The Passing of Coach John Wooden

John Wooden has passed away and that is truly sad news. For he was a very good and decent man and those are few and far between in the world of sports today.


It took me a long time to come to admire Coach Wooden. The first time I ever heard of him was when, as a young boy, I tuned in to watch my team, the Tar Heels from the University of North Carolina beat the UCLA Bruins, coached by John Wooden, in the 1968 NCAA tournament championship game. Only that's not what happened. Not by a long shot. The bruins beat the Heels 78-55 and I disliked John Wooden from that day forward.

It probably wasn't until he had long since retired from coaching that I began to discover what kind of a man John Wooden really was. I was always coming across books, written either about or--surprisingly, to me--by him. I discovered that I had missed out on something by not following more closely John Wooden's career as a basketball coach, speaker, and author. The passing of years helps put things in proper perspective.

John Wooden was a good man in a sport full of bad actors. He made that environment better by the things he did and taught, but mostly by what he was. There's a great lesson in that, and John Wooden taught it well.

(Photo by Jon Pyl)