The Passing of John Wooden – Teacher, Coach and Role Model

He was legendary for his attention to detail, from his meticulous practice plans to taking the time to teach players how to put on their socks so as to prevent blisters. His enormous success led some to refer to him as the Wizard of Westwood, a reference he reportedly hated.

But to most, John Wooden was respectfully known as coach. Most importantly, for all the educators and coaches of amateur athletics the man was an example of what we should all strive to be.

The Coach and Player

A talented basketball player in his own right, Wooden was a three-time college All-American guard. He earned the nickname the “Rubber Man’’ because of how quickly he would bounce back up from the floor.

But he is most well known for coaching accomplishments, achievements that defy description. Coach Wooden’s UCLA Bruins made 12 Final Four appearances and won 10 NCAA championships, including seven in a row from 1967 to 1973. All three of these accomplishments represent all-time NCAA records.

His 1971-72 team posted an average margin of victory of 30.3 points, also an all time NCAA record. He posted a career winning percentage of .813 and his teams went unbeaten four times. From 1971 to 1974, UCLA would win 88 games in succession.

Prior to his success on the national stage, he transformed the Bruins from an unknown to a conference power, winning five conference titles and taking UCLA to their first Final Four in 1962 where the team lost in the semifinals to Cincinnati, the eventual champion.

Amazingly, Coach Wooden was successful with teams with all types of players – those that featured a dominant post-player as well as guard-oriented teams that were devoid of size. He didn’t recruit players to fit a basketball style; instead he recruited individuals that he felt would fit into his belief of how the game should be played: a focus on “conditioning, fundamentals, and working together as a team.’’

He would be the first man to be named to the Naismith Hall of Fame as both player and coach. Only two other individuals in the history of basketball have matched that accomplishment.

John Wooden, Teacher

The former high school English teacher was actually best known by his players, not for the titles he helped them win, but for the life lessons he provided them. According to legend, Coach Wooden carried with him, at all times, a handwritten copy of his father’s credo:

“Be true to yourself. Make each day a masterpiece. Drink deeply from good books. Make friendship a fine art. Build a shelter against a rainy day.’’

Deeply religious, Wooden was known for being a man of principle and those principles never varied, no matter how important or talented the player. When one of his most gifted and free-spirited charges, Bill Walton, balked at getting his hair cut, Coach Wooden reportedly acknowledged his respect and even admiration for a young man who wanted to live by his own personal creed before stating:

“We’re going to miss you, Bill.”

For those in the education business, it is important to note that he insisted that there were four laws of learning: explanation, demonstration, imitation, and repetition. And for success in the most trying of times, i.e., for his basketball teams on the national stage, he insisted that “the goal is to create a correct habit that can be produced instinctively under great pressure.”

But as with most great teachers, his lessons were given by his actions. Bob Ryan, the great sportswriter for the Boston Globe referred to Wooden as “a 19th century man who somehow thrived in an otherwise alien culture.” It seems that when Wooden’s wife Nell Riley passed away on March 21, 1985, he continued to honor a lifelong commitment to his partner. On the 21st of each month, Coach Wooden would pay a visit to his wife’s grave and then sit down to write a love letter.

Not without flaws, Coach Wooden was known to tell a fib or two. As Ryan also wrote, the UCLA great always stood by those who had managed to handle his demands on the court. Apparently Wooden once expounded to Ryan on how much he had enjoyed coaching Sidney Wicks, a man pro coaches deemed uncoachable.

Though deeply religious, it is interesting to note that when his body failed him completely, he took a page from Scott Nearing and made the extraordinarily difficult conscious decision to end his own life. The general consensus is that when Wooden’s body had completely betrayed him he checked himself into a facility where he refused to eat and awaited the end.

“Death with dignity,” wrote Ryan, “is what he deserved and death with dignity is what he got.”

The Man and Father

A quiet, personally-reserved man, Coach Wooden was never one to sell the substance for the shadow. He hated flashiness both on and off the court.

He never swore at his players yet many would attest that he put enough venom into ‘Goodness gracious sakes alive!’ that he could make a Marine drill sergeant proud.

In a day and age when most men smoked Wooden did so himself though he would quit each season to ensure he was a proper role model to his players.

And his children, they had this to say of the man:

“We will miss him more than words can express,’’ his son, James, and daughter, Nancy Muehlhausen, said in a statement. “He has been, and always will be, the guiding light for our family. The love, guidance, and support he has given us will never be forgotten. Our peace of mind at this time is knowing that he has gone to be with our mother, whom he has continued to love and cherish.’’

Perhaps surprisingly, there are those who think he was a man that could not match his success in today’s world of college athletics. According to The New York Times::

“A dynasty like Wooden’s would be almost impossible now, because the best players seldom spend more than a year or two in college before turning professional. No N.C.A.A. men’s basketball coach has won more than four championships since Wooden retired.”

I beg to differ. Wooden was a teacher first and a coach second. He would recruit young men who understood the word commitment. And as a man who understood how to motivate and how to lead, I think he would still be the man everyone would be chasing.

As Mark Kriegel at FoxSports notes:

“This may be a cynical age, but no more distrustful than the ’60s and ’70s. Cities were burning. Many a campus found itself under siege. It was black against white, and young against old, (defined as anyone over 30).”

“…. it was the best work done by any American coach, in any sport.
The championship streak is wondrous enough. But the fact that those years — 1967 to 1974 — coincide with the most famously tumultuous stretch in youth culture, elevates the achievement. It wasn’t a sporting accomplishment so much as a societal one.”

In a day and age when we spend as much time talking about ineligible players and team’s being sanctioned for breaking rules, Wooden would represent a return to the spirit of college athletics, where winning was secondary to developing character.

In life and in death the man was ever the teacher and coach. The great ones are great for a reason, they understand and function at a different level.

Such was the case with the wondrous husband and father as well as the greatest teacher and coach ever to walk the planet.