Happy 100th, Coach!!!

Legendary UCLA coach John Wooden, who died in June, would've turned 100 Thursday.

Lessons from Wooden won't be forgotten
By MARCIA C. SMITH
COLUMNIST
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Published: Oct. 13, 2010
Updated: Oct. 14, 2010 11:35 a.m.


LOS ANGELES – Inside his UCLA athletic department office, football coach Rick Neuheisel keeps one letter on his desk because its message endures, much like the memory of the author.

The entire Wooden family wishes you best of luck in your first game as head coach of our UCLA football Bruins and for many following games to come. There will be peaks and valleys but the true fans will magnify the blessings rather than the disappointments. Hope to see you soon. Sincerely, John

The note, which arrived before Neuheisel's Sept. 1, 2008 coaching debut and season-opening upset victory over Tennessee in overtime, was penned in the careful cursive of former basketball coach John Wooden.

Wooden, who died June 4, would have been 100 years old on Thursday. Westwood will celebrate the Wizard's birthday with several on-campus festivities while others recall the gifts he gave us in his timeless lessons.

Neuheisel, who has endured the peaks and valleys of 21/2 football seasons (14-17), likely will pause as his eyes pass over Wooden's stationery.

"It sits right here on my desk so I'm reminded of Coach Wooden all the time," he said.

UCLA basketball coach Ben Howland, who calls himself simply the "steward" of the program that will always belong to Wooden, soon will begin another season in Pauley Pavilion, where Wooden's seat — Section 103 B, Row 2, Seat 1 — will forever be reserved in his memory.

"He was so supportive and sat over there, right behind our bench," said Howland, whose defensive, disciplined and loose-ball-diving teams earned Wooden's approving applause.

"I don't think what Coach Wooden achieved can be done again because the landscape had changed," said Hall of Fame center and NBA all-time leading scorer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who led the Bruins to three consecutive national championships from 1967-69.
"Basketball now is a worldwide entertainment. It's a show and it's about winning and championships at all costs, and Coach cared about the basic values of family, education and integrity — the things which we sometimes fail to put first."

Said Bill Walton, who played for Wooden from 1972-74 and captured 1972 and 1973 titles: "There will never be another John Wooden. Period."

He had winning records in each of his 27 UCLA seasons (620-147 overall, 316-68 conference). But it wasn't until his 16th season that Wooden guided the Bruins to the first of 10 NCAA titles (1964, 1966-1973, 1975).

In today's title-obsessed and overnight-success sports world, few programs would wait 16 seasons to trim down the most prized net. It would be even more of a stretch for a coach to have a 27-year tenure.

"In this win-now world where you've got to find a way, it's hard (for a program) to have the kind of patience but I think that patience gets rewarded," Neuheisel said.
Wooden was that man who prized education and personal development over success in the box scores. Gary Cunningham, captain of Wooden's 1962 title team and an assistant coach from 1969-75, knew Wooden's priorities.

At the start of every season, Wooden, Cunningham recalled, wrote down a prediction of how he thought the team would do and slipped the paper in his top desk drawer. Nobody ever saw it but Coach.

"In all the years I coached with him, I never heard him use a swear word or talk about winning, and winning is all that seems to matter today," Cunningham said. "He was competitive, oh yes, and had his goals but he didn't make winning our goal. It was about competitive greatness, playing your best."

Fulfilling potential wouldn't get a coach a rollover contract in today's college basketball in which championship banners — and the recruitment of the talent that can win you that hardware — are the bottom lines.

"Coach believed in practice, repetition and discipline not one bit of star treatment," said Keith Erickson (1963-65), who was a teammate of NBA-bound Gail Goodrich and Walt Hazzard.

"He had Bill Walton cut his hair or he was off the team. He had Bill and Kareem spend 30 minutes learning how to put on their socks properly. He had everyone doing the same ridiculous change-of-pace, change-of-direction warmup before the 1964 NCAA Finals, and we were 29-0."

Blue-chip talent runs modern college basketball.

One player can change a program's fortunes and make or break a coach's contract. Wooden's demands wouldn't sit well with some of today's coddled, entitled players who will transfer, jump to play overseas or leave early for the NBA if they are unhappy with their minutes, their exposure, their picture on the pocket schedule or the brand of sneaker they are wearing.

"I think he would have a problem with the tattoos and the dunks," said Michael Warren (1966-1968). "But if it got around that there was this legendary coach who was out there and running a team, I'd bet you'd eventually see less tattoos and more players learning fundamentals."

But today's basketball isn't as simple as it used to be.

Wooden begrudged this during a UCLA game a decade ago when Shepherd of the Hills Church pastor Dudley Rutherford asked him, "Coach, could you coach today?"
Wooden shook his head no.

"Tattoos, earrings," paused Wooden when Bruins guard Baron Davis bounded down the lane, whipped the ball behind his back and under a leg and fired it off the glass to a leaping Jelani McCoy, who grabbed the ball and pounded it through the rim, thrilling the thundering Pauley Pavilion crowd.

"And stuff like that," the coach said.

Even John Wooden couldn't go back.
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Honoring John Wooden's memory again
By Ramona Shelburne
ESPNLosAngeles.com
Updated: October 15, 2010, 2:22 AM ET



Legendary coach would have turned 100 Thursday and UCLA threw a party for him


LOS ANGELES -- It has been nearly four and a half months since John Wooden died at 99. His remarkable life has been celebrated across the world, his death mourned by thousands, perhaps millions.

Thursday, Oct. 14, was the day he would've turned 100.

Had he lived, it would have been a day of phone calls from old friends, visits from family, and breakfast at his favorite restaurant, VIPs in Encino.

Instead, it was a day to honor his memory once more and celebrate a life so well-lived.

"He came so close to making it to this day," said Keith Erickson, who played on Wooden's first two championship teams in 1964 and 1965.

"We were all hoping he would, but he was ready to go, it was time."

A group of UCLA student leaders spent the morning teaching Wooden's iconic Pyramid of Success to local school children. In the evening, they threw him a birthday party.

Thirty-one members of Wooden's immediate family attended the event.

"The Wooden family would like to thank all of you that worked so hard to create this day for us," said Wooden's daughter, Nan Muehlhausen, as she choked back tears.

"As Daddy said, 'A simple thank you is worth a thousand words.' "

UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero said the university had been planning a celebration for Wooden's 100th birthday for several years before he passed away. The school had hoped that renovations to Pauley Pavilion would've been completed by that time, and that the new arena could've been dedicated to him on his birthday.

When it became apparent that was unrealistic, Guerrero and the school decided to re-dedicate Pauley Pavilion, in his honor, to mark what would've been his 100th birthday.

Later this month, the school will open an exhibit in its athletic Hall of Fame called, "The Den." It will be a replication, with original artifacts, of the den in Wooden's Encino condominium. The Wooden family donated the artifacts to the school. Many of his trophies, books and photos will be included.

"There will never be another individual quite like Coach Wooden," Guerrero said. "We were blessed to call him ours."

Though he has been gone for more than four months, those who knew him best still miss him.

"I still have a big hole in my heart," said Andre McCarter, who played point guard on Wooden's final championship team in 1975. "I really miss him. He became my buddy, even though I didn't always see him that often. It was more just knowing he was always there."

McCarter said he has redirected his energy to finish writing a book on Wooden's life and impact.

"I cry a little bit all the time, just thinking he's not here with us anymore," McCarter said. "But I made a commitment to him that I'd tell his legacy in the right way and I've been focused on that."

For Erickson, the sadness still lingers as well. But he said spending the morning with him, on Wooden's final day back in June "helped me release him."

"You know, I still catch myself thinking about him all the time," Erickson said. "The other day I was driving on the 101 freeway by his condominium, and as I passed by his exit, I felt a little tug."

Thursday night, Erickson spoke to the crowd of a few thousand students for 15 minutes. He told stories about Wooden that he'd told a hundred times before. He spoke about what his coach had meant to him.

Many in the crowd had undoubtedly heard about why Wooden made his players wear their hair short or put their socks on a certain way.

But somehow that didn't seem to matter.

On the day he would've turned 100, it seemed fitting that the youngest Bruins would be the ones to honor Wooden's legacy and spread it to the next generation.

"I don't know if you can imagine this," Erickson told the crowd of students. "It was 48 years ago tomorrow that I had my first interaction with Coach Wooden.

"It was in the old men's gym, which is just behind us. There was very poor lighting in there and very poor ventilation. We used to call it the 'B.O. Barn' because three varsity teams practiced in there at the same time: basketball, wrestling and gymnastics.

"Well, my first memory of Coach was in that gym. Every day, as all of us came up to practice, the first one out there on the floor was Coach Wooden. He had a big mop and a big bucket and he'd mop the floor where all the chalk from the wrestling and gymnastics' teams had fallen.

"He was making sure we wouldn't get hurt because if we stepped on one of those chalky spots we could get hurt. I couldn't believe he did that every day, all by himself, and he never complained about it.

"That's just who he was. Always doing things the right way."
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Where everybody knew his name
By Arash Markazi
October, 14, 2010 Oct 141:11PM PT
UCLA Blog
ESPN Los Angeles

Today at Vip's in Tarzana, family and friends celebrated what would have been John Wooden's 100th birthday by setting a table at Coach's favorite eatery.


TARZANA, Calif. -- It’s officially referred to as “Table No. 2” by the waitresses at Vip’s Café in Tarzana, Calif. but for as long as they can remember it served as the morning home of their No. 1 customer, John Wooden.

I first saw Wooden sitting at his signature table a decade ago when my parents moved into a fifth floor office unit above the café. I simply thought Wooden, who lived in nearby Encino, was in the mood for some bacon and eggs. Then I saw him the next day and the next day and the next and it became clear Wooden, who was always greeted with a thunderous “Coach!” from the patrons when he walked through the double glass doors, was a regular.

I was always slightly nervous to go up to him. I’ve never been one to interrupt someone during a meal for a picture or an autograph or simply to shake their hand and seeing a living legend like Wooden every morning was always beyond surreal. I’d usually be sitting at a nearby booth and say, “Good morning, Coach,” when he walked in and “See you tomorrow, Coach” on my way out. A couple of years ago, however, when he was in the hospital after falling down in his apartment, I decided to finally expand the conversation a bit. I knew I’d always regret it if I never actually talked to him and got to know him.

Since I would always mix things up during breakfast and he almost always ordered the same thing, I asked him what he liked.

“I like the No. 1 which is two eggs, two hotcakes and two slices of bacon or sausage,” Wooden told me without having to look at the menu. “They also have the No. 2 which is two eggs, two slices of bacon or sausage with a choice of toast or biscuit and gravy. I usually get one of those two.”

Wooden would always sit in his booth and read the morning newspapers while talking to the regulars sitting at the counter next to him about current events. Many of them knew next to nothing about sports and I always thought Wooden loved that. They would talk about politics, religion and upcoming elections and almost never about last night’s games. While Wooden would often get hassled for autographs and pictures when he went to Pauley Pavilion, he was relatively left alone at Vip’s aside from the waitresses who would give him a kiss on the cheek before he left.

“It's great. Some of the people I've known for about a dozen years and I see them every day," Wooden told me after his 98th birthday two years ago. "It's the only place I see them. We've become very friendly and close to each other and it's just like home. It has a homey atmosphere and I like that. I've been going there for a dozen years, seven days a week."

When Paul Ma bought the café in 1998 with his wife Lucy he had no idea who Wooden was. He figured he was a kind elderly patron who would always order the same thing – two eggs scrambled, two slices of bacon extra brittle and English muffin with a small orange juice and decaffeinated tea.

“One day someone told me I had a very famous customer in Coach Wooden and I said, ‘Yeah, I know him,’ and he said, ‘No, you don’t understand, he’s the greatest coach. You need to ask him for a picture,’” Ma said. “So I asked Coach for a picture and he autographed it and I put it up.”

After Ma read Wooden’s books he would soon turn the walls of his diner into a mini shrine in honor of Wooden with pictures, paintings and newspaper clippings of Wooden framed throughout his restaurant.

“After I read his book I realized he’s not just a coach of basketball, he’s a coach of life,” Ma said. “I really fell in love with his philosophy on life.”

I hadn’t been back to Vip’s since Wooden passed away in June. My parents moved out of their office unit above the restaurant and it was just too hard to go back and look at Table No. 2 and not see him there. But after being there for Wooden’s last two birthdays, I went back there Thursday morning for what would have been Wooden’s 100th birthday to see my old friends and pay respect to “Coach.”

In the back of the restaurant many of Wooden’s friends and family, including his son, Jim, and daughter, Nan, and former player Mike Warren, shared stories about him over breakfast and cake while in the front of the diner Ma had decorated Table No. 2 with Wooden’s picture, a bouquet of flowers, cake and the same breakfast Wooden would always order.

“We do that in the Chinese tradition,” Ma said. “In China when you lose someone you love, you always cook the food they loved on their special day like their birthday. I think even in the food there is soul and Coach will always be a part of us.”