A man ahead of the times
Posted: Monday, October 15, 2007 4:34 PM
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Coaches
The legend, John Wooden, turned 97 years old Sunday. Happy belated birthday, coach.
Oddly enough, one of the biggest celebrations didn’t come in Los Angeles, where Wooden lives and rose to basketball idol status by guiding UCLA to 10 NCAA Tournament titles in the 1960s and 70s, but in his native Indiana.
Gov. Mitch Daniels issued a proclamation that makes Wooden’s birthday a celebration statewide, which was the second time Daniels has done so. The coach also may have a stretch of Indiana highway named after him. Not a bad Hoosier state honor for a coach not named Bobby Knight.
That piece of road, from Centerton to Martinsville, is a nine-mile stretch that starts near the farm where Wooden grew up. It might not be officially renamed until the spring, but it’s still a nice tribute to go with the court the Bruins play on and a post office in Reseda, Calif.
But none of that is as great as this column from the Los Angeles Times’ Bill Dwyre, who interviewed some of Wooden’s former Bruins for their thoughts on their coach.
My favorites? Gail Goodrich, who starred on Wooden’s first title team and went on to play for the Los Angeles Lakers, says that when he once made a behind-the-back pass, Wooden lit into him. Sort of.
"In the locker room, he went off on me, but as only he can do," Goodrich told Dwyre. "He never cursed, but when he started out with his 'Goodness gracious sakes alive,' I knew I was in big trouble."
Goodness gracious sakes alive is now my go-to phrase. Much nicer than dropping four-letter words.
Bill Walton, a legendary Wooden endorser, offers up this gem:
"When Shaq was getting to be a star big man," Walton told Dwyre, "they made a commercial and brought other big centers in for the shoot. I was there and Kareem and several others and Wilt. They also had Coach Wooden, as part of it, sitting in a director's chair. So Wilt, always dominating everything, gets us all together and he says to Coach Wooden, 'Johnny -- always called him Johnny -- so, look around you, you're the coach. Who gets to start?'
"Wooden doesn't even hesitate. He says to Wilt, 'Which one of you won three NCAA titles?' Then he looks at Kareem."
As a Kansas graduate -- albeit 50 years after Chamberlain was a Jayhawk -- that bit makes me laugh. Not many people could’ve said that to Wilt.
However, through all of that, the most interesting comment came from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who illustrated a late-game coaching move from Wooden that would’ve been dissected again and again on SportsCenter today.
"My sophomore year, we were playing Colorado State," Abdul-Jabbar told Dwyre. "It's at Pauley, but it is close. At a timeout, late in the second half, his instructions were surprising, contrary to logic, contrary to something I thought we should be doing. They had the ball and I was looking for defensive instructions, how to stop them this time down. Instead, he told us to foul one of their guards as soon as he got across half court. They were in the one-and-one, so that really didn't make sense to me.
"But we did as we were told, and the guy missed the front end of the one-and-one. We got the rebound, went down and scored and the game was over.
"Never again did I question him."
That was in Dec. 1966, when UCLA beat Colorado State 84-74. It wasn’t close, but Wooden, if Abdul-Jabbar’s recollection is correct, knew the Bruins would fare better by not playing defense and instead exploiting an opponent’s weakness, in this case, free-throw shooting.
It’s similar to the strategy some coaches employ today to preserve leads late in games. (To be clear, it usually involves a coach not wanting the opponent to hit a game-tying three-pointer when they could be shooting two free throws instead. Debate rages about this every March when a team, like Ohio State vs. Xavier in the 2007 NCAA Tournament, forces OT on a late 3.)
But that’s Wooden. He was ahead of his time.
