"Failure to prepare is to prepare to fail."
-John Wooden
John Wooden died yesterday at 99 years old. Wooden was a basketball legend; he is still (I believe) the only man to be elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame as both a player and a coach.
Wooden's UCLA teams in the 1960's and 1970's dominated college basketball as no other team before or since has done. Winning 10 national championships - the final one came in 1975 - was an amazing feat.
John Wooden was widely admired, not just for the championships but also the way that he conducted his life. I have read a few books by Wooden, and always learned something from them.
Wooden was a huge fan of the value of preparation. He often said that his most enjoyable times as a coach were not the games but the practices. He and his coaching staff would meticulously plan each two hour practice session - no minute was allowed to be wasted.
He was a strong believer in the value of physical fitness, gained through intense practices.
He emphasized fundamentals. For example, he hated behind-the-back passes, which he thought were needlessly risky. He also liked players to use the backboard for their shots, believing that a bank shot had a better chance of success.
Wooden rarely scouted the opposing teams. He would point out that it made little difference whether he knew the tendencies of a particular player. Instead, he felt that if his teams focused on the fundamentals, and played the type of aggressive zone defense for which UCLA was famous, they would win most games. And of course he was right.
John Wooden was intensely competitive, as this morning's New York Times obituary pointed out. He might have looked like this mild-mannered school teacher from Indiana, but once the game started he was as ferocious as any coach around.
Wooden was devoted to his wife Nell. They were married 53 years. Nell would sit behind the bench at nearly every game. Right before the opening tip-off, John would look up in the stands to Nell and give her an "OK" hand signal. When she died, he visited her grave site nearly every day. He also wrote notes to her telling her how much he loved her, and missed her company.
It is a testimony to his widespread influence that his death merited a front page story in the Times this morning, even though he had coached his last game almost 35 years ago.
If you have the chance, read "They Call Me Coach" this summer. Even though it was written a number of years ago, it's a fun read, perfect for the summer. You'll learn valuable lessons about both basketball and life from one of the best ever.
John Wooden, 99, Legendary U.C.L.A. Coach, Dies - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com
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