My Personal Best: Life Lessons from an All-American Journey

Chapter \ 1 and 2 Excerpt\ 1\ Indiana \ Farm Boy: Lessons from Long Ago\ I \ was raised on oatmeal. My brothers--Maurice, Daniel, and Billy--and I had \ oatmeal for breakfast nearly every morning on our farm back in Centerton, \ Indiana. I raised my own children on oatmeal as well. Some things don't change; \ some lessons remain the same. Those my father taught many years ago may seem \ old-fashioned now, but like oatmeal, they still work. \       \ Joshua \ Hugh Wooden was a farmer--honest, hardworking, and fair. I never heard him speak \ an unkind word about another person, even on those occasions when he had every \ reason to. He came as close to living the Golden Rule as anyone I've ever known. \ Dad was strong enough to bend a thick iron bar with his bare hands, but he was \ also a very gentle man who read poetry to his four sons at night. He loved his \ family deeply. \ [insert \ photo 01-001]\       My father had a \ great appreciation for good books, knowledge, and education. Basketball? Enough \ to knock the bottom out of an old Van Camp tomato basket and nail it to the \ hayloft in the barn. Baseball was his favorite sport, unless you count checkers \ as a sport--which he did.      At a time when \ Indiana was completely basketball crazy, Dad built a baseball diamond out behind \ the barn. Branch McCracken, a future Hall of Fame athlete and coach, and other \ local boys from around Centerton, Hazelwood, Martinsville, and Monrovia would \ come by on weekends to play ball and eat watermelon. \ But \ even baseball, in Dad's opinion, was just for play, a diversion. In his house \ there was a time for chores, a time for study, and then a time for play. Play \ came only when the first two had been completed.\ {A}A \ Hard Good Life\ Our \ farm was sixty-five Indiana acres of wheat, corn, alfalfa, timothy, and \ potatoes. A narrow dirt road cut through the fields and past our white farmhouse \ with its sparse living room and kitchen--a black potbelly stove in the former, a \ wood-burning stove for cooking in the latter. There were two small bedrooms for \ the six of us; my brothers and I slept two to a bed. Near our old barn was a \ smokehouse for curing meat, and next to that, a well where we pumped our water \ by hand. Over to the side, all by itself, was the outhouse--a three-holer. \ \       We had no \ electricity, plumbing or conveniences, and for entertainment Dad read books to \ us in the evening by the light of a coal-oil lamp. Sometimes we'd hear Lord \ Alfred Tennyson's Idylls of the \ King, Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven," or even William \ Shakespeare. Before we were sent off to bed, he'd always include a verse or two \ from the Good Book. \       On bitter cold \ nights when the winter winds whistled across our fields, Dad would heat bricks \ on the potbelly stove and wrap them in towels. He'd place the bricks at the foot \ of our beds, under the thick quilts Mother had sewn, to keep us warm. \ \ {A}A \ True Compass\ Dad \ was the best man I ever knew, the one who set the course that guided me through \ life--what I believe, what I do, and how I do it. In so many ways he made \ everything happen. And he did it by teaching us in word and deed that the \ simplest virtues and values were the most important ones. \       Joshua Hugh \ Wooden died long before the University of California{-}Los Angeles (UCLA) won a \ men's college basketball championship. Do I wish he'd lived to see me coach a \ team to a national title? Yes, but it wouldn't have mattered so much to him. \ \       His priorities \ were different. Material things and public notice meant little. Education was \ important. Family was important. Outscoring someone in a basketball game, even \ for a national championship, had much less significance. Dad lived long enough \ to see me accomplish what was important to him. Nevertheless, he was responsible \ for the good things that happened to me as a coach. Therefore, it surprises \ people that I received hardly any basketball instruction from Dad--no tips on \ jump shots, free throws, or anything else. He seldom attended games and was only \ slightly interested in results. His concern and guidance were deeper. \ \       In those early \ days, Dad's message about basketball--and life--was this: "Johnny, don't try to \ be better than somebody else, but never cease trying to be the best you \ can be. You have control over that. The other you don't." It was simple advice: \ work hard, very hard, at those things I can control and don't lose sleep over \ the rest of it. His advice was easier said than done, but very good \ advice.\ "Don't \ try to be better than somebody else, but never cease trying to be the best \ you can be."\ --Joshua \ Wooden\       Then he would \ usually add, as he talked to us at the kitchen table, "Boys, always try to learn \ from others, because you'll never know a thing that you didn't learn from \ somebody else--even if it's what not to do." I believed him and \ took his advice to heart and later tried to teach the same message. \ \       At Dayton High \ School, South Bend Central High School, Indiana State Teachers College, and \ UCLA, those under my supervision knew I asked for an accountability above \ outscoring an opponent or getting a better grade than the person across the \ aisle. "Try your hardest. Make the effort. Do your best," I'd tell them. "The \ score cannot make you a loser when you do that; it cannot make you a winner if \ you do less." I still believe this.\       Some have \ suggested that one of the reasons UCLA often outscored opponents was that I \ never stressed outscoring opponents--that is, "beating" someone else or \ "needing" to win a game. I don't know if that's true or not. Try your hardest, \ make the effort, do your best. That's what I stressed, and it came from \ Dad.\ "Try \ your hardest. Make the effort. Do your best."\       Today, almost a \ century after he first taught that lesson to me, I believe his advice is still \ good as gold. I learned so much from my father, but that may be his strongest \ lesson. It's hard to say.\ {A}A \ Mother's Example\ Roxie \ Anna Wooden, my mother, lost her two young daughters--my sisters--early on. \ Diphtheria killed Cordelia before her third birthday. My youngest sister died \ before she even had a name. They were buried in the Centerton cemetery not far \ from our farm. Today my parents lie next to them.\       I doubt if Mother \ ever really recovered from the deaths of her two little girls. Perhaps she \ survived because farm life offered no time for self-pity. Maybe she survived \ because of her strength and her religion. Like my father, Mother placed her \ faith in the Good Lord, and they taught us to do the same.\       The food we ate \ we grew. Dad had about thirty hogs, four or five milk cows, lots of chickens, \ and some mules for field work--no tractor for plowing, no automobile for \ driving. Mother's garden was next to our farmhouse and was bigger than the \ house. Peas, carrots, tomatoes, squash, beans, celery, radishes, and \ strawberries were grown, eaten, or canned and stored down in the fruit cellar. \ She even canned beef and pork. Chicken was the only fresh meat we ate \ year-round, and Mother cooked it a hundred different ways. I liked it every way \ she made it, especially roast chicken. In fact, I still like roast chicken. \ \ Occasionally \ Dad would shoot squirrel, rabbit, or quail, which certainly added a little \ variety to our kitchen table.\       Mother baked our \ bread and Dad churned our butter. When the bread was hot out of the stove, we'd \ spread the butter on thick and cover it with homemade strawberry jam, or \ blackberry or raspberry. I loved the heels of the loaf, still warm and soft with \ plenty of sweet fresh butter. I still love the heels, even if the bread is from \ a store. And I miss Mother's persimmon pudding, peach cobblers, and homemade ice \ cream. \       She sewed most of \ our clothing. In fact, I don't remember her ever buying a new dress for herself. \ Only on rare occasion did she purchase new shoes. When she did, they had to last \ her a long time and so did ours.\       Joshua Hugh and \ Roxie Anna Wooden's lives were hard, but for my brothers and me, growing up on \ that little farm in Centerton was almost perfect. \ {A}Lessons \ in the Loss\ The \ end came suddenly. Bad feed killed the hogs, drought stunted the crops, and the \ bank took the farm. In those days there was no insurance for this kind of \ trouble, so we lost everything. Those were very hard times for our family, and \ the Great Depression hadn't even begun.\       Through it all, \ Dad never winced. He laid no blame on the merchant who had sold him the feed, \ didn't curse the weather, and had no hatred toward the banker. My father had \ done his best, but things went bad. "Blaming, cursing, hating doesn't help you," \ he'd say. "It hurts you." His example is deeply imbedded in my mind and, I hope, \ reflected in my behavior.\       He was a living \ model of his own "two sets of threes"--brief instructions that he felt were \ basic to decent behavior. My brothers and I heard his two sets of threes often \ while we were growing up--not as often as we ate oatmeal, but enough that we \ remembered them: "Never lie. Never cheat. Never steal," was his first set. \ "Don't whine. Don't complain. Don't make excuses," was the second set. He \ believed you should do your best, and if the results were unsatisfactory, keep \ quiet about it and work harder next time.\ Never \ lie.\ Never \ cheat.\ Never \ steal.\ Don't \ whine.\ Don't \ complain.\ Don't \ make excuses.\       As instructive as \ it was to hear him recite the two sets of threes, seeing him abide by them as he \ lost the farm had a most powerful effect on me. That's where I came to see that \ what you do is more important than what you say you'll do. People say they'll do \ all kinds of things.\ 2\ My First \ Coach: Principal Earl Warriner\ Centerton \ Grade School--a three-room schoolhouse--was a mile up the road from our farm. \ The principal was Mr. Earl Warriner, a disciplinarian who was strict, but fair. \ When he gave it to you, you had it coming. On those occasions he'd walk outside \ and cut a switch from the hedge, trim off its thorns with his silver \ pocketknife, and then let you have it across the backside a few times. It stung \ even though I always wore heavy denim overalls. \  \ Mr. \ Warriner was a feisty boxer, excellent athlete, and spirited competitor. He was \ also well-liked and respected, and a veteran of World War I. At the time, I \ didn't know what a mentor was, but he became one for me, a positive and guiding \ influence throughout my life.\  \       When I was \ eleven, my father gave me permission to play on the Centerton basketball team \ under Mr. Warriner's supervision. The team had eight or nine boys, depending on \ the day and how the fall harvest was coming along. We played on a dirt court \ next to the schoolhouse and had to rake off branches, leaves, and sticks before \ a game. In the late fall, sometimes it would start snowing while we were \ playing, but we would keep right on going. \       Our basketball \ had a heavy cover of thick brown leather and was about the same size as today's \ ball--only it wouldn't stay that size. As it gradually lost air, we'd unlace it \ and use a shoe horn to pry the bladder's air tube out, put it between our lips \ and blow hard, tie a rubber band around the tube, and knead it back under the \ cover laces. Unfortunately, it got out-of-round easily, picked up dirt quickly, \ and became heavier as the game wore on. Later, as an All-American at Purdue \ University, I received considerable attention for my dribbling skills. Learning \ with a lopsided basketball on a dirt court with potholes and patches of snow may \ have been why I became a pretty fair dribbler.\  \ {A}Education Before Sports\ As a \ teacher, coach, principal, and athlete, Mr. Warriner felt that while sports \ could be worthwhile, true education was obtained only in the classroom. \ Therefore, he allowed no boy to practice or play without specific permission \ from teachers. Schoolwork had to be completed and classes attended. Only then \ would he give you the privilege of walking on his dirt court to play basketball. \ Later, when I was coaching, my emphasis on academics reflected Mr. Warriner's \ own priorities (as well as Dad's). There's a reason student comes first in the word \ student-athlete: \ education comes before sports.\ There's a \ reason student comes \ first in the word student-athlete: education comes \ before sports.\       Nevertheless, \ when Mr. Warriner did give me permission to play basketball, I learned more than \ x's and o's.\ {A}My \ First Lesson in Coaching\ I was one \ of the "guns" on our pint-size team, and as the top scorer--five or six points a \ game--I was getting a big head about it, probably cocky. \       One of our \ grade-school rivals, Hazelwood, was scheduled for a game at Centerton at 2 p.m. \ That morning, however, their principal called and cancelled because Hazelwood's \ truck had broken down. As usual, I walked back to our farm at noon for lunch and \ then returned to school without my basketball jersey--a little homemade bib we \ wore over our shirts. But things had changed. Mr. Warriner announced the \ Hazelwood truck was fixed and the game was on. \       I didn't feel \ like running right back home, so I informed him I couldn't play because my \ jersey was at the farm. I assumed--hoped--Mr. Warriner would let me play without \ it or send one of the other kids back to get it. As Centerton's top scorer, I \ was looking for a little special treatment that I felt I deserved.\       Mr. Warriner \ studied me for a moment and then turned to my friend, Freddie Gooch: "Gooch, got \ your jersey?" Wearing Freddie's jersey was an option I hadn't considered, but \ one that would save me some effort. \ Freddie \ replied, "Yes, Mr. Warriner, my jersey's out in the coat room." \       "Good, you play \ for Wooden today. He didn't bring his jersey," Mr. Warriner instructed as he \ looked me in the eye. Of course, he knew exactly what I was trying to pull.\       Freddie Gooch \ jumped out of his chair, while I turned and ran out of the classroom and up the \ road as hard as I could, grabbed my jersey, and ran back even harder. Hazelwood \ arrived, I took a few shots, put on my "uniform," and was ready to play. When \ Mr. Warriner announced Centerton's starting lineup, however, my name was \ missing--I'd been benched. Freddie Gooch was taking my place.\  \       Coach Warriner \ let me sit on the bench during the first quarter and second quarter. Freddie \ didn't score a point. The short halftime came and went. I sat on the bench \ through the third quarter. Finally, in the fourth quarter with time running out \ and Centerton behind by two points, I swallowed my pride. \       Running up to Mr. \ Warriner, I pleaded, "If you put me in there, we can still win this game." He \ didn't look at me as he calmly replied, "Oh yes, Johnny, I know we can, but \ there are some things more important than winning a game. Besides, you're \ probably tired from running home for your jersey. Now go sit down and rest." A \ few minutes later the game was over--Centerton lost.\       I didn't realize \ it, but the lessons of that day stuck with me: no player is bigger or better \ than the team. And just as important, I came to see that the bench is a coach's \ best friend.     If there \ are two more important coaching concepts in the game, I don't know what they \ are. And I learned them sitting on the bench next to a dirt court when I was \ eleven years old.\ No player \ is bigger or better than the team.\       Coach Warriner \ had the courage of his convictions. If it meant losing a little grade-school \ basketball game, fine. But he had courage on big issues too.\ {A}The \ Courage to Quit\ When he \ later became principal of Green Township Grade School, one of the boys got into \ some serious trouble, and Mr. Warriner expelled him. The boy's father was on the \ township's school board and barged into Mr. Warriner's office with a threat: \ "I'll have your job if you don't take my son back," he shouted. \       Mr. Warriner \ replied, "What your son did was bad. He's not returning until I say so and as \ far as my job is concerned, you can have it!" And he resigned.\  \       One year later \ when the boy's father was off the school board, Mr. Warriner agreed to return as \ principal. He was very much like my dad when it came to standing up for what he \ believed in. For me, their examples were important as the years went by. These \ men whom I admired so much were willing to make the hard choices and suffer \ consequences for doing the right thing.\ {A}Graduation Gifts\ When I \ graduated from Centerton, it was a big occasion because in those days a \ grade-schooler who lived in the country didn't automatically go to high school, \ let alone college. Grade school graduation was noted with a little ceremony and \ celebration.\       Parents usually \ wanted to give their children a gift of some kind, but there was little money in \ our house for this sort of thing. Nevertheless, Dad gave me something of lasting \ significance--advice, or wisdom, that I've tried to live my life by. It came on \ a crisp, white three-by-five-inch card. On one side he had copied down a poem \ that he loved by the Reverend Henry Van Dyke:\ Four \ things a man must learn to \ do\ If he would make his life more \ true:\ To think without confusion \ clearly,\ To love his fellow man \ sincerely,\ To act from honest motives \ purely,\ To trust in God and Heaven \ securely.\ Over the \ years, the poem's message made more and more sense: seek clarity of thought, \ fill your heart with love and compassion for others, be honest and fair, and \ trust in the Good Lord. Goodness gracious, what powerful advice this is. \ Seek \ clarity of thought, fill your heart with love and compassion for others, be \ honest and fair, and trust in the Good Lord.\       I turned the \ little white card over and saw that Dad had also written down the creed he so \ often shared with my brothers and me: seven simple rules to follow in life. As I \ began to read it, he said, "Johnny, try and live up to these and you'll do all \ right." \ Dad's \ Seven-Point Creed:\ 1. Be true \ to yourself.\ 2. Help \ others.\ 3. Make \ each day your masterpiece.\ 4. Drink \ deeply from good books, especially the Bible.\ 5. Make \ friendship a fine art.\ 6. Build a \ shelter against a rainy day.\ 7. Pray for \ guidance, and count and give thanks for your blessings every day.\ I didn't \ fully understand how profound Dad's seven-point creed was for many years, until \ I was an adult raising a family, teaching, and coaching. As it slowly became a \ part of me, however, that part of me improved.\       At the end of the \ little grade-school ceremony, after we had celebrated with cookies and lemonade \ and were getting ready to walk back to our farm, Dad handed me another gift: a \ two-dollar bill with a lot of wear on it. Cash was scarce and two dollars was a \ lot of money. It was a great graduation day. The two-dollar bill is still in the \ family, and Dad's seven-point creed is still in my heart. Today when people ask \ if I was able to live up to his advice, I quote this poem:\ I'm \ not what I ought to be,\ Not \ what I want to be,\ Not \ what I'm going to be,\ But I \ am thankful that I'm better than I used to be.When \ the little graduation party at Centerton Grade School was over, we walked back \ down the road to our farm, changed clothes, and got back to the \ chores.

PrefaceXIAcknowledgmentsXV1Indiana Farm Boy Lessons from Long Ago12My First Coach Principal Earl Warriner113High School Hero Coach Glenn Curtis214True Love315Integrity, Team Spirit, and Piggy Lambert376A New Job For a Terrible Coach517Back Home in (South Bend) Indiana618The Sycamores, Speed, and Segregation719The Pyramid Defining and Achieving Success8510Welcome to California a Rude Awakening9111Glorious Without Glory The Education of a Coach10112Championships The Beginning of the Beginning11913The First National Championship Understanding People12714J. D. Morgan A Helping Hand14115The Age of Alcindor14716The Team Without?16117The World of Walton Never Before or Since16918A Meaningful Record A Meaningless Streak18119The Final Buzzer at UCLA18720The Great Loss and Love197Credits208