Monday, June 8, 1998
Teaching science class simple for Mr. Wizard (of Westwood)
WOODEN: Legendary educator shares memories with students,
continues legacy of instruction
By Kristina Wilcox
Daily Bruin Staff
He is known as a coach, mentor, legend and wizard.
All these words have been used to describe former UCLA
basketball coach John Wooden. But the most appropriate, and rarely
used word, would have to be teacher. Wooden is a former English
teacher who also "taught" sports, like basketball. And he continues
to teach about life.
Thursday afternoon, Wooden gave a guest lecture at Tara
Scanlan’s sport psychology class about his "Pyramid of Success"
before fielding prepared questions from the students.
Student Albert Lau had the special honor of giving a brief
introduction of the coach before Wooden spoke. In his introduction,
Lau mentioned the comments of one of Wooden’s former basketball
players.
"One of his players has remarked about him that he is the
greatest basketball coach of all time," Lau said, "but what I
learned from him had much more to do with living life than with
playing ball."
One person asked Wooden what he loved about coaching.
"I love to teach," Wooden said. "I think I was a teacher most of
the time. I loved to plan my practice program each day."
During a small Q&A after the lecture, another person asked
Wooden what was the most memorable game he played in or coached and
Wooden could easily recall his most disappointing ones as well as
the most memorable.
"The second-to-last game I ever taught was against Louisville
and Denny Crum," Wooden said. "I really enjoyed that game. Both
teams played the same style of basketball, so both should have won,
but the right team did."
Wooden was of course referring to his Bruin squad.
Scanlan gave her sport psychology students the exciting news
Tuesday and told them that Wooden would be speaking during the
following lecture time.
"This person was free, and free in the immediate future,"
Scanlan said before revealing the speaker’s identity.
"I called to invite him for the last day of class but he
couldn’t do it then," she added. "So I asked him if he could by
chance come on Thursday and he said that he was free. I told him he
was on."
"We did a lot of scrambling to make this happen," Scanlan
continued. "I’ve wanted to have him (speak) forever. And this class
has just been great. Wooden was agreeable to everything. He was
happy to do whatever. He is just charming. His goodness even comes
through on the phone."
A question with an obvious answer would be "Why Wooden?"
"He is a legend," Scanlan said. "He is UCLA. He is also one of
the master sport psychologists of all time. He retired just when
sport psychology was beginning to explode. He learned it on his own
and did it very well."
During the course of his appearance, Wooden spoke of certain
celebrated people and instances, giving his opinion of them. Some
of those comments include:
"My favorite American is Abe Lincoln. What a man, what a
man."
"My favorite person is Mother Teresa."
"Reggie Miller is a rather strong-willed individual. I give
Larry Bird credit. His ability to listen to his players helped him
succeed. Listening is the only way we learn. When we read, we are
listening."
"I like to watch John Stockton play basketball. He lets the
other players score. He is one player I would pay to see."
"How can you knock Grant Hill? NBA players aren’t all Rodmans.
What kind of guy is Rodman? There is good and bad in all of
us."
"When you are a coach, your greatest ally in the world is the
bench."
"Del Harris (of the Lakers) is a fine coach. The Lakers are fine
individual players but they aren’t a great team."
And when a student asked him about aggressive players, Wooden
honestly said, "No one ever tried to choke me."
After all, why would anyone do such a thing to this great
teacher?Legendary coach John Wooden
discusses his "Pyramid of Success" with students of Psychology
197D Thursday.