Wooden and Love
Posted: June 5th, 2010 | Filed under: Essays, Other Sports | 38 Comments »
Most people can live with the vague. For instance: What is success? Well, um, you know, um, there’s that old line about art: I know it when I see it. I know it when I feel it. Success is like that, right? I can’t quite put it into words what success means, and other things like “happiness,” or “class,” or “integrity,” but I don’t need the words, right? These are things that come from wordless places deep inside, things that cannot be defined, things that we believe transcend definition. That’s OK. We KNOW what success means, even if we can’t really SAY what it means. Most of us can live comfortably in that hazy world.
But some people cannot live there. Some people keep asking, “wait, what are we talking about here?” Some people need to find clarity, need to get in deeper, need to understand, need to take these cloudy perceptions and ideals that we talk around every day and inject some light, grasp for something concrete in them. Philosophers do that. Great teachers do that. John Wooden did that.
John Wooden died Friday at age 99, and it will be written again and again that there is no way to sum up his career and life and grace. This is true. As a basketball man, he went into the Hall of Famer as both a player and coach. As a leader, he guided his UCLA Bruins to 10 National Championships in 12 seasons. As a thinker he said wise things such as “Failing to prepare is preparing to fail,” and “It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts,” and, perhaps my favorite Woodenism, “Be quick but don’t hurry.” As a teacher, he influenced more people in American sports than anyone else — you will hear it said again and again that he was the best coach in American sports history and I believe that as well. As a man, as Rick Reilly once wrote, he spent the 21st day of every month going the gravesite of his departed wife Nellie then returning home and writing her a love letter that he would put with all the others, tied together with a yellow ribbon.
No, there are no words powerful enough to condense John Wooden’s life. And yet … we should try. Because perhaps the most striking talent of John Wooden was his ability to put words to the wordless, to explain what we believe we already know — to make the ordinary transcendent. He never stopped trying to figure out what is real in all this. Take his famous pyramid of success. Wooden had worked up to come up with a very simple and satisfying expression of what success means. “Success,” he said and wrote, “is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.”
It’s all there, right? Success is a peace of mind. How do you get this peace of mind? How do you reach success? Well it comes from knowing that you tried as hard as you could try and did the very best you could with your life. Wooden had spent a lot of time thinking about success, a lot of time asking himself “What does it really mean?” When he came up with this definition, it sounded right to him. Yes. Success is peace of mind. Yes, the key is trying your best.
But, of course, even these things were too misty and blurred for John Wooden’s unshakeable curiosity. What does THAT mean? What does it mean to try your best? How does someone go about trying to become the best person he or she is capable of becoming? On John Wooden’s amazing website there is a series of fascinating interviews with him about life and love and his father and so on. Two of my favorite little videos come out of the direct questions: What were your strengths and weaknesses as a coach? John Wooden said that his biggest weakness was as a basketball strategist — he thought himself too stuck in his ways and not willing enough to change. And he said that in the early years of his career, he allowed things that were beyond his control (such as UCLA’s terrible practice facilities in those first 17 years) to affect him.
And when asked asked about his strengths he said that he really knew how to organize a practice, knew how to get the most out of the short time he and the team was given. He did this by reducing, constantly reducing, digging deeper and deeper until he reached the heart of the matter, the crux of things. So, when Wooden realized that his reduction of success was still too indistinct, he spent the next 14 years coming up with his pyramid of success. You’ve seen it. And it’s up at the top of this post.
Competitive greatness is at the top — that, to Wooden, is success. Competitive greatness. That’s where the peace of mind rests.
How do you get there? Wooden figured you needed to key things: Poise and Confidence. What is poise? Wooden said it was being true to yourself. Not getting rattled when faced with adversity. What is confidence? That self knowledge that Wooden believed was at the core of success, that belief that you have prepared all you can and are ready for whatever comes.
Well, wait, how do you develop poise and confidence? Wooden had three principles below: Condition, Skill and Team Spirit. Condition is that preparation, mentally and physically, for whatever you are trying to accomplish. You have to prepare; nothing great comes without preparation. Skill, Wooden said, is knowing what you’re doing and being able to do it fast and right. You have to develop that ability. Team spirit is that eagerness to sacrifice your own glory for something bigger. Wooden had originally used the word “willingness” in place of eagerness but did not think it was strong enough. You have to be eager to contribute to something larger.
There’s another layer below (Self Control … Alertness … Initiative … Intentness) and then another layer below that (Industriousness … Friendship … Loyalty … Cooperation … Enthusiasm). And when you dive into the pyramid, really study it, really see how one principle fits into another, how Wooden was saying that the willingness to work hard cannot lead to success without a sense of cooperation and how enthusiasm is naked without the ability to control your emotions, it’s then that maybe you can begin to see the genius of John Wooden. He did not ever rest, did not ever fall back on “oh, you know what I mean,” did not ever stop pushing through the fog.
The most often repeated cliche in sports, I suspect, is “You have to take it one day at a time.” Athletes, coaches, executives say those words again and again, each time as if it is something profound — take it one day at a time, take it one day at a time — and perhaps in those words IS something profound. Perhaps somewhere in those words, there is a secret to sports success, and life success, and happiness. But where? Most of us don’t think much about it. Wooden did.
“Be prepared and be honest,” John Wooden said. And also “Never lie, don’t whine.”
“If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?” he asked.
“The main ingredient of stardom is the rest of the team,” he said.
“When everyone is thinking the same, no one is thinking,” he said.
“If you get yourself too engrossed in things over which you have no control, it will adversely affect things over which you do have control,” he said.
“No one achieves; we’re all underachievers to one degree or another,” he said.
And so on and so on. See, John Wooden wasn’t interested in the simple notion that you have to take things one day at a time — he cared about HOW you take things one day at a time. He wasn’t interested in winning games — he wanted to build teams that played so well together that winning simply happened. From the days when he was young and shot free throws, one after another, in a small town in Indiana, John Wooden wasn’t interested in what life taught about basketball. He was interested in what basketball taught about life.
I got the chance in my life to talk three times with John Wooden. The first time, I was a columnist at the newspaper in Augusta, Ga., and my friend Ed Price and I had put together our own list of the 100 most important people in basketball history. And, we impulsively put John Wooden No. 1 — even ahead of James Naismith, who merely invented the game. We figured that while Naismith invented it, Wooden — with his brilliant playing and coaching and teaching — perfected it. I did not expect the chance to talk with Wooden … but it turned out to be easy to reach him. John Wooden was always available to teach. He was kind and patient and thanked me at the end for calling.
I spoke with him twice more, each conversation ranks among my favorite moments as a sportswriter. John Wooden was the only coach I ever spoke with who made me wish I was 7-feet-tall with good feet and a soft touch around the basket — not because of the fame and fortune it might bring but because I wished I could have played for him. I remember one conversation when I asked him what he thought was the most important thing in the world. He said, “Love.” And then he repeated what he called a poem, but it is actually a rarely heard song written by Oscar Hammerstein from “The Sound of Music:”
“A bell is no bell ’til you ring it.
A song is no song ’til you sing it.
And love in your heart wasn’t meant to stay
Love is not love ’til you give it away.”
I bring this up here because I have spent much of the morning listening him to say those lyrics from memory — if you go to the Web site, you can hear John Wooden recite those words. And in reciting them, of course, he infuses them with meaning beyond what even Oscar Hammerstein probably intended. That’s what John Wooden did in his 99 years. He infused life with meaning. He found essence in the haze. He won a lot of basketball games without ever thinking that winning was the point. And he gave away a lot of love.
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“The first time, I was a columnist at the newspaper in Augusta, Ga., and my friend Ed Price and I had put together the 100 most important people in baseball history. And, we impulsively put John Wooden No. 1 — even ahead of James Naismith, who merely invented the game.”
I assume this is meant to say “basketball history.” Not that Wooden probably couldn’t be ranked on every sports list.
Too bad he was a Boilermaker. :>
/IU grad
Is the full page ad going to be permanent when going through the SI route?
“When everyone is thinking the same, no one is thinking,”
I love that.
Mr. Wooden was a brilliant man. He will be greatly missed.
——-
On another note, seems Mr. Obama read your blog…
http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/president-obama-on-lebron-james-in-ohio-060310
This is one of the best pieces ever posted on this blog.
Wooden is one of the rare people that makes you want to be a little better at life.
What if every youth coach who uses coaches like Bob Knight or Bill Parcells as a role model tried to take after John Wooden instead? Just imagine how much different sports could be.
I find it amazing – though maybe it was common at the time – that Wooden worked at a part-time job in his first few years at UCLA to help raise his family. Times are certainly different now.
I’ve been watching these tributes to John Wooden and I can’t help thinking, is it really possible he could be so dedicated to his wife, so patient with his players, so humble in the face of all he accomplished? Then I realize he was all those things and it’s only my cynicism that makes me feel that way.
I know people say he couldn’t have won in todays game, that he won because he had Alcindor and then Walton, that he wouldn’t have had won 10 titles. Then again, I don’t know if that is what he was trying to accomplish anyway.
A number of years ago I attended a Madeline Hunter workshop. She is an educational consultant whose work on developing lesson plans is based on brain research. During the day she commented that the best teacher she ever observed was John Wooden and that he was implementing progressive teaching methods long before the researchers validated their effectiveness. His combination of positive reinforcement and clarity of organization were just a part of his brilliant approach to coaching.
Great piece, Joe, as always.
I’m not sure if Wooden himself was adapting the quotation for a modern audience or if he independently came up with it, but “Be quick but don’t hurry” sounds a lot like a saying Augustus Caesar was fond of – “Festina lente,” or “Make haste slowly.”
On the website he answers the question of whether he could win national championships today. He basically said that you have to have talent to win national championships so that’s not really the goal, but that he thinks letting your players know that you care about them as people is just as important as ever. If anyone has read the memoirs of Maj. Richard Winters of Band of Brothers fame, their leaderships strategies seem very similar. He also reminds me of Dick Vermeil a little. I only discovered Mr. Wooden last year, and I’m so glad that he did so much to make sure that his wisdom would live on after he was gone.
I wondered why, on Thursday, when Coach Wooden went into the hospital, I was so affected. After all, he won his last title when I was not yet 2. I had never met the man; I hadn’t even read any of his books.
I was at a high school graduation, and upon receiving a mobile Tweet from Brian Windhorst, the great Cavs beat writer, almost choked up (come on, graduations are boring, of course I was checking my phone).
But it has taken me until now to understand why, upon hearing his name the last 3 days, I become so moved: how many people can you say that you know that have deeply, deeply touched those that they not only worked directly with, but those that they have had no contact with, whatsoever??
That is the measure of a truly great, great individual, in my opinion: I am shedding tears for Coach Wooden’s family and friends, and yet have never been within miles of him.
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I grew up in Southern California during the late 60s and early 70s. At the time, one of the L.A. TV stations used to tape delay broadcasts of the UCLA basketball games. Sometimes I’d learn the final score ahead of time, on the radio or on the early newscasts, but my father would always insist that l leave him in the dark so he could watch each game without knowing how it would turn out. I finally said, “Why do you care so much? It’s not like they ever lose.”
What was amazing about Wooden was his ability to win with small guys or subpar talent. Truth be told, most coaches would have at least made the Final Four with Alcindor and Walton. But Wooden also did it with Steve Patterson and Walt Hazzard and Curtis Rowe. That’s what set him apart from the Bobby Knights and Coach Ks: he could adjust his coaching strategy to whatever type of team he happened to assemble.
As for the homespun homilies, there’s no doubt that he believed them and lived them. However, there’s equally no doubt that he looked the other way as Sam Gilbert did the dirty work necessary to keep the superstars in shiny new cars and first-class threads. Does this made Wooden a hypocrite? I don’t know. To me, it just further humanizes him. Below the Sunday school exterior beat the heart of a competitor every bit as fierce as Bear Bryant or Adolph Rupp.
Joe – your tributes/obituaries really capture the essence of people, whether it’s John Wooden or Jose Lima. Wonderful.
When will we know success, truly?
Oops, didn’t post:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aF8wLg5Asgo
[...] Joe Posnanski » Blog Archive » Wooden and Love [...]
[...] Joe Posnanski » Blog Archive » Wooden and Love [...]
He was a great coach, thinker, and man. In some ways, I wonder where we would be if he had been a president rather than a coach.
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I think if John Wooden were president he’d be spending more time trying to get this fixed in the gulf, rather than worrying about where LeBron is headed.
“things fixed in the gulf”
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“If you get yourself too engrossed in things over which you have control, it will adversely affect things over which you do have control.”
I think there should be a “don’t” in the first sentence, Joe.
I wish he was my coach. There’s a certain sense of conviction that comes with everything he says. 99 years is pretty good.
John Wooden was, quite simply, the finest coach in American history because he was one of the best teachers ever to work with young people in our nation.
I recall three of Coach Wooden’s axioms:
“Don’t measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability.”
“The main ingredient of stardom is the rest of the team.”
“You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.”
Critics sometimes claim that Coach Wooden won so many of his 10 NCAA championships because he recruited perhaps the two greatest players in NCAA men’s basketball history, Lewis Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and Bill Walton, to UCLA. Alcindor and Walton led the Bruins to five NCAA titles.
However, critics also forget that UCLA’s only loss in the NCAA Tournament from 1964 to 1975 (the Bruins failed to qualify for the then-Much Smaller Dance in 1966) came in 1974 – Walton’s senior season – when North Carolina State beat the Bruins, 80-77, in double overtime in the tourney semifinals. Earlier in that same 1973-74 season, Notre Dame also ended UCLA’s record 88-game winning streak.
After Walton’s graduation, Coach Wooden guided UCLA, which featured Richard Washington, Dave Meyers, Marcus Johnson, Pete Trgovich, and Ralph Drollinger, back to the NCAA Tournament where the Bruins beat Kentucky, 92-85, to win the 1975 national title in the coach’s final game.
UCLA’s famed 1964 team, which included Walt Hazzard, Keith Erickson, and Gail Goodrich, used Coach Wooden’s renowned 2-2-1 zone press to win the national title – Coach Wooden’s first – despite the fact that the team featured no starter taller than 6-foot-5. Coach Wooden’s Bruins, which included Erickson and Goodrich, defended their national title in 1965. “Winning takes talent,” Coach Wooden said, “To repeat takes character.”
After Alcindor’s graduation in 1969, Coach Wooden led UCLA to back-to-back championships in 1970 and 1971 with teams built around Sidney Wicks, Curtis Rowe, Henry Bibby, and (the now deceased) Steve Patterson.
Coach Wooden won with two of the four finest college centers (Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain being the others) of all time. He also won with smaller teams and the zone press, with well-balanced teams (the 1969-70 Bruins featured five players with scoring averages of 18.6 points per game to 12.5 ppg), and with a team (1975) eager for redemption.
In the end, as always, John Wooden kept it simple – and taught us a great deal in the process.
Or as Coach Wooden often said: “Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.”
Wooden was a great man and a great coach. But with the Sam Gilbert stuff, even a great coach has to make concessions to reality to win in college basketball. Which may say more about NCAA basketball than it does about Wooden.
OK, I hate to be the cynic here. It looks like Wooden was better man than he was a coach, but shouldnt SAM GILBERT be mentioned anywhere . Flowery words and praise are all great at this moment John Wooden more than deserves them. However there is another part of his success. How big ? It’s hard to say, but it should be mentioned.
http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/news?slug=dw-uclalegacy040206
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[...] his or her thoughts about John Wooden. We are closing the Brunch with what Kansas City’s Joe Posnanski had to write. He includes these Oscar Hammerstein lyrics that Wooden [...]
My sister-in-law in LA bought a copy of Coach Wooden’s children’s book “Inch and Miles.” She got him to sign it for my son, who lived clear across the country and was too young to have ever heard of him.
He signed it “Love, John Wooden.” I can tell he meant it.
[...] Wooden and Love by Joe Posnanski. John Wooden, the most successful coach in major American sports, died this week [...]
[...] his or her thoughts about John Wooden. We are closing the Brunch with what Kansas City’s Joe Posnanski had to write. He includes these Oscar Hammerstein lyrics that Wooden [...]
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[...] Great Teacher…John Wooden In Sports on 06/07/2010 at 11:07 AM Joe Posnanski writes the following about John Wooden: Most people can live with the vague. For instance: What is [...]
Just incredible, Joe. I can’t even muster a fart joke. BRAVO.
“you will hear it said again and again that he was the best coach in American sports history and I believe that as well.”… Not necessarily disagreeing with you Joe, but I would posit that if Wooden is #1A, then Paul Brown is #1B. They had a lot of the same qualities as teachers of both life and sports.
“Wooden figured you needed to key things: Poise and Confidence”.
Did you mean two key things?
[...] favorite retrospectives on two fallen sports figures: Posnanski on John Wooden and Sam Mellinger’s premature eulogy for Manute Bol. That both work(ed) at the Kansas City [...]