handed me a pass to get into Pauley Pavilion.
From what I can remember, I watched one of the greatest coaches to ever put on a whistle. And from the minute I witnessed that practice, I knew that I wanted to be a coach.
Wooden would later be called the “Wizard of Westwood,” after winning 88-straight games and winning 620 NCAA Division I games.
That day was the day I learned what the “Pyramid of Success” was all about.
There on the wall inside the building was the pyramid plaque, which gave each person who read it the formula to a successful life. Wooden had written the building blocks to success, whether it was playing basketball or being a student or a businessman.
Since there is not enough room to place all the blocks in this column, you owe it to yourself to go online and look up “The Pyramid of Success.”
I am not sure if Wooden ever realized just how many people he reached in his life, but he reached far more people than he ever coached. He coached the greats, but he also taught people how to live because he was far more than a coach.
A few years later, I was given a copy of Wooden’s book….”They call me coach.”
That book became my coaching bible, and I underlined almost every sentence in the paperback. Matter of fact, I used to carry it in my hip pocket when I coached.
I never became a famous coach like Wooden, but I did coach for over 27 years using his philosophy coaching football, basketball, baseball and softball. And you know something? It worked, I never reached his record of 88 wins in a row, but I did win 43-games in a row as an 8th grade junior high basketball coach. What was even crazier was the fact that I coached a girls’ softball team that never lost a game from 7th grade through college.
I only coached the girls two years and we went 20-0, but the girls went on to win 77 games in a row up through college.
And in many ways, I feel as lucky as Lou Gehrig did, because I was an assistant coach in high school that helped win 33-games in a row in football. Later after I took another job, that high school team went on to break it’s own state record of 33-games in a row winning 66-in-a row before that record was broken a few years ago by Smith Center, Kan.
Now I am not claiming I was a great coach, because there were teams in between that made me look like a clown, but what every player under me learned was the John Wooden “Pyramid of Success.”
Wooden was a pioneer and the only man in history to be elected into the college hall of fame as a player and a coach.
What I learned from Wooden was this…Each person on this planet has a different level of success. A person doesn’t have to be the greatest player or coach, but they need to evaluate what success means to them. Success has all different levels, from the single-parent mother who works two jobs to feed her kids, to the labor in the field and to every job done on earth.
Wooden has taught people to live a better life and I am thankful that I was able to look him in the eye when I was a young man, because he changed my life and the Pyramid of Success can do the same for you.
Mr. Wooden said… “Make each day of your life a masterpiece.”
Rest in peace, Mr. Wooden and thank you.
P.S. Mr. Wooden, I gave that tattered book to my son who is an assistant high school basketball coach in Colorado.
