Wizard West of the
“To lead the way Coach Wooden led takes a tremendous amount of faith. He was almost mystical in his approach, yet that approach only strengthened our confidence. Coach Wooden enjoyed winning, but he did not put winning above everything. He was more concerned that we became successful as human beings, that we earned our degrees, that we learned to make the right choices as adults and as parents. In essence he was preparing us for life.” —Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Wizard West of the
2
A great player Before Wooden comes to ucla
7
Becoming a collegiate head coach
8
I didn’t want to quit . A word from Wooden
10
Sustaining success
14
He sets records
20
The end of his coaching career
22
He left a legacy
A
great
pl
High School Player
College Player
1924-28
1926
1927
1928-32
Martinsville High School Four-year letter winner
State runner-up
Led team to state championship
Purdue University Basketball
2
ayer 1930-32
1930
1931-32
1932
All-Big Ten and All-Midwestern
Led Purdue to Big Ten Championship
Captain of Purdue team
Helms Athletic Foundation Player of the Year Led Purdue to National Championship Led Purdue to Big Ten Championship Averaged 12.8 points in his senior year, setting a Western Conference record of 154 points.
Before coaching at ucla John Wooden was a fabulous player before becoming the most successful coach in college basketball history. He enjoyed an All-State career at Martinsville High School, and at Purdue University was called the “Indiana Rubber Man” for his suicidal dives on the court. An excellent play maker and aggressive defender, Wooden was a three-time Helms Athletic Foundation All-America and named College Player of the Year in 1932, the year he and fellow Hall of Famer Charles “Stretch” Murphy led Purdue to the national championship. Wooden, who cites Ward Lambert, his Purdue coach, as being his greatest coaching influence, enjoyed a brief but successful semi-pro career before turning his complete attention to coaching.
4
Wooden was known as the “Indiana Rubber Man� for his suicidal dives on the court.
Becoming a collegiate head coach After the 1947–48 season, Wooden became the head coach at ucla, after negotiating for a threeyear contract. ucla had actually been his second choice for a coaching position in 1948. He had also been pursued for the head coaching position at the University of Minnesota, and it was his and his wife’s desire to remain in the Midwest. But inclement weather in Minnesota prevented Wooden from receiving the scheduled phone offer from the Golden Gophers. Thinking that they had lost interest, Wooden accepted the head coaching job with the Bruins instead. Officials from the University of Minnesota contacted Wooden right after he accepted the position at ucla, but he declined their offer because he had given his word to the Bruins.
Wooden had immediate success, fashioning an “instant turnaround” for an undistinguished, faltering program. In 1948, he took a ucla team that had a 12–13 record the previous year and transformed it into a Pacific Coast Conference (pcc) Southern Division Champion with a 22–7 record, the most wins in a season for ucla since it started playing basketball in 1919. He surpassed that number the next season with 24–7 and a second Southern Division Championship and pcc outright, and won a third and fourth straight Southern Division Championship his first four years. Up to that time, ucla had collected a total of two such championships the previous 30 years.
I didn’t want to
quit.
In spite of these immediate achievements, Wooden reportedly did not initially enjoy his position. “I didn’t want to quit. I wanted to leave. Let me put it that way. I had been led to believe by those under whose supervision I was — shown plans for a new building, a place on campus — when my three years was up, that we’d have a nice place to play on campus. Well at the end of two years, nothing had been done and I could see that it’s not forthcoming. The conditions in which we had our practices and played our games in comparison of what I’d had, they didn’t compare with what we had in high school back in Indiana. We were practicing on the third floor of an old gymnasium with gymnasts practicing on one side and Briggs Hunt and his wrestlers down below. I loved the coaches, both of them. We became very close, I think, because we shared adversity and that brings you closer. Sometimes trampolines on the other side of the floor, and sometimes beautiful young coeds would be up there in leotards jumping on those and you’re trying to get your team’s attention. I wouldn’t notice them, but my players would. After my first two or three years, as you know, we played games in Venice High School and Santa Monica City College, Long Beach City College, Long Beach Auditorium, Pan Pacific, all over. We played home games in as many nine different places. Purdue came up with a very fine offer —a lot more money and better conditions in every way, and I was tempted. But when I first came, ucla only wanted to give me a two-year contract and I had insisted on a three-year contract. When Purdue contacted Mr. Ackerman and Mr. Johns, Director of Athletics and Graduate Manager of Athletics about contacting me. They told me that they had given permission, but they reminded me that I had insisted on a three-year contract and they intended to honor their part and they thought I would, too.
I guess they had learned enough about me in the first two years that they probably had me there. So I decided that I would stay. Following that, I always had a one-year contract. The one-year contract always had the option for me to renew for one more year. It was a one year contract, but it was really a two-year in a sense. It was a continuing option every year from that time on. I never had more than a one-year contract with an option for my last 24 years. After three years, we were more settled, more acclimated. It was nothing against ucla. It was just the fact that the facilities with which we had to work with and the conditions under which we played and practiced that way. You may or may not have heard this, but for my first 17 years in that old gym, I with my managers swept and mopped that floor every day before practice. Every day I had the buildings-and-grounds people build me two six foot-wide brooms and six foot-wide mops. And, we’d first sweep it to get the dust off from the activity in there during the day, and then dampen these mops, and I took the easy job, I must say. And I didn’t want managers doing things I wouldn’t do myself, but I’d take the easy job and take a bucket and go along in front of them just like I was feeding the chickens to get it a little damp. I did that for 17 years. A lot of people don’t know that. When these coaches today start complaining about things, I say, ugh! With all the things they have today! When we got Pauley Pavilion, I just felt, gee, this is tremendous, really tremendous, and it was. But, yes, I would have left had I only taken the two-year contract as they wanted me to when I came. But when I did take a three year... I’ve always been against the people who fail to honor contracts. I’d even go farther than that and say word of mouth was good enough. To me, that’s a contract if you make it. Now today, I don’t think even the written contract, many don’t think too much of that.”
“Players with fight never lose a game, Sustaining Success By the 1955-56 season, Wooden had established a sustained success at ucla. That year, he guided the team to its first undefeated pcc conference title, and a 17–game winning streak that came to an end only at the hands of Bill Russell’s University of San Francisco team in the 1956 ncaa Tournament. However, ucla was unable to advance from this level over the immediately ensuing seasons, finding itself unable to return to the ncaa Tournament as the teams coached by Pete Newell at the University of California, Berkeley took control of the conference at the end of the decade.
they just run out of time.” 10
11
“He has a heart, brain and soul that have enabled him to inspire others to reach levels of success and peace of mind that they might never have dreamed possible on their own.” —Bill Walton
He sets records By 1962, with the probation no longer in place, Wooden had righted the basketball program’s ship and returned his team to the top of the conference. This time, however, they would take the next step, and in so doing, unleash a run of dominance unparalleled in the history of college basketball. A narrow loss, due largely to a controversial foul call, in the semifinal of the 1962 ncaa Tournament convinced Wooden that his Bruins were ready to contend for national championships.
Two seasons later, the final piece of the puzzle fell into place when assistant coach Jerry Norman persuaded Wooden that the team’s smallsized players and fast-paced offense would be complemented by the adoption of a zone press defense. The result was a dramatic increase in scoring, giving ucla a powerhouse team that went undefeated on its way to the school’s first basketball national championship.
The following year, they won the title again, losing only two games in a 30–game season. What they lacked in size, the 1964 and ‘65 Bruins made up for in speed, discipline and an extra-keen will to win that has been the hallmark of all of Wooden’s teams. The break-up of this championship lineup may have cost the Bruins the championship in 1966, but they came back with a vengeance in 1967, and held the championship for the next seven years.
16
The seven-foot center Lew Alcindor (later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) dominated the Bruins’ game for the first three seasons of their seven-year streak. Bill Walton was the dominant star of the 1973 and ‘74 seasons, when ucla set the all-time record for an unbroken winning streak: 88 consecutive games. In 1974, ucla again won the Pacific conference title, but lost to North Carolina State in the ncaa semi-finals.
“Talent is God-given. Be humble.
Fame is man-given. Be grateful.
Conceit is self-given. Be careful.�
“Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.�
The end of his coaching career The Bruins bounced back in 1975, Coach Wooden’s last year, winning 27 out of 30 games, turning around a losing semi-final against Louisville in the closing minute of the game. In the final game of the tournament, ucla defeated the University of Kentucky, 92-85. Wooden announced that he would retire immediately after the championship game. His legendary coaching career concluded triumphantly, as his team responded with a 92-85 win over University of Kentucky to claim Wooden’s first career coaching victory over the Wildcats and his unprecedented 10th national championship.
20
He
left a
legacy 1948
1949
1950
1956
Named head coach of ucla and leads team to first-year record of winning
Bruins win first conference championship
Leads ucla to first ncaa tournament
ucla completes first perfect league season (16-0)
22
1960
1964
1965
1967
Wooden inducted into basketball Hall of Fame as a player
ucla completes 30-0 season and wins first ncaa title. Wooden named ncaa coach of the year
ucla wins second ncaa title
ucla wins third ncaa title
1968
1969
1970
1971
ucla wins fourth ncaa title and coach’s
ucla wins fifth ncaa
ucla wins sixth ncaa title
ucla wins seventh ncaa title
first ever televised collegiate game in prime time
title, being the first school to win three straight national titles in a row
1972
1973
1973
1975
ucla wins eighth ncaa
Wooden inducted into basketball Hall of Fame as a coach, the first to do so as a player and a coach
ucla wins ninth ncaa title
ucla wins tenth ncaa title, concluding Wooden’s last season before retiring
title with another perfect season of 30-0
References www.achievement.org John Wooden Interview www.latimes.com Featured Articles From The Los Angeles Times John Wooden Time Line, 1910–2010 www.uclaBruins.com John Wooden: A Coaching Legend ucla History
26
This book was designed by Brittany Mikottis in Fall 2011 for the Visual Information studio at Washington University in St. Louis. Fonts used were Whitney and Vista Slab. No part of this book may be copied or reproduced without the creators consent.