An Icon Goes Home To Nell

It was in Encino, one of those towns that all blend together in a sprawl to create the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles.

I walked up a short flight of steps, through an unlocked iron gate and rang the bell. When the door opened, there stood John Wooden.

“Welcome Robert,” he said with a smile. “I’m a Robert too, so I always enjoy using the name.”

John Robert Wooden – one of America’s greatest sporting icons – passed away on Friday in Los Angeles. He was 99 years old, just four months short of celebrating a century on this Earth.

There are plenty of other sites and venues where you can get more information on his Hall of Fame career as a college player and coach. This is about a wonderful afternoon with a man who was the very definition of an icon. Should the American sports world ever decide to sculpt a Mount Rushmore-like memorial, Wooden’s craggy face would have to be part of the group.

It was January 1988 and I was in the midst of a six-month tour of America writing about college basketball for the Kansas City Times & Star. That year’s Final Four was set for Kemper Arena and the powers that be wanted not only to cover the college basketball season all over the country, but they wanted a look at the history of the NCAA tournament since that year was the 50th championship.

And where else would I learn more about the Final Four than the man who won more basketball championships than any coach in history? That was ten championships in his last 12 seasons coaching at UCLA, with so many different types of players and styles, and all of it done during one of the most turbulent periods in recent American history.

 In 1988, Wooden had been retired from UCLA for almost 13 full seasons and by that time various men had walked to the head of the college coaching class, men like Bob Knight, Dean Smith, John Thompson and his own protégé Denny Crum. None would equal Wooden.

His first championship came at Municipal Auditorium in downtown Kansas City in March of 1964 (that’s the winners to the left, with Gail Goodrich and Walt Hazzard at the bottom left.) The Bruins repeated in 1965, missed the next year and then starting in 1967, won seven straight titles. Part of that run was an 88-game winning streak. But that ‘64 title was not his first chance at a championship and not the first time he tried to win in Kansas City. In 1948 he was the head coach of the Indiana State team that lost to Louisville in the title game of the NAIB, which today is known as the NAIA. The year before, Wooden had refused an invitation to Kansas City because black players were not allowed to take part and on his roster he had a young man named Clarence Walker. They changed the rules and lifted the ban the next season.

I sat down in his modest condominium, one that was crammed full of books; they were just stacked everywhere. There were very few pictures, trinkets or mementoes of his 30 years as a college basketball coach. I wasn’t sure how much time Wooden had to give me that day, but I turned on the tape recorder and started asking questions.

And he started answering questions. It was over two hours later, some 135 minutes to be exact when we wrapped up the conversation. In over 30 years of writing and talking about the world of sports it was an afternoon I will never forget.

What struck me in this lengthy exposure to the legend was his sense of humor. There was a twinkle in his eye and it was real humor because his most frequent target was himself. That’s the sign of the truly self-confident man, when he can laugh at the moments that make up his life. “I wasn’t any smarter as a coach after we won our first championship,” Wooden said. “But a lot of folks thought I had gained in intelligence.”

He talked about growing up in Indiana and how one summer Wooden traveled around the Midwest working on construction projects. One of those was in Lawrence at the University of Kansas where they were expanding Memorial Stadium.

We talked at length about the growth of the NCAA championship, which was started in 1939 by the college basketball coaches association. It competed for years with the NIT that was run out of New York and was considered the country’s national championship. Wooden provided serious insight into the growth of the NCAA from its days in a handful of rooms in downtown Kansas City, to at that point, an office building in Johnson County.

There was talk of his contemporaries in the world of coaching and while he never said anything negative about anyone in two-plus hours, it wasn’t hard to pick up on the coaches and players he admired, and those that came up a bit short in his opinion.

This was living, breathing history that sat in a battered recliner and provided details and color from a remarkable career. They spend millions in hall of fames and museums to create interactive exhibits that aren’t even close to being able to match a conversation with Wooden.

A friend of mine dropped me an e-mail Saturday that helped put into perspective what Wooden had done in his coaching career and meant to those who came of age in the 1960s and 1970s: “I have been have been absorbed in thought with the passing of John Wooden and his impact upon those of us who grew up in the 60’s and were sports fans. To those of us who lived and breathed basketball in the 60’s and 70’s, this is an emotional day.”

There were two subjects that dominated the conversation. First was his belief that he wasn’t a coach, but a teacher. He didn’t consider the young men who were with him players as much as students. His lessons were not only about basketball but life. That was the genesis of his Pyramid of Success, created as a teaching tool and studied for decades now by athletes, executives and workers alike.

It’s true with any person that considers himself a teacher – they never stop being a student. That explained the books that dominated so much of his home. “It’s never too late to learn,” Wooden said, reaching for a book of poetry and reading a loud a piece that had just caught his fancy.

Whether he was coach or teacher, the testimony to his brilliance was his ability to deal with so many different types of personalities at a very emotional time in our country, especially on college campuses. He was conservative and religious and he had rules about the length of hair and sideburns. Yet, he was able to mold divergent personalities into winning people and teams.

His other favorite subject was his wife Nell. By January 1988, she had been gone for almost three years and her husband was not yet over her absence. That’s something that continued through the last 26 years of his life. They had met at a carnival back in their native Indiana when Wooden was 16 years old. They were married in 1932 which as far as he was concerned was the start of 77 years of bliss that didn’t end when she passed away. She was the only woman he loved, the only one that ever mattered to him. That’s why after her death, he wrote a love letter every month with a few thoughts only for her. That stack of notes grew tall on her last pillow.

The past was always part of John Wooden’s life. But he did not spend all his days remembering. He had a very good understanding of the current state of affairs, the condition of college athletics and the changes on the sports scene and in society. He lived every day to its fullest and was in no hurry to leave this world. But he did not fear death; in fact, he looked forward to rejoining his Nell and through his faith believed he would.

When our time together came to an end, it was by my choice, not his. It seemed like he could go on for several more hours. I walked back down those steps and into the Encino sunshine; I’m not sure I walked, more like floated away from John Robert Wooden as he waved good bye.

“Watch the traffic out there Robert,” Wooden said as he walked me to the door. “You are not in Kansas anymore.”