What famous person would you like to spend a day with?  One such person near the top of my list recently passed away at the ripe old age of ninety-nine.  His name was John Wooden.

John Wooden was born on October 14, 1910, in Hall, Indiana, to a poor but close knit family.  As a boy he played basketball by shooting a homemade ball that his mother made into a peach basket nailed to the hay loft.  He grew to become a high school star and led the team to a state championship.  His next stop was Perdue University where he became an All American.  His team won the national championship in his senior year.  He taught and coached on the high school level before serving in World War II.  After the war he coached at Indiana State Teacher’s College before going to UCLA where he became the legendary coach who won ten national championships and once had a winning streak of eighty-eight games.  John Wooden is the only person ever inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame as both a player and a coach.

 Perhaps you now think that you know the reason I would have liked spending time with John Wooden.  Yes, I am an avid sports fan and yes, I love to win.  But while Coach Wooden’s entire life was filled with successes and achievements, it is not all those winning statistics that impress me most.  Rather it was the philosophy of life that he developed and his ability to remain true to those principles.  Permit me to illustrate this statement with some stories and quotes from Coach Wooden’s life.

 When John Wooden completed his first year of coaching at Indiana State Teacher’s College, his successful season earned the team a berth in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics Tournament.  Wooden turned down the opportunity to participate because one of his players, Clarence Walker, an African American, would not have been allowed to play.  One year later the rules were changed allowing African Americans to participate.

 Coach Wooden did not like a multitude of rules.  Actually he had only three.  There was to be no profanity on his team, players were always to be on time and finally no player was ever to criticize a teammate.

 When asked for advice, Wooden would often say, “Talent is God given.  Be humble.  Fame is man given.  Be grateful.  Conceit is self given.  Be careful.”

 The coach understood the difference between character and reputation.  He often said,  “Be more concerned with your character than your reputation because your character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what others think you are.”

 He had a clear understanding of what was truly important in life and while he was not “preachy” he had a deep and abiding faith.  Once he stated, “Material possessions, winning scores, and great reputations are meaningless in the eyes of the Lord, because he knows what we really are and that is all that matters.”

 I cannot conclude my tribute to John Wooden without mentioning his life long devotion to his wife, Nel, the only girl he ever dated.

 John Wooden is gone now, but he has a lasting legacy.  He often said that a person should try and make each day their masterpiece.  While he was not perfect, the coach appears to have come close to accomplishing that goal.  In his long coaching career he received only two technical fouls and one occurred when the official mistook Wooden saying something that was actually uttered by someone sitting nearby.  His typical response to a bad call was, “dad burn it, you must have seen that double dribble.”  You will never see a video of Wooden throwing a chair across the court or hitting one of his players on the sideline.  Rather he will always remain an example to follow if you are a big time college coach or the coach of your five year olds soccer team or simply living out your life.  His was a life well lived.  Thanks Coach Wooden.