I earned my way through college by playing basketball at a Div. I university from a conference other than the Pacific 8, as it was known then. During one of my seasons, we played and defeated one of Coach John Wooden’s UCLA teams. It was during the time of his never-to-be-equaled championship run.
A few years after graduating college, I was an unpaid volunteer assistant basketball coach at my high school alma mater. Coach Wooden was still an active coach, and universally recognized as both a great coach and a great man. One summer during those years, the head basketball coach where I volunteered called me to ask if I would like to join him at a clinic for high school coaches that would be conducted by John Wooden on the campus of a Division I university in an adjacent state. I answered with a very enthusiastic “Yes,” before considering the fact that I was a newlywed husband of six weeks and would be leaving my new wife for a long weekend. Fortunately, my wife was a sports aficionado and an athlete herself and understood exactly what a rare opportunity the clinic represented for me. She OK’d my attendance with gusto. The clinic was an eye-opener. During two full days of workshops the great coach never mentioned winning. In roughly 16 hours of classes, we worked on things like how to construct a practice schedule, how to construct instruction modules, how to create pre-season vs. in-season instruction modules. It was all about coaching and preparation and not at all about winning. The operative philosophy was that highly detailed preparation and organized practices were the keys to success. Do those things well and success would follow. Two events in particular from that weekend remain vivid in my memory. At the end of both days’ sessions, the attendees gathered for a buffet dinner in the athletic offices of the field house where the clinic was held. Coach Wooden joined us for both buffets. It was an opportunity for attendees to ask the great coach any question on any topic we liked. I approached Coach Wooden, introduced myself, and explained that I had played on a team that had beaten one of his championship teams from the 60s. He remembered the game in detail. He was warm and gracious and congratulated me on how well we had played that night and how well prepared we had been. And he spoke of how fond he was of my college coach. There was no guile or artifice in him. The other event occurred during a Q & A after one of the classes. A coach rose to explain that he had a practice routine that he used as a test of a player’s motivation. He would roll a ball toward the sideline, near the bleachers, and ask his players, one by one, to dive on the floor for the loose ball. It was a drill that could expose a young player to injury, but it was a fast way to determine motivation, according to the coach who used this particular drill. Coach Wooden was calm in his response, but his anger at what he had just heard was visible on his face and in his body language. I cannot quote the words of his response verbatim, but I’ll never ever forget their essence: “Coach, the young men who play for you are teenagers who are not yet physically mature. They are not professionals being paid large sums of money. And they are not collegiate athletes being rewarded with a valuable college education. They are teens who play for the love of the game and you have no right to expose them to injury. As their coach, it is your responsibility to protect them from injury.” The coach who had asked described this loose ball drill quietly sat down. You could have heard a pin drop in that room. This weekend, with the news of Coach Wooden’s passing, those two memories jumped to the front of my mind. Now well into my 60s, I realize how lucky I was to have had the great good fortune to have had even these simple opportunities to encounter greatness. How lucky were those who played for him!TIP:
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