PART VI
WOODEN’S TEAM
COACH WOODEN’S FIELD OF DREAMS
You may have seen the Kevin Costner movie Field of Dreams—“Build it and they will come.” Coach Wooden did that. He built his basketball program a certain way—athletically, ethically, morally—because he believed it would attract a certain type of person, the kind of individual he wanted on the team.
And if he didn’t have success that way, it was all right with him because he felt his program made sense; in every way it made sense to him. So he was going to do it that way. Coach was almost a mystic in knowing what would happen. And, he was right—when he built it, they came. I was one of them.
I chose UCLA in large part because of what I saw and heard regarding those values. Dr. Ralph Bunche and Jackie Robinson wrote to me saying UCLA was a great place for an education and athletics. Willie Naulls told me that race wasn’t an issue with Coach Wooden.
And one of the most important things in my decision was seeing Rafer Johnson on the Ed Sullivan Show. I knew he was a world-class athlete, but he was on the show as president of the student body at UCLA. That told me the school appreciated him for more than just being a jock. It told me a whole lot about what UCLA was about.
With his hair parted in the middle, Coach looked like he fell off a box of Pepperidge Farm cookies. That was misleading. In the gym he was a very, very tough man, extremely demanding. He wanted it done a certain way, and he would get out there and demonstrate what that way was.
Coach was about 57 years old when I arrived at UCLA—almost 40 years older than the rest of us. But he would never ask his players to do what he wouldn’t do. You appreciate that, when the leader is willing to get right out there and work alongside you. You’re not just hearing stuff from somebody who hasn’t been there and done it. He knew what he was talking about, so he had that credibility. He got respect.
Winning was never mentioned by him. For Coach Wooden it was, “Fellas, we’ve got to play at our best. Let’s do that.” That’s a lot different from saying, “Fellas, we’ve got to win.” A lot different.
Race? Religion? They didn’t matter. What mattered was the effort you made on the court and in the classroom. What mattered was your behavior, your conduct, your values. Of course, that included a strong work ethic.
He wanted our best effort. If that wasn’t good enough, he accepted the results. Coach Wooden figured maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be. But he wanted our best effort before he’d be willing to say, “That’s the way it’s supposed to be.”
By the second week of practice at UCLA, I was just totally hooked on how he did things—the progression of skills he had us work on and then putting it all together as a team.
When they outlawed the dunk, he told me, “Lewis, everybody will be playing under the same rules no matter what they are. This game isn’t about the dunk shot. So just go on and play; it’s the same for everybody.” Very matter of fact. Mentally, I got past the rule change outlawing the dunk shot very quickly.
One of his strongest assets as a leader was his patience. A lot of players were skeptical about various things, and it would take a while to win them over. Coach would let them try it their way and fail. He was good at that. It’s the best way to teach. Because after they failed, they wanted to know how to do it right. They wanted to learn how to do it right more than they wanted to prove Coach wrong.
So, here’s this 57-year-old guy, and he gets out there and shows them how to do it right.
He knew how to do it right—in all departments.
KEEP LISTENING; KEEP LEARNING; KEEP TEACHING
Coach Wooden’s teaching was so effective because he was so well organized with his details. Everything was written out on the 3×5 cards and in notebooks: what was happening from 3:07 to 3:11; what we’d do from 3:11 to 3:17; who was doing what when. Nothing was left to chance; every minute was accounted for—every single minute.
And he was extremely disciplined in keeping to the schedule. I saw that when I was his assistant coach, and I saw it when I arrived at UCLA as a player. He taught details.
On my first day of practice, Coach Wooden sat us down and told the players to take off our sneakers and socks. He did the same. Then he went through his careful demonstration showing us how to eliminate wrinkles, creases, and folds in our sweat socks. We’d usually wear two pair of socks, and he showed how to smooth them out one pair at a time; tuck ’em in from the toe on down, kind of squeeze out the wrinkles and folds. Very precise. He wanted those socks to be smoothed out all the way up the calves.
There were some funny looks around me, but Coach was not willing to take any chances on details he deemed important to performance. So he taught us how to do it right.
That attention to detail was in everything he did—the way he planned practice, ran practice, evaluated practice and games. It applied to details of travel, equipment, and food. Absolutely everything that could affect performance got taken care of.
Here’s something else that set him apart from 99 percent of the other coaches: Coach Wooden never thought he knew everything. In spite of the fact that he’d been winning championships every year—four or five of them when I got there as an assistant coach—he wanted to keeping learning, improving as a coach and leader.
I had spent a few years coaching at the junior college level when I joined him as an assistant in 1968. I brought with me some experience and my own ideas—which he welcomed. Those he liked we put in during practice. If they worked, fine. If not, we took it out.
He never thought his way was the only way. He continued like that right up to his final game. We used to have disagreements, really argue over things, and people would ask him about it. Coach would say, “I don’t need ‘yes-men.’ If they’re going to yes everything I do, I don’t need them around.”
When I came up with an idea, he would never tell me,“Well, this is the way we’ve always done it and we’re winning championships. So, no, I’m not changing.” He was open to change.
His approach was to listen; if he thought it made sense, try it. If it works, great. If not, move on. He was always searching for ways to improve.
In the daily coaches’ meetings there was never an interruption from outside. We would have out our notebooks, evaluate the previous day’s practice—what worked, what needed more work, what to do that was new. Adjustments and refinements.
Then we started formatting the practice minute to minute: a change-of-pace drill; change-of-direction drill; defensive sliding drill; reverse pivot on the dribble drill—on and on and on. We’d put it down in notebooks and on cards.
But through it all there was a wide-open flow of ideas and opinions. He was open to suggestion and contrary thoughts, but he was tough. You had to know your stuff to convince him to change. He never did something on a whim. You had to have your reasons in place, but he’d let you have your say.
Then, when everyone had had their say, he made the decision. And that was it.
Coach Wooden never talked about the winning or the losing. It was never part of the conversation like you would think is normal. He wouldn’t come in before a game and say, “This team is tied with us in the conference, so we’ve got to step it up tonight. Let’s win this one.”
He just wasn’t concerned about the opponents and what they might be up to—didn’t even scout most of them. His philosophy was to do what was necessary to make UCLA a better team. Teach it; practice it. The details and the fundamentals were his main concern.
He just was completely absorbed in improvement for our team without trying to always be adjusting to what another team might be up to. “Let them adjust to us,” he said.
Fundamentals, condition, play together as a team. That’s all he did—simple as that. So simple.
A COOL LEADER PREVENTS OVERHEATING
I think there were four or five games in my career at UCLA when we started out behind something like 18–2—just getting killed. I’d look over at Coach Wooden, and there he’d sit on the bench with his program rolled up in his hand—totally unaffected, almost like we were ahead. And I’d think to myself, “Hey, if he’s not worried, why should I be worried? Let’s just do what the guy told us to do.”
And you know what? We won all those games except one, and even that was close. It’s the doggonest experience to see that. He was cool when it counted; his confidence and strength became ours. In my three years on the UCLA varsity team, I never once saw him rattled.
Coach Wooden dealt in the positive. He would not spend time on the negative—he was always focusing on moving forward with what we had to learn to make us better.
He could sense when we might be thinking negatively, getting down on ourselves. Then he’d come in all positive: “This is what you guys are supposed to do. Follow this and we’ll be fine.” No browbeating or yelling. And after a while we’d look back and, doggone, we were fine. Coach Wooden had his system, and he believed in it, and he taught us to believe in it.
He’d keep telling us, “Focus on what I’m teaching. Don’t focus on the score. Just do what you’re supposed to do and things will work out fine. Just play as a team and we’ll be fine.” He was always supportive, even when he was correcting something wrong.
Most of all he taught us unity and oneness of purpose in what we were doing, namely, working to be the very best we could be—to perform our best out there on the court.
And he understood how to get you to listen. When I arrived at UCLA, I was shooting a fade-away jump shot, and it was good. I used it in high school to become the number-one high school player in Kansas. But Coach Wooden didn’t like it. He told me, “Fred, you know what I want is when you’re finished with the shot to be around the basket. We need you to rebound. Now, if you fade away, you remove yourself from rebounding.”
But I loved that shot. I wouldn’t give it up until I heard him say very calmly, “Fred, you can do it the way I am teaching you or you can watch the game next Saturday sitting next to me on the bench. Your replacement knows how to shoot the jump shot correctly.”
Oh my goodness, I’ve got to tell you, you don’t understand the impact of that statement. And he didn’t have to throw a chair across the floor to get his point across to me.
We lost to Cincinnati in the semifinals of the national championship because of a bad charging call on us during the last minute of the game. It was a phantom call, and it cost UCLA the game and maybe the national championship. Coach’s reaction in the locker room was the same as if we’d won—cool. No complaining; he told us to keep our heads up: “Adversity makes us stronger.” And then he said, “Remember, you’ve still got one another.”
But he should have added, “and you’ve still got me.” He was part of us. He was out on the court with us even when he was sitting on the bench. And, he was right about adversity. It made us stronger. Two years later, UCLA won its first NCAA national championship.
SHARE THE BALL; THINK BEYOND YOURSELF
I came out of high school—LA Poly—as a guard who always thought in terms of having the ball. That’s how a guard thinks: “Give me the ball so I can shoot.”
Coach Wooden wanted me to think beyond just having the ball because he had decided to install the Press—a full-court defense. Of course, when you play defense, you don’t have the ball. He was having a little trouble getting me to change my thinking until one day Coach said, “Gail, the game is 40 minutes long. The opponent has the ball approximately half the time. That leaves us 20 minutes with the basketball.
“We have five players. In my system balance is important, so each player should handle the ball about the same amount of time. That means you will have the basketball for approximately four minutes per game. Gail, what are you going to do for the team during those other 35 minutes when you do not have the ball?”
It only took him about 15 seconds, but he dramatically broadened my understanding of the role I needed to play on the team. Coach used a variety of ways to teach what he wanted you to learn. Sometimes during practice he would have the guards switch positions with the forwards—have us do the other guy’s job. He wanted everybody to understand the requirements of the player in the other positions. Coach Wooden wanted the guard to appreciate the challenges a forward faced and the forward to appreciate what a guard had to deal with.
He worked very hard to figure out ways to have us think like a team, to work as a unit, not every man out for himself.
I chose UCLA because of how he conducted practices (I had watched the Bruins at the Men’s Gym while I was in high school). I was so impressed by his control of the practice, totally in charge.
He had his 3×5 cards and notes and was always looking at the clock to stay on time. He went from one drill to another and then another and another—complete organization; no fooling around, no lulls. He was a master of using time efficiently. Coach could tell you exactly what he had done in practice on that same day 10 years earlier at 4:35 p.m.
He believed that winning is a result of process, and he was a master of the process, of getting us to focus on what we were doing rather than the final score. One drill he had was to run a play over and over at full speed, but he wouldn’t let us shoot the ball. He made us concentrate on what happened before the shot was taken, what happened to make it possible. He made us focus on execution. He built teams that knew how to execute.
You knew you were in trouble when you heard him say, “Goodness gracious, sakes alive!” Big trouble. You knew the hammer was heading your way when you heard that. The hammer was the bench, or worse, the shower. Many times he wouldn’t exactly tell you what you couldn’t do, but he worked things so that it was hard to do them.
Every year during football season there was a Cal Weekend up at Berkeley when the Bruins played the Bears. Coach didn’t want his players going up there because it was a big party weekend. But instead of telling us we couldn’t go, he just moved practice on Friday back to 6 p.m. Then he kept us late and worked us so hard that nobody had the time or energy to drive all night to get there.
But one year John Galbraith and I decided to fly up for Cal Weekend. I was a Beta Theta Pi and had a couple of beers at the fraternity party on Saturday night after the game. Somehow, Coach Wooden found out not only that I went up to Berkeley but that I’d had a few beers.
Monday morning I got a call that he wanted to see me in his office. “Did you have fun this weekend?” he asked. I nodded. “You know, Gail, if I ever see you drinking, you’re gone.” I nodded, but I was in shock. “How does he know? How did he find out?” I was thinking.
“Now, you’ve got a very good year coming up. You don’t want to jeopardize that, do you? You don’t want to hurt the team, do you?” I answered, “No, Coach. I don’t want to hurt the team.”
“Good. I’ll see you at practice.”
The thing was, he wouldn’t try and catch you doing something wrong like having a beer. That wasn’t his style. He wanted you to assume responsibility for your actions, to have self-control. The whole point of that conversation on Monday was to make me think about what choices I was making. And I did.
He always talked about balance: body balance, scoring balance, team balance, and most of all, mental and emotional balance. Your feet have to be in balance. Your body has to be in balance over your feet. Your head needs to be in balance with your body and your arms. He said if you’re not in balance, you’ll eventually fall over, and he meant it in more ways than one.
I came to see balance as one of the keys to success, not only in basketball, but in life. When things get out of balance, it’s generally not good. Everything needs balance. That one word he kept drilling at us—balance—has stuck with me, became important in how I try to do things.
He never talked about winning, even in the locker room just before the first national championship game against Duke. He calmly went through our game plan and said if we played a good 94-foot game, meaning execution of the Press at one end of the court and good play making at the other end, we’d be able to come back in the locker room afterward with our heads held high. Never mentioned winning a championship or winning the game.
But then, just before we went out on the court, he asked us, “Does anybody here remember who was the runner-up in last year’s national championship?”
Nobody raised his hand. That’s as close as he ever got to a pep talk.
DETAILS ON THE FIRST DAY
The very first team meeting I ever attended at UCLA was a shock. Sitting next to me was another freshman—the guy who had been the most coveted high school player in America, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Lewis Alcindor, Jr.).
Scattered around us were our freshman teammates—some of the best in the country—as well as the returning members of UCLA’s varsity team that had won the NCAA national championship several months earlier—Edgar Lacey, Kenny Washington, Doug McIntosh, Fred Goss, Mike Lynn, and others.
There was a lot of energy and talent in that room waiting for the arrival of Coach Wooden and his words of wisdom. Pretty soon he walked in and went directly to the front of the classroom in which we had gathered. Finally, the big moment had arrived, my first experience as a member of a UCLA team—reigning national champions!—coached by the famous John Wooden.
He looked at us for a moment and began his remarks. And that’s what was shocking: “Gentlemen,” he said, “Welcome. Let’s get down to business. I want to remind each one of you of a few important rules we have here at UCLA. Number one: Keep your fingernails trimmed. Number two: Keep your hair short. Number three: Keep your jersey tucked into your trunks at all times.” He looked around the room for a moment and then added solemnly: “Am I clear?”
I wondered, “Is he making a joke?” But there was no laughter, not even smiles, from any of the varsity players. They knew better. Nevertheless, I couldn’t understand why he was wasting his time on stuff like that.
As the months—eventually years (and three more national championships)—went by, I came to recognize that “stuff like that” was part of the genius in his leadership. There was logic to every move. Details of fingernails, hair, and jerseys led to details of running plays, handling the ball, and everything else—hundreds of small things done right.
Everything was related to everything else; nothing was left to chance; it all had to be done well. Sloppiness was not allowed in anything, not in passing, shooting, or trimming your fingernails and tucking in your jersey.
Coach Wooden taught that great things can only be accomplished by doing the little things right. Doing things right became a habit with us.
He kept it simple. What’s more simple than short hair? What’s more simple than squaring up for a shot? All these simple little things added up—one at a time—to an enormous amount of information that he presented in a plain and direct way, bit by bit. Ultimately, he and the team put it all together in practice and then in games.
To accomplish this, he thought out his lesson plan for each day’s practice with great precision. He knew what he wanted to accomplish and how to do it. Part of his effectiveness may have come from the fact that he has a master’s degree in English. He could say in one short sentence what it took others a long time to get out. He could communicate so much so fast—no wasted words, no beating around the bush.
Coach Wooden’s practices were very businesslike and his presence very strong. There were times when he got to a level of sternness mixed with some anger that was nothing to fool with. There was never any screaming or yelling, but his intensity was something else. Especially when he thought we weren’t giving it our best effort—watch out then.
During a game against Cal (University of California, Berkeley), we went to the locker room at halftime with a lead, but he was very unhappy. The score didn’t matter. He felt that we weren’t playing with intensity. And he gave us a tongue-lashing that I still remember well. And he did so without screaming or shouting.
The fact that we were ahead was incidental. What mattered to him was that we weren’t playing to our potential. And, it worked the other way too. If the score was going against us, but we were giving it our best effort, he wouldn’t get upset. Instead, Coach would very calmly instruct us on changes that should be made.
In 1968, number-one-ranked UCLA played number-two-ranked Houston in the Astrodome. It was called the Game of the Century. The Cougars were undefeated on the year, and UCLA had a 47-game winning streak going.
It was the first regular-season game ever seen on national television, the first ever played in the Astrodome, and the first to have attendance of over 50,000. It was a big deal. Nobody had ever seen anything like it before in college basketball.
UCLA lost in the final seconds, 71–69, and our 47-game winning streak came to an end. After the game, in the locker room, all the Bruins were very interested to see Coach Wooden’s reaction. As UCLA players, we had never seen him lose a single game. Suddenly, he had lost, and it was a big game. How would he react?
When Coach walked into the locker room after losing the Game of the Century, he was very even keeled. There was even a slight smile on his face. He told us, “It’s not the end of the world. We’ll do better next time.” He was pleased with our effort. The score was secondary; having our winning streak snapped was not his concern. Our effort on the court had been total. That made him happy.
In 1967, UCLA played in the finals of the NCAA tournament in Louisville. We hadn’t lost a game all season. Just before we went on the court to play Dayton for the national championship, the whole team sat in the locker room for Coach Wooden’s pregame talk. Four of the starters were first-year varsity players who were about to face their first national championship game in a few minutes—Kareem, Lucius Allen, Kenny Heitz, and me.
Coach Wooden walked up to the chalkboard and began to diagram something, maybe a new play or defensive tactic. But it wasn’t. Coach was diagramming where we should stand during the national anthem! He then spoke about our conduct following the game. The day before, players on another team had gotten rowdy, and he cautioned us about behaving badly. He never mentioned anything about the opponent we were going to play for the national championship; no plays, no specifics of the game. None of that.
What this was about, of course, was his belief that by game time his teaching was complete; if he hadn’t taught us what we needed to know by then, it was too late.
Of course, he had taught us what we needed to know. And it started on the very first day when he walked to the front of the class and said to the freshman and returning varsity players, “Gentlemen, let’s get right down to business.” And then he told us about fingernails, short hair, and tucking in jerseys.
It’s still a little shocking when I think about it.
FLEXIBILITY IN ENFORCING RULES
One of our top players—maybe our best—got upset about something during practice one day and stormed off the court. This put Coach Wooden in an awkward position because he didn’t want to lose the guy. We didn’t exactly have a lot of talent to spare.
Coach solved the problem by telling the player who had blown up and walked off the court that he was suspended. However, he then informed the suspended player that our whole team would be allowed to vote on whether or not to let him return. This allowed everybody to save face. It also empowered the team, because it felt like we got in on the decision. Of course, we voted to let him back.
Coach had solved his problem, disciplined the player, and strengthened our team all at the same time. This was typical of his leadership—very innovative.
He treated all the players the same—no favorites—but said he was only human and would probably like some of us more than others. However, he promised to be absolutely fair in his evaluation of us as players. Coach Wooden wanted us to know that there would be no favoritism on his part. We all had an equal chance.
Coach Wooden always had a passion for the little things. He wanted us to tie our shoes the correct way, pivot the correct way. There was a correct way to do everything, and he wanted us to know how.
So he taught us how.
THE POWER OF POTENTIAL
“You can always do more than you think you can.” That’s the biggest thing I got from Coach Wooden’s teaching. There’s always more inside if you’re willing to work hard enough to bring it out.
Most of the time we don’t recognize we have great potential inside. Coach brought out the potential in people. He taught mental readiness: “Be ready and your chance may come. If you’re not ready, it may not come again.”
Thus, he made me see that there are no small opportunities. Every opportunity is big. If you play for only two minutes, make it the best two minutes possible. That’s your opportunity, whether in basketball or in life. Be ready; make the most of it. It may not come again.
In 1964 I was on the UCLA bench at the start of 29 consecutive games. The thirtieth game was against Duke for the national championship. When it started, I was on the bench just like the previous 29 games. And I was ready. Everybody on Coach Wooden’s bench was ready.
Five minutes into the championship game, Coach gave me an opportunity. I went in at center, replacing Fred Slaughter, who’d gotten off to a slow start. I stayed in until the game was decided and UCLA had won its first national championship.
The next year, 1965, UCLA played Michigan in the championship game. This time I wasn’t on the bench. I was a starter, and I played the best 10 minutes of basketball I’d ever played—running up and down the court blocking shots and getting rebounds. Then Coach took me out for a breather and put in Mike Lynn.
Mike played out of his mind—brilliantly. I spent most of the rest of the game on the bench. Mike was ready when his opportunity came, just as I had been the previous year. Either way was fine with me, if it was good for the team.
The year before, Fred Slaughter was OK with me coming in and replacing him. Fred also believed that what was best for the team was best for him.
Where’d we get that concept? Coach Wooden. He taught that across the board to everybody. There’s always resentment by some guys who want more playing time, a bigger role, but Coach was very effective in getting people to understand that the team’s interests came first, that doing what was best for the team—even if it meant sitting on the bench—was best for us. Now that’s a tough lesson to teach. But he did it.
At UCLA we had five guys on the court playing basketball and seven guys on the sidelines forming a cheerleading squad. When I was on the bench, I was a cheerleader, and I felt that it mattered; I needed to be a great cheerleader, because it could help our team.
In 1966, after UCLA won two consecutive national championships, many picked the Bruins to win a third. We didn’t, mainly because of injuries. Through it all, Coach Wooden wasn’t any different from the year before, when UCLA won a championship, and the year before that, when UCLA won its first title.
He didn’t turn into a raving maniac when we started losing games. His demeanor was about the same, championship season or not. No “woe is me”; never a word about bad breaks and injuries.
He built great teams in practice. He was a “practice coach,” and he conducted practices at a very high level. How you practice is how you play is what he believed.
He was strict, but there was no sense of fear of him by players. We knew there was nothing personal in his criticism or comments. What he did was always for the common good and welfare of the team. We all knew that and wanted the same.
He taught that discipline is the mark of a good team. And Coach Wooden was disciplined. And part of that meant keeping emotions under control.
I don’t know that there was a “secret” to his success. It was just those three things he stressed: fundamentals, condition, and team spirit.
The drills he ran at UCLA were mostly the same drills I had run back in high school—the very same drills. Coach Wooden just did them more repetitively and with more speed and precision. He just demanded a higher level of execution when it came to fundamentals. There was no secret formula.
He was very intense, but not to the point of screaming or pulling out his hair. Coach was dignified and didn’t let his emotions show very much. But we all knew what was going on in his mind.
He kept those emotions under control, but sometimes it was right on the edge. The maddest I ever saw him was against Oregon State, when I went up high for a basket and my legs got cut out from under me. I hit the floor and was knocked unconscious. When I woke up, I saw Coach standing there absolutely livid and demanding that the referee throw out the Oregon State player for the cheap shot.
And he wouldn’t tolerate cheap shots by us either—no dirty play. If one of his players threw an elbow in anger, he’d pull you and put you on the bench. Then, when it was convenient, he’d let you have it real good.
He was more upset that we’d lost our temper than anything else. He absolutely wanted emotions to be controlled. If you lost it out there, he’d make you pay a price. He knew that when you lost it—when emotions took over—your performance suffered, your potential was locked inside. He wanted that potential out where it could help the team.
BE WILLING TO CHANGE
Coach Wooden was strongly opposed, in principle, to the 3–2 zone defense—a half-court defensive system. Nevertheless, Denny Crum and I, assistant coaches, thought it could be very effective for the Bruins to install it. We recommended that he make the change.
Keep in mind, at this point Coach Wooden’s teams had just won five national championships in six years. He could easily have told us, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” However, Coach was always willing to listen, to evaluate new ideas, to seek ways to improve our team. He was never satisfied—never satisfied.
So, despite the fact that UCLA was undefeated at that point in the season, 20–0, Denny and I convinced him to install the 3–2 zone defense for a series up at Oregon.
UCLA won the first game against the University of Oregon, 75–58, but the next night, using the same 3–2 zone against Oregon State, we got beaten, 78–65, and it was apparent the new system wasn’t all we thought it might be.
That was the last time we brought up the 3–2 zone defense.
But Coach Wooden had listened and given it—and us—a chance. He wasn’t afraid to make a change. And when it didn’t work, there were no recriminations. He moved on without making us feel we had led him down the wrong path.
He did not want “yes-men” around him. We were encouraged to argue our points, knowing he’d come back at us strong with his own opinions. That was his way of testing how much we believed in what we were telling him and how much we knew about it.
For example, we’d debate the pivot—what was the best way to do it—for 45 minutes during a morning meeting. But he listened with an open mind, let us contribute—insisted on it. During those meetings, we didn’t just sit and take notes. He wanted interaction, ideas back and forth. And he got it. And, of course, he taught us to pay attention and teach details—the little things, like the correct way to pivot.
Those little things that got a lot of attention are one of the secrets to his great strength, namely, organization. We planned practices down to the exact minute.
He had us address the team before games and made sure the assistant coaches talked to the players in the huddle during time-outs. He was very inclusive and gave us both authority and respect.
When we fouled up, he never criticized us in front of the team, nor would he allow the players to challenge us. He insisted on having them address us as Coach Cunningham or Coach Crum rather than by a nickname or informally as Gary or Denny.
In the locker room talks, there was no yelling, no pounding on the wall. It was focused and intense, and always at the end he’d say: “Now go out there and do your best so you can come back in here with your heads up. Let’s make sure you can do that.”
He was very efficient in his teaching and kept it simple—broke it down into parts, taught each part, then built the whole back up. Always he used the laws of learning: explanation, demonstration, imitation, and repetition. Lots of repetition. You can’t believe the repetition.
Coach Wooden didn’t believe in lengthy discussions. He was very succinct, clear, substantive. When I first started with him as an assistant, if I took more than 10 seconds to say something during practice, he’d say, “C’mon, let’s get going. C’mon.” Not rude, just a great sense of urgency.
I learned to keep it short and say it right. Every word counted, because he believed every minute mattered.
The way he conducted himself embodied the Pyramid. It wasn’t until later that I realized he was teaching the Pyramid all the time with the model of his behavior.
Teamwork was so important. He kept saying that it doesn’t matter who gets credit. If we play together as a team, each player doing his job, we’ll like the results. We’ll all get credit.
He was prepared, and he got us prepared. People can see when you’re not prepared. UCLA was always prepared.
Coach Wooden was an intense competitor and loved to win. But, win or lose, it was always on an even keel. He didn’t want us to get too excited about winning, even if it was a national championship.
He was a strong disciplinarian, but he demanded discipline in a very controlled way. “Goodness gracious sakes” was real angry for him. He was a master at analyzing personalities. Player A might just need an explanation. Player B might need some push. He knew what everybody needed to learn his lessons, and he supplied it.
Like with Sidney Wicks. Sidney loved the practices, so the worst possible thing he could do to Sidney was say, “Sidney, you’re not with it today. Take a shower.” No screaming, yelling. That was it, “Take a shower.”
He kept it simple—but intense; not emotional, just very intense.
WIN, WIN, WIN? NO, NO, NO.
I retired from the pros when I was 26 after being drafted by Los Angeles as part of a trade that sent me to Milwaukee. On the first day of practice there, I think I heard the “F” word 150 times. Quite a change from Coach Wooden. But that wasn’t the only change—just the most inconsequential.
As a pro, absolutely nothing else mattered but winning. If you missed a shot or made a mistake, you were made to feel so bad about it because all eyes were on the scoreboard. Winning was all that mattered and all anybody talked about: “We’ve gotta win this game,” or “We shoulda won that game,” or “How can we win the next game?” Win. Win. Win.
Coach Wooden didn’t talk about winning—ever. His message was to give the game the best you’ve got. “That’s the goal,” he would tell us. “Do that and you should be happy. If enough of you do it, our team will be a success.” He teaches this, he believes it, and he taught me to believe it.
Winning was not mentioned, ever—only the effort, the preparation, doing what it takes to bring out our best in practice and games. Let winning take care of itself.
When I was a senior playing forward at UCLA, none of the experts really thought we’d do much. The Walton Gang—Bill Walton, Keith Wilkes, and others—had just graduated after winning two national championships and extending a streak that got up to 88 straight victories before a loss to Notre Dame. I was the only returning starter on the 1974–1975 Bruins.
Coach went to work with us—fundamentals, drills, teamwork, self-sacrifice. Play hard, don’t get down, wait for your chance, try to improve each day. Don’t worry about the scoreboard. Never a single word about winning. We won the national championship that year.
At the time I didn’t quite see it, but his behavior was basically the Pyramid of Success—hard work, energy and enthusiasm, self-control, and the rest of it. That’s him. And he taught it by being himself.
In fact, I kind of thought of him as a professor. When I interviewed with him while I was in high school at Sonora, California, I remember, his office at UCLA was full of books, memorabilia, papers, plaques, certificates, lots of stuff. It seemed like the office of an English professor.
On the wall he had pictures of his own coaches—“Piggy” Lambert at Purdue, Glenn Curtis at Martinsville High School, and Earl Warriner from his grade school days in Centerton. There was a large drawing of his Pyramid of Success next to them.
Before practice, he’d often be standing there as we walked on to the court: “How’s your mother, David? Have you called her?” “You over that cold, Jim?” “How’s the math class coming?” He knew us as people. You could tell he cared. And you could tell that he really knew how to teach—just like a professor.
And, in a certain kind of way he was a professor. What he taught was how to win. And he did it without ever once mentioning winning.
THE FICKLE FINGER OF FATE
The great lesson I take from Coach Wooden is this: the best thing you can do in life is your best. You’re a winner when you do that, even if you’re on the short end of the score.
Too many factors can affect the final results; the fickle finger of fate can suddenly take over. The best talent doesn’t always win, but the individual or team that goes out and does their best is a winner. That’s his philosophy. It’s what he teaches.
We had a perfect season and won the national championship in 1964. We repeated as national champions in 1965. There was no question in my mind that in 1966 we could become the first team in college basketball history to win three championships in a row. Then the fickle finger of fate pointed at us.
Injuries, sickness, and all kinds of stuff were hitting us. We didn’t even win our conference title in 1966—we had a 10–4 record and weren’t even eligible to play in the NCAA tournament and defend our title.
Through all the misfortune, I never heard a single complaint or excuse from Coach Wooden. He fought hard and kept telling us to keep working, never give up, and do our best. And we did in spite of the fickle finger of fate.
We were winners in 1966 because of that.
In retrospect, I believe it was probably fantastic for me as a person that we didn’t win that third consecutive national championship. It showed me what life is really like, what fate can do—why you can’t base your success just on results.
Of course, this is what I had been taught by my coach. More than anyone I’ve ever known, he comes closest to practicing what he preaches. He was so consistent in what he said and did in both principles and standards. In fact, I began to think it was normal behavior in a leader. But it’s not normal. Holding to those high standards and principles is rare out in the world.
At the end of my four years at UCLA, I still needed additional credits to graduate. Coach Wooden was all over me to make sure I came back for that fifth year to earn my degree in Economics.
Even though my playing days were over at UCLA, he cared a great deal about my welfare. “This is very important for you, Kenneth. Let’s get that diploma.” And he kept checking in on me during the year to make sure I got it. And I did.
Coach Wooden didn’t teach character; he nurtured it. He chose individuals to be on the team based on talent, of course, but not talent alone. He wanted a certain kind of individual—the team player, a person with integrity and values.
Then he nurtured those values just like he nurtured your talent as an athlete. Honesty, being unselfish, caring about your teammates, a good work ethic, all these things were stressed constantly.
Along with this, he would never degrade, abuse, or humiliate individuals, even though he had the power to do it. After all, he was the boss. But he gave respect even when discipline was doled out.
Coach is a master psychologist who understands the differences in people. Certain things he insisted on, like no swearing, being on time, no showboating, all of that. But when it came to working with us, he treated everybody as an individual, approached each of us in a way that worked.
Jack Hirsch, for example, was a free spirit, very flippant, and the only guy on the team who addressed Coach Wooden as John. Coach understood that it was not being done in a disrespectful manner and let him do it. Coach knew Jack wasn’t crossing the line. It was just Jack being Jack.
When he crossed the line, however, there was a price to pay. One day we were eating dinner at the training table and Jack got up and said, “I can’t eat this slop.” Coach very calmly, but firmly, suspended Jack—told him not to come back until he could apologize as well as eat what all the other players were eating.
Coach understood the disrespect that was carried in Jack’s remarks about our food. Disrespect by anyone for anyone was simply not allowed.
Now, where Jack came from, maybe our training table food didn’t taste good. As far I was concerned, it was fine. Coach understood he could not let Jack say what he said. It was not acceptable, disrespectful. Jack remained off the team until he changed his attitude and apologized.
Two weeks later Jack was back at the training table, not exactly wolfing it down, but not complaining either.
Athletics is like life. Sometime you can do everything right and still lose. It’s all a journey. You do your best, and then you have to let it go. Lots of people preach that, but come crunch time—oops, not so easy to do. Coach practiced what he preached. Even when the fickle finger of fate took over.
EMOTIONS CAN MAKE YOU VULNERABLE
His approach was very dispassionate. He taught that big emotions were an extra burden that we didn’t need to contend with. Coach Wooden felt that if you needed all kinds of emotion to do your job, then you were vulnerable. There was never any “You gotta go out and kill these guys” talk from Coach Wooden to get us keyed up. He’d say, “I want you to go out there and do your best the way we practiced it.” There was never any speech telling us to go out and “win this game!” to get us charged up, no [emotional] juice he tried to put in the mix. We understood that if we played up to the standard he had set in practice, we’d probably win. If not, if we lost, he took the blame and tried to fix it the next practice. He was very focused, very intense. Always, always with his emotions under control.
WORK HARD OR LEAVE
He loved sharpness. If Coach Wooden didn’t see it in practice, that intensity of attention and execution—the effort—he might say very coldly, “O.K., we’re through today. You didn’t come here to work.” Marques Johnson or one of us would say, “No, no, no. We’ll get it going. C’mon, we’ll get it going.” Almost pleading with him to give us another chance to work harder.
Maybe his Midwestern upbringing, that lifestyle, put a love of hard work into him. Coach Wooden loved hard work. He wanted to see it from the players. If not, no yelling or screaming, he’d just threaten to end practice. And he wasn’t afraid to follow through on the threat.
I LEARN WHO’S THE STAR
As a high school player in South Philly at Overbrook High School, I won every honor you could get: MVP, Player of the Year, High School All-American as a junior and senior, and lots of attention. Colleges were promising me things you couldn’t believe.
Then I talked to Coach Wooden on a trip to California. He was strictly no frills. He didn’t promise me I’d start or anything like that. He promised me only one thing, specifically, that I’d get a very good education with my athletic scholarship—that and a $20 laundry expense.
If I wanted to be “the star,” I knew I had to go someplace else. At UCLA the star was Coach Wooden’s team. That was his system. The team was the star.
DETAILED PREPARATION AND TRAINING
Coach Wooden always carried a No. 2 yellow pencil. It seemed like the only time he didn’t have his No. 2 yellow pencil in his hand was when he was holding a basketball.
He wrote everything down, kept track of all kinds of stuff during practice and games. Coach Wooden was amazing when it came to keeping records of our statistics and then training us to improve on them. I still remember that No. 2 yellow pencil.
I also remember we used to have a showboat on our team, a player who was always yelling for the ball, and then once he got it would keep it until he took a shot. Then he’d start yelling for the ball again.
One day, during a five-on-five scrimmage, Coach Wooden decided to teach the showboat a lesson about teamwork. Coach took the four of us aside and said to pass the basketball to our teammate the ball hog. Then we were told to run immediately to the middle of the court, all four of us, sit down, and let the showboat play the other team all by himself.
It was Coach’s way of showing this guy that everybody helps everybody or nothing gets done.
After that little lesson in sharing, the showboat started passing more often. It was a great way of teaching a lesson that is hard for some people to learn. And Coach did it many different ways.
His strength was in teaching fundamentals through hard work. Nobody raced to the showers when practice was over. Most of us just sat on the bench in the locker room completely whipped—exhausted. Occasionally, the custodian would even come by and plead with us, “C’mon, guys, I want to get home for dinner. Take your showers!” Coach worked us hard.
We used to pray for the game to come because practices were so demanding. But it paid off. In 1939 we were 18–2 overall and favored to win the Indiana State High School tournament. Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be. Just before the Sectionals began, the flu hit everybody on our team. We didn’t stand a chance. The Bears lost to our archrivals Mishawaka.
Afterward, Coach Wooden said he was proud of us, how we gave it everything we had, that we could hold our heads high. There was disappointment in our locker room, but I don’t believe any player felt like a loser. We had given it our best.
Beyond teaching fundamentals, Coach Wooden was aiming at something else.
When the players got rambunctious, a little out of hand, started acting like teenagers, he’d stop everything and say very strongly, “Fellas, I want you to become men, not just beat somebody in basketball.” And he really meant it. His teaching went beyond just trying to win.
Before games he told us to do our best, never harbor ill feelings if we lost, never denigrate our opponent, and, if they played well, to congratulate them. And, of course, no profanity.
His morality—that basic decency he has—affected me deeply. He was a gentle man who was a very strong coach.
I came away from him with a feeling of wanting to do my best in whatever I took on. We were prepared and trained well. And not just for basketball.
A GENIUS FOR KNOWING WHAT MAKES YOU TICK
What made Coach Wooden so effective as a leader was his ability to work with every type of person—different temperaments, personalities, styles, and all the rest. He knew how to get them to do it his way, and this included people who were total opposites.
UCLA’s Gail Goodrich and Walt Hazzard were the greatest combination of guards in the history of college basketball; the best twosome ever, in my opinion. But they were totally different guys.
With Gail, Coach would come up and sort of cajole him, put his arm around him and low-key it—offer a quiet suggestion, a little compliment. Then he’d give him a pat on the back and walk away. He knew that Gail wouldn’t react to sharp criticism; it would hurt his play.
Coach knew a stronger approach worked with Walt. There was no mincing words. He’d say very firmly, “Walt, if you do that again, you’re out of here.” And if Walt did it again, he’d hear Coach say, “O.K., that’s it. Take a shower.” Not with any anger, just very stern.
He was so smart in administering discipline, avoiding backing himself into a corner. So with Walt, he’d say, “If you do that again. . . .” He didn’t want Walt taking a shower before practice was concluded, so he gave him a chance or two to correct the problem. Walt knew he could get away with a little, but not much.
Coach treated each one of us the way we needed to be treated, the way that worked best for each person. Coach believed or understood that no two of us were alike. His understanding of people and how to work with each player individually was evident in practice every day. With me there was no cajoling. He knew a sharp remark would have a positive effect. And I got ’em.
Always Coach Wooden emphasized playing together as a team, a unit, a single group. That was all-important, everything.
Our team in 1964—the one that won a national championship—wasn’t buddy-buddy off the court, but on the court you’d think we loved each other because there was such camaraderie and selflessness.
Coach Wooden acted as a scoutmaster, den mother, surrogate parent, second father, drill sergeant—and a man. He was tough as nails, and yet he showed this great love for his wife and kids—his family. To have a coach who was so tough—strong—who loved his wife so much . . . well, it affected my thinking of him. It really brought out respect. He got this great respect from us. And he gave it back.
We got treated like part of the family. Kenny Washington, whose own family lived on the other side of the country, was invited over to the Woodens for holiday dinners so he wouldn’t be alone. And there were others.
John Wooden knew what worked for each one of us. He understood what made us tick.
IT’S WHAT YOU LEARN AFTER YOU KNOW IT ALL THAT COUNTS
I stopped listening to Coach Wooden in my senior year, 1974. All the things that made us a great team as sophomores and juniors evaporated like dust in the wind. It was after this depressing meltdown [UCLA’s 88-game winning streak was broken, and the team lost in the semifinals of the Final Four, which ended the winning streak of seven consecutive championships] that Coach penned his famous maxim, “It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.” This prophetic lesson of life was directed specifically to me. I now have the original sitting as the centerpiece on my desk, personally signed by the master teacher himself. And I can see him this very moment slowly shaking his head with that sad, disappointed look on his face—like a father who’s been let down.