It has been thirty five years since John Wooden coach a basketball game. Having watched the National championship game in 1975 it seems like just yesterday.
Influenced by being an ACC backer I never gave John Wooden credit for what he accomplished during his coaching days at UCLA. Won ten National Championships all of them in a twelve year period. It was after he retired that I came to respect Wooden. I heard him say in a TV interview that he never used the word win at any time while he coached. He asked his players to give him the best they had. The largest salary that Wooden ever made coaching was $35,000.
Just last year on one of the college basketball broadcast you could tell that his mind was very good and active. John Wooden was not your average win at all cost coach.
John Wooden was inducted into the basketball Hall of Fame in 1960, not as a coach but for his playing. He was a three time All American at Purdue where he earned the nickname "The Indiana Rubberman" for his ability to dive on the floor for loose balls. Purdue won the national championship in 1932 with Wooden as a guard.
He even played pro basketball for the then Indianapolis Jets and to this days still holds the record for making 134 straight free throws which is the professional record.
Married to his wife Nellie for 59 years Wooden has wrote a love letter to her on the twenty first of every month since her death. Those letters are on her pillow today.
There is more to life than basketball and John Wooden live that until his death. he has been quoted "Basketball is not the untimate. It is of small importance in comparison to the total life we live. There is only one kind of life that truly wins and that is the one that places his faith in his savior".
John Wooden was truly one of the greatest ever in college basketball. Player or coach, but much more a great human being.
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