Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court

The second half of Part 2 begins with eight tips for success. These include many maxims made famous by Wooden during his coaching career: “Fear no opponent but respect every opponent”; “Be more interested in character than reputation”; “Be quick, but don’t hurry”; “The harder you work, the more luck you will have” (72). Wooden’s coaching philosophy centers on the concept of team players over individual stars, using the analogy of his teams being like powerful cars. While his best player might be compared to the car’s engine, all of the other parts are needed as well.

No players exemplified this concept more than Bill Walton and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, perhaps the two greatest players he coached. In particular, Wooden argues that Kareem could have been the greatest scorer in college history, but instead he focused on the team’s success rather than his own glory. Like Jabbar, Walton was also a three-time National Player of the Year, but his participation in many counterculture activities of the early 1970s were at odds with Wooden’s quiet style. Wooden describes Walton as individualistic but notes that this didn’t preclude him from being a team player; he was able to put his individuality aside on the court.

During Wooden’s first three years at UCLA, the team played in the tiny men’s gymnasium on the campus, colloquially known as the B.O. Barn because of the odor when it was crowded. However, when the local fire marshal declared the gym unsafe for crowds exceeding 1,100, the team was forced to play home games at other venues around Los Angeles for the next 14 years. Wooden argues that the adversity of not having a home arena had the unexpected result of making them a better road team. This was especially helpful in the NCAA Tournament and led directly to the school’s first two national titles, in 1964 and 1965 (92). In a passage titled “Work Creates Luck,” Wooden asserts that Jabbar’s decision to attend UCLA in the mid-1960s (when he was the nation’s top basketball recruit) and the construction the campus’s new 13,000-seat arena also directly resulted from the hard work of the earlier teams with no home court.

In closing Part 2, Wooden writes philosophically concerning accomplishment and winning. He suggests that true success must be measured by one’s potential based on their ability rather than by what they actually accomplish (94). As an example, he cites that he is widely perceived as a very successful basketball coach because of his 10 national championships, but he would consider himself just as successful if he had won none because the measurement of success should be effort. Concerning wins and losses, Wooden argues that the “final score” is not really the final score, meaning that teams should evaluate their performance based on whether everyone did their absolute best, both as individuals and as a team. For example, his 1961-62 UCLA squad was the first Bruins team to reach the Final Four, but they lost in the national semifinals to Cincinnati, the defending national champs and eventual champion that year—and a team that many consider to be one of the greatest ever. He argues that “our team was outscored, but we were winners” (107).