I was on my way home from Potsdam Friday when I heard the sad but inevitable news of John Wooden’s passing. When someone’s 99 years old you can admire the full life he lived and smile about his completed journey. The number of tributes I heard on the radio, saw on ESPN, and read in newspapers were all touching and worthy of the man known as the Wizard of Westwood. However, some tributes made a deeper impression on me than others.
The most touching tribute I heard came from the Big Redhead (and loyal Deadhead), Bill Walton, Wooden’s All-American center from 1971 to 1974. Bill Walton talked about Coach Wooden’s dedication, his selflessness, his patience, his guidance, and more importantly, his love of teaching. I had a good chuckle at some of the stories of Coach Wooden’s dealings with Walton, from discussing the rules of being clean cut in order to play on the UCLA team, to Wooden bailing out Walton when he got arrested protesting the Viet-Nam war, to Walton having the chutzpah to mail a letter on Wooden’s letterhead calling for the resignation of President Nixon after Wooden explicitly told Walton he wouldn’t sign the letter and not to mail it. However, it was the story of Walton bringing Wooden to Washington, DC along with the Walton family when he was inducted into the College Academic Hall of Fame that touched me the most, perhaps because it was a moment of mutual pride between an old coach and his former player, two deep and thoughtful men whose personal bond spanned four decades.
Lots of folks probably know Bill Walton for his two championship seasons with UCLA, or his incredible NCAA Final performance against Memphis State in 1973, or his loyalty to the Grateful Dead, or his political views during the 1970s, or his lively commentaries when he worked on NBA broadcasts until recently for ESPN. Even though I’ve never had the honor of meeting him, I’ll always know Bill Walton for those AND him being an athletic and academic All-American as well as law school graduate. I’ll always know Bill Walton as a man with incredible intellect who blossomed from a stuttering teenager to a glib, articulate, and entertaining Renaissance man who could captivate you by discussing law, history, politics, or basketball.
Why am I gushing over Bill Walton? Because Bill Walton was one of many shining examples of John Wooden’s impact as a coach, teacher, father figure, and moral and intellectual compass, from his directives on how to put on socks and sneakers before basketball practice and games, to his seven principles of the pyramid to success. Were Wooden’s teams all squeaky clean? Maybe yes. Maybe no. It’s no secret that the NCAA slapped the Bruins with a two-year probation not long after Wooden retired. The only question was whether Sam Gilbert, the sugar daddy booster who took care of Wooden’s players opened the door for those 12 seasons of domination, or whether the winning opened the door for Gilbert and his cash.
But let’s not even wonder for one moment if John Wooden operated like Jerry Tarkanian. Regardless of what happened at UCLA, one thing couldn’t be denied; Wooden’s players graduated with their degrees. These weren’t sham student-athletes back then; they were the real deal, personified by Walton and another tall kid who preceded him, Lew Alcindor from New York; Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to those too young to know otherwise. The UCLA Bruins were Duke before the Blue Devils became a model of student-athletic excellence. There are still a few colleges that still hold onto those old values of academics and athletics complementing each other as opposed to being diametrically opposed – Notre Dame, Duke, Penn State, Stanford, to name a few. Somehow I couldn’t imagine Coach Wooden coexisting with today’s farcical dance between the NCAA and NBA of “one and done”.
Sunday, on ESPN's Sports Reporters, Mitch Albom (Detroit Free Press), Bryan Burwell (St. Louis Dispatch), Mike Lupica (New York Daily News), and John Saunders all debated if there was ever another coach with Wooden’s record of success. Lupica suggested perhaps the Yankees teams under Joe McCarthy and Casey Stengel might parallel Wooden’s run at UCLA. I beg to differ. As the late Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray once wrote, Wooden was the perfect square. He was from small-town Indiana, humble, and deeply religious, but he was also very progressive and empathetic in his views on American society during the turbulent 1960s and 1970s.
I argue that two very similar and contemporary parallels to Wooden would be Vince Lombardi and Red Auerbach. Now before you all yell at me for dissing Phil Jackson, just hear me out, especially since I used to like Coach Peace Pipe back in his days playing for Red Holtzman’s Knicks.
Think about it. All three were teachers first, coaches second. All three identified with their faith – Wooden a Methodist, Lombardi a Catholic, Auerbach a Jew. All three were ecumenical, having racial diversity on their teams (Auerbach integrated the Celtics before the Yawkeys integrated the Red Sox). All three worried more about their own team’s preparation than who their opponent was. All three maintained a basic core of values for their teams to operate by. All three had a desire to win, and win they all did. Lombardi’s Packers won five world championships during a seven-year span. Auerbach’s Celtics won eight straight NBA titles. Wooden’s Bruins won ten NCAA titles during a 12-year span, including seven straight as well as a record 88 consecutive games.
But Wooden was clearly the biggest square of the three. Think Lombardi without the bombast or emotional roller coaster. Think Auerbach without the cigar and chutzpah. Think both without the occasional profanity.
Were McCarthy and Stengel great managers? Absolutely, but they led teams in different, less inclusive times. Lombardi, Auerbach, and Wooden – especially Wooden – led broader collections of men in a more challenging era and made small but meaningful impacts on society as well as sports. I can’t disagree with anyone who ranks John Wooden as the greatest coach of all time for all sports, but I have to still include Lombardi and Auerbach in the same breath.
They say you can measure a man’s life by the impact he makes on others. If you think about the impact John Wooden had on 29 years of UCLA basketball players and the families of those players, not to mention 35 years of coaches and players who were part of UCLA since his retirement, I’d say it’s a safe bet Coach Wooden’s 99 years on Earth were simply immeasurable.
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