John Wooden Passes

[KillerB]

It just crossed.. Wooden has passed away.

from ap
Former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden has died. The Wizard of Westwood was 99.
The university said Wooden died Friday night of natural causes at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, where he had been hospitalized since May 26.
In the history of college basketball, no coach or school has come close to Wooden's 10 NCAA championships.
Wooden's career record at UCLA was 620-147, not including 47 NCAA tournament wins, and his overall mark for 40 years as a college coach was 885-203, an .813 winning percentage that remains unequaled.
He won his 10 titles over a 12-year span from 1963-75. During that time his teams were 335-22, including four 30-0 seasons. His UCLA teams also had a record winning streak of 88 games, and won 38 straight games in NCAA tournaments.

[BradleyJD]

Pyramid of Success was great.

This is more than a coach. He was a truly great man.

Now, thankfully, he is back with his wife. He has waited for this day for a long time.

[KillerB]

A longer version of Wooden's Obit

John Wooden, college basketball's gentlemanly Wizard of Westwood who built one of the greatest dynasties in all of sports at UCLA and became one of the most revered coaches ever, has died. He was 99.
The university said Wooden died Friday night of natural causes at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, where he had been hospitalized since May 26.
"We want to thank everyone for their love and support for our father. We will miss him more than words can express," son Jim Wooden 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."
They thanked well-wishers for their thoughts and prayers and asked for privacy.
With his signature rolled-up game program in hand, Wooden led the Bruins to 10 NCAA championships, including an unmatched streak of seven in a row from 1967 to 1973.
Over 27 years, he won 620 games, including 88 straight during one historic stretch, and coached many of the game's greatest players such as Bill Walton and Lew Alcindor -- later known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
As a coach, he was groundbreaking trendsetter who demanded his players be in great condition so they could play an up-tempo style not well-known on the West Coast at the time.
But the Wizard's legacy extended well beyond that.
He was the master of the simple one- or two-sentence homily, instructive little messages best presented in his famous "Pyramid of Success," which remains must-read material, not only for fellow coaches but for anyone in a leadership position in American business.
He taught the team game and had only three hard-and-fast rules -- no profanity, tardiness or criticizing fellow teammates. Layered beneath that seeming simplicity, though, were a slew of life lessons -- primers on everything from how to put on your socks correctly to how to maintain poise: "Not being thrown off stride in how you behave or what you believe because of outside events."
"What you are as a person is far more important that what you are as a basketball player," was one of Wooden's key messages.
Wooden disliked the "Wizard of Westwood" nickname, preferring to be called "Coach."
"I'm no wizard, and I don't like being thought of in that light at all," he said in a 2006 interview with the UCLA History Project. "I think of a wizard as being some sort of magician or something, doing something on the sly or something, and I don't want to be thought of in that way."
Wooden began his career as a teacher during the Great Depression and was still teaching others long past retirement. He remained a fixture at UCLA games played on a court named after him and his late wife, Nell, and celebrated his 99th birthday with a book he co-authored on how to live life and raise children.
Asked in a 2008 interview the secret to his long life, Wooden replied: "Not being afraid of death and having peace within yourself. All of life is peaks and valleys. Don't let the peaks get too high and the valleys too low."
Asked what he would like God to say when he arrived at the pearly gates, Wooden replied, "Well done."
Even with his staggering accomplishments, he remained humble and gracious. He said he tried to live by advice from his father: "Be true to yourself, help others, make each day your masterpiece, make friendship a fine art, drink deeply from good books -- especially the Bible, build a shelter against a rainy day, give thanks for your blessings and pray for guidance every day."
While he lived his father's words, many more lived his. Those lucky enough to play for him got it first hand, but there was no shortage of Wooden sayings making the rounds far away from the basketball court.
"Learn as if you were to live forever; live as if you were to die tomorrow," was one.
"Don't give up on your dreams, or your dreams will give up on you," was another.
UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero said Wooden's passing was a "huge loss."
"This loss will be felt by individuals from all parts of society. He was not only the greatest coach in the history of any sport but he was an exceptional individual that transcended the sporting world," Guerrero said in a statement. "His enduring legacy as a role model is one we should all strive to emulate."
Born Oct. 14, 1910, near Martinsville, Ind., on a farm that didn't have electricity or indoor plumbing, Wooden's life revolved around sports from the time his father built a baseball diamond among his wheat, corn and alfalfa. Baseball was his favorite sport, but there was also a basketball hoop nailed in a hayloft. Wooden played there countless hours with his brother, Maurice, using any kind of ball they could find.
He led Martinsville High School to the Indiana state basketball championship in 1927 before heading to Purdue, where he was All-America from 1930-32. The Boilermakers were national champions his senior season, and Wooden, nicknamed "the Indiana Rubber Man" for his dives on the hardcourt, was college basketball's player of the year.
But it wasn't until he headed west to Southern California that Wooden really made his mark on the game.
Wooden guided the Bruins to seven consecutive titles from 1967 through 1973 and a record 88-game winning streak in the early 1970s. From the time of his first title following the 1963-64 season through the 10th in 1974-75, Wooden's Bruins were 330-19, including four 30-0 seasons.
The bespectacled former high school teacher ended up at UCLA almost by accident. Wooden was awaiting a call from the University of Minnesota for its head coaching job and thought he had been passed over when it didn't come. In the meantime, UCLA called, and he accepted the job in Los Angeles.
Minnesota officials called later that night, saying they couldn't get through earlier because of a snowstorm, and offered him the job. Though Wooden wanted it more than the UCLA job, he told them he already had given UCLA his word and could not break it.
The Bruins were winners right away after Wooden took over as coach at UCLA's campus in Westwood in 1949, although they were overshadowed by Bill Russell and the University of San Francisco, and later Pete Newell's teams at California.
At the time, West Coast teams tended to play a slow, plodding style. Wooden quickly exploited that with his fast-breaking, well-conditioned teams, who wore down opponents with a full-court zone press and forever changed the style of college basketball.
Still, it would be 16 seasons before Wooden won his first NCAA championship with a team featuring Walt Hazzard that went 30-0 in 1964. After that, they began arriving in bunches, and top players such as Alcindor, Walton, Sidney Wicks and Lucius Allen began arriving every year in Westwood.
Each would learn at the first practice how to properly put on socks and sneakers. Each would learn to keep his hair short and face clean-shaven, even though the fashions of the 1960s and '70s dictated otherwise.
And each would learn Wooden's "pyramid of success," a chart he used to both inspire players and sum up his personal code for life. Industriousness and enthusiasm were its cornerstones; faith, patience, loyalty and self-control were some of the building blocks. At the top of the pyramid was competitive greatness.
"Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are," Wooden would tell them.
Wooden never had to worry about his reputation. He didn't drink or swear or carouse with other coaches on the road, though he did have a penchant for berating referees.
"Dadburn it, you saw him double-dribble down there!" went a typical Wooden complaint to an official. "Goodness gracious sakes alive!"
Wooden would coach 27 years at UCLA, finishing with a record of 620-147. He won 47 NCAA tournament games. His overall mark as a college coach was 885-203, an .813 winning percentage that remains unequaled.
But his legacy as a coach will always be framed by two streaks -- the seven straight national titles UCLA won beginning in 1967 and the 88-game winning streak that came to an end Jan. 19, 1974, when Notre Dame beat the Bruins 71-70.
After the loss, Wooden refused to allow his players to talk to reporters.
"Only winners talk," he said. A week later, UCLA beat the Irish at home by 19 points.
A little more than a year later, Wooden surprisingly announced his retirement after a 75-74 NCAA semifinal victory over Louisville. He then went out and coached the Bruins for the last time, winning his 10th national title with a 92-85 win over Kentucky.
After that victory, Wooden walked into the interview room at the San Diego Sports Arena to face about 200 reporters, who let their objectivity slip and applauded.
Long before that, though, the road to coaching greatness began after Wooden graduated with honors from Purdue and married Nell Riley, his high school sweetheart.
In a 2008 public appearance with Los Angeles Dodgers announcer Vin Scully, in which the men were interviewed in front of an audience, Wooden said he still wrote his late wife -- the only girl he ever dated -- a letter on the 21st of each month. "She's still there to me," he said. "I talk to her every day."
He coached two years at Dayton (Ky.) High School, and his 6-11 losing record the first season was the only one in his 40-year coaching career.
He spent the next nine years coaching basketball, baseball and tennis at South Bend (Ind.) Central High School, where he also taught English.
"I think the teaching profession contributes more to the future of our society than any other single profession," he once said. "I'm glad I was a teacher."
Wooden served in the Navy as a physical education instructor during World War II, and continued teaching when he became the basketball coach at Indiana State Teachers College, where he went 47-17 in two seasons.
In his first year at Indiana State, Wooden's team won the Indiana Collegiate Conference title and received an invitation to the NAIB tournament in Kansas City. Wooden, who had a black player on his team, refused the invitation because the NAIB had a policy banning African Americans. The rule was changed the next year, and Wooden led Indiana State to another conference title.
It was then that UCLA called, though Wooden didn't take the job to get rich. He never made more than $35,000 in a season, and early in his career he worked two jobs to make ends meet.
"My first four years at UCLA, I worked in the mornings at a dairy from six to noon then I'd come into UCLA," he told The Associated Press in 1995. "Why did I do it? Because I needed the money. I was a dispatcher of trucks in the San Fernando Valley and was a troubleshooter. After all the trucks made their deliveries and came back, I would call in the next day's orders, sweep out the place and head over the hill to UCLA."
After he enjoyed great success at UCLA, the Los Angeles Lakers reportedly offered Wooden their head coaching job at a salary 10 times what he was making, but he refused.
Nell, Wooden's wife of 53 years, died in 1985. Besides his son and daughter, Wooden is survived by three grandsons, four granddaughters and 13 great-grandchildren.
Funeral services will be private. A public memorial will be held later, with a reception for former players and coaches.

[BUfan14]

I wasn't around to see him coach, but I always looked up to him as an incredible human being. His coaching record speak for itself, but he was and will remain a true role model.

I am happy he is with his wife again, but sad to lose such a legend.

[MacabreMob]

He ran a completely clean program with completely clean success - God rest his soul.

[amckillip]

We lost a giant today. Wooden changed the face of the game forever - RIP.

[tornado]

He ran a completely clean program with completely clean success - God rest his soul.

Mac - now's not the time to argue this but it has been debated..

http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=568

http://silkroadsandsiamesesmiles.com/2009/11/14/the-gilded-saints-of-ucla-and-sam-gilbert-a-collection-of-articles/

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/news?slug=dw-uclalegacy040206

[Beninator]

Very sad to hear the news. Wooden was a class act. We need more people like him.

[BradleyJD]

Very sad to hear the news. Wooden was a class act. We need more people like him.

So very true Beninator.

[basketball nut]

It is a sad day for all basketball fans everywhere. We all could learn so much from this "giant" of a man.
Just read where he got paid $32,000 plus another 8000 for a total of $40,000 the last year he coached-how much would he make today? The one thing about this man is he would never have jumped around like so many of these guys today. He never asked "how much would he get paid" for an appearance but instead "how much will you pay me" and if he felt as though it was appropriate then he would go. How many of these so called great coaches today would be willing to do that?

[Bravesfan]

God bless him for such a long and wonderful life! What he did for the game will never be equalled, though I'm sure there are some who do follow his model for how to coach the game and run a clean program, even in this day and age of John Calipari and Bruce Pearl.

RIP John!

[JMM28]

God bless him for such a long and wonderful life! What he did for the game will never be equalled, though I'm sure there are some who do follow his model for how to coach the game and run a clean program, even in this day and age of John Calipari and Bruce Pearl.

RIP John!

If you think that he ran a clean program, then I have some oceanfront property to sell you in Morton.

The guy was a great coach no doubt, and by all accounts a good guy. But a clean program it was not.

I hope Digger Phelps sent him monthly royalty checks, because without that ND victory over UCLA no one ever hears a peep from Digger.

[mexicobufan]

The man went out of this world a better man than he came in, I hope I can say that when its all over. His players loved him and loved him more as the years went on. I have lead many folks for years in my job and its not easy to live up to the responsibility of leading people. I hope when its all said and done my family and the people that have worked for me have the same level of respect for what I stood for as the people around John have for him. We all make mistakes but its a hand full of people that learn from them and make themselves better for it.

[tornado]

before Coach Wooden's funeral has even been arranged...the LA Times runs this column detailing the illegal and impermissable benefits that went on at UCLA...
apparently the program was more corrupt than Sampson or Bliss combined..

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jun/08/sports/la-sp-0609-wooden-gilbert-20100609

[houstontxbrave]

before Coach Wooden's funeral has even been arranged...the LA Times runs this column detailing the illegal and impermissable benefits that went on at UCLA...
apparently the program was more corrupt than Sampson or Bliss combined..
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jun...lbert-20100609

The NCAA was apparently no different in 1977 then it is today, covering the rears of the BCS schools.