My Personal Best

by Wooden, John R. ; Jamison, Steve.

  I also started to recognize that the five best players don’t necessarily make the best team. Of course I’d prefer to have my five most talented student-athletes starting a game, but to become a starter, the player needed to combine talent with teamwork. Talent alone would not get you on the starting team. This was the lesson that Sidney Wicks (and 113

  many others) learned on his way to becoming a great All-American.

  Y

  AS SIMPLE AS ONE, TWO, THREE

  My coaching mentors were by my side in spirit during this time. By the early 1960s, I had a devotion to the following three principles and knew how to teach them:

  GLORIOUS WITHOUT GLOR

  1. Condition. Supreme physical condition accompanied by mental and moral conditioning is foremost. Performance diminishes

  immediately when condition is insufficient.

  2. Fundamentals. Players must have the ability to properly execute the basics of the game instantaneously without having to stop and think. This concept is taught through relentless repetition of details (and I was the one who determined which details would be

  perfected).

  3. Team Spirit. Most important of all, each young man must be willing and eager to sacrifice personal glory for the good of the group. “One for all and all for one” is a phrase that still sends a chill down my spine. The college teams that bring me so much

  pride are those that demonstrated the highest level of team

  spirit—the 1948 Indiana State Sycamores and the 1949, 1964,

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  1970, and 1975 UCLA Bruins. They exhibited a unity that even

  Coach Piggy Lambert would have admired.

  CONDITIONING FUNDAMENTALS TEAM SPIRIT

  MY PERSONAL BEST

  THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE

  While other coaches also stressed some of those principles, I differed greatly from them in what I didn’t stress; namely, I never talked about winning or beating an opponent. In fact, I rarely mentioned the opponent’s name. (One player joked that just before games our manager would go to the lobby and buy a program in order to know who the team was playing that day.)

  “Let them worry about us,” was my philosophy. My job, and the team’s job, was to get us as close to being as good as we could get. The final score would be a by-product of that effort. Dad’s advice was at the core of my coaching: “Don’t try to be better than someone else, but never cease trying to be the best you can be. You have control over that.

  The other you don’t.” As the years passed, I was determined not to let those things I couldn’t control detract from those things under my control.

  All of the preceding principles came from Earl Warriner, Glenn Curtis, and Ward “Piggy” Lambert. And, of course, my head coach was Joshua Hugh Wooden, a man whose interest in the game was minimal.

  No one who understands basketball has ever accused me of complicated play-making or intricate strategizing. What I taught was as sim-115

  ple as one, two, three. But, without being self-congratulatory, I believe Y

  I taught “one, two, three” fairly well.

  THE ADVANTAGE OF CHARACTER

  During those early years, some schools in the Pacific Coast Conference (later the Pac-8, now the Pac-10) would admit players who couldn’t GLORIOUS WITHOUT GLOR

  meet the higher academic requirements of UCLA. Suddenly, excellent athletes who couldn’t get into our university were coming right back into town as opponents—and beating us.

  At first I was frustrated and then very angry. I complained to anyone who cared to listen about the unfairness of this situation. Slowly, very

  gradually, I came to view the situation as an advantage. Perhaps I was rationalizing on a grand scale, but it seemed that many of these better players were not always better people. Too often they were mediocre or poor students who also attracted problems off

  Character is at the center

  the court. Furthermore, what I saw on the court

  of what I consider necessary

  suggested they weren’t inclined to be good team

  for an individual to be a

  players. Not all of them, of course, but enough

  team player.

  so that I noticed.

  I concluded—begrudgingly, because all coaches hate to see talent go elsewhere—that UCLA wouldn’t have been as good a team with many of these excellent but academically ineligible players.

  Now you might wonder about the connection I see between charac-116

  ter and basketball teams or any kind of team. Character is at the center of what I consider necessary for an individual to be a team player. A person of good character tends to be more considerate of other people—

  of teammates, for example. A person with character tends to be more giving and sharing with others—with teammates during a game, for example.

  MY PERSONAL BEST

  I believe in passing the ball whenever appropriate and possible. I don’t believe a person who is selfish—selfishness is a character issue—would be as willing to pass the ball to a teammate who might then make a basket. You may laugh. Is hogging the ball a character issue? Yes, I believe it reveals an aspect of character. I wanted most of our baskets to come from a pass. A selfish player doesn’t like to pass the ball.

  Furthermore, conditioning—physical, mental, and moral—is crucial to performance. I believe conduct between practices has more to do

  with conditioning than with anything I can devise for players during practice. Does a player of good character dissipate his or her physical, mental, and moral resources between practices? Perhaps, but less likely than his or her counterpart.

  Whatever talent an

  A person of character works better with

  individual possesses, character

  others—with teammates, for example—day to

  helps that person use his or

  day, game to game. Such a person is more

  her ability to serve the team.

  polite, more courteous, more in tune. And

  most of all, he or she is most eager to do what’s best for the team. I repeat: eager to do what’s best for the team.

  Goodness gracious, sakes alive, these are powerful personal qualities regardless of context—basketball, business, or anything else. For me, it’s pretty clear: whatever talent an individual possesses, character helps that 117

  person use his or her ability to serve the team. While I can’t prove that Y

  a person of good character has more potential as a team player, I can prove that’s the person I want to coach. A scientist might find otherwise, but scientists don’t make a living teaching young men and women how to play basketball.

  GLORIOUS WITHOUT GLOR

  GETTING BACK TO DAD

  When I came to this realization, it also helped modify my own behavior. I had started to drift away from some of the principles—the code of conduct—Dad had taught me, including his two sets of threes.

  Increasingly, I was given to complaining or making excuses when things didn’t work out. For example, at Dayton High School I initially

  complained about the Green Devil players. Later, B.O. Barn, lack of fan interest, academic standards, and a limited budget became easy targets.

  The self-pity I had when I wasn’t released from my UCLA contract was another example. Here was something totally of my own doing, but I was upset with Wilbur Johns and the Associated Students Union for the situation.

  My complaining, whining, and making of excuses subsequently

  ended. Those good players who were good people helped me accomplish this. Those good players who weren’t such good people helped me recognize it.

  Learning should be a lifelong process and I hope I’ve continued to listen and learn, but by 1962 much of my coaching philosophy was in 118

  place. Obviously, I had no clue as to what lay ahead. If you’d asked me,

  “John, do you think you’ll win ten national championships?” my honest answer
would have been, “I will be very grateful, extremely grateful, if we win even one.”

  MY PERSONAL BEST

  12

  CHAMPIONSHIPS

  THE BEGINNING OF THE BEGINNING

  O n Saturday night, March 21, 1964, at Kansas City’s Municipal Auditorium, UCLA played Duke for the NCAA basketball championship.

  The Bruins outscored the Blue Devils 98–83 to win our first national title. Many view this as the beginning of UCLA’s so-called dynasty—

  ten national championships in the next twelve years. But in my opinion, the beginning began two years earlier.

  In 1962, UCLA reached the Final Four for the first time ever. We did it with a group of young men Sports Illustrated described as having “no height, no center, no muscle, no poise, no experience, no substitutes, and no chance.” It suggested that early in the season UCLA was not tough enough to “mash a mango.”

  My own opinion—based in no small part on the lesson taught to me by the 1948–49 Bruins—was more optimistic. I told reporters with a wink, “We’re not quite as bad as we look.” I was correct. By the end of the year, some were calling us the Cinderella Team.

  119

  Copyright © 2004 by John Wooden and Steve Jamison. Click here for terms of use.

  Others were

  “surprised,” but I

  hadn’t forgotten what

  120

  my first UCLA team

  had taught me.

  MY PERSONAL BEST

  Walt Hazzard, Fred Slaughter (our six-foot-five so-called midget of a center), Gary Cunningham, Peter Blackman, John Green, and everyone else kept working hard and improving despite losing 7 of their first 11 games. Their effort produced dramatic results as the season progressed, and UCLA won 14 of the final 18 games, became Pac-8

  champions, and went to the NCAA tournament.

  In the regionals at Provo, Utah, the Bruins outscored Utah State and then Oregon State to advance to the Final Four in Louisville for the first

  time. This was quite a surprise to most basketball fans around the country. Our 72–70 loss in the last seconds of the the Final Four semifinals to the defending and eventual champion, Cincinnati, provided great evidence of how one can “lose” and still win.

  THOU DIDST THY BEST, THAT IS SUCCESS

  No team I’ve ever coached got closer to achieving their full competency, their full potential, than those 1962 UCLA Bruins—neither the amazing group of boys I coached my first year at UCLA nor the team that won UCLA’s first national championship in 1964.

  BOY

  ARMF

  INDIANA

  Gradually, UCLA basketball

  was gaining fans. Maybe that’s

  the point of this publicity shot

  of me stuffing two footballs

  into a wastebasket.

  Cincinnati’s narrow victory was most painful—it still hurts—but it provided me with the greatest satisfaction and peace of mind. I believe we came within a whisker of winning the national championship in 1962, but Cincinnati’s best was slightly better than ours. In my eyes, that could not make Walt, Fred, John, Peter, Gary, and the other Bruins losers—the final score can never make you a loser when you’ve done your best.

  Moreover, I have pride in that Final Four loss to Cincinnati. It also reinforced a central concept in my philosophy; namely, a coach is a teacher and one of the most important lessons to be taught is that players are successful when they do their best—even when the final score goes against them. This team had done just that.

  I wanted to win—that is, outscore the opponent—every single game 123

  I was ever involved in. Of course I did. But my deep belief is that the score is a by-product of something much more important: effort.

  SCORING IS THE BY-PRODUCT OF SOMETHING

  CHAMPIONSHIPS

  MUCH MORE IMPORTANT: EFFORT.

  When you put forth your best effort, you can hold your head high regardless of the by-product called “the final score.” That’s why I’ve always taken greater pride in the effort than in the score. Following the loss to Cincinnati, the 1962 Bruins could walk out of the locker room in Louisville with their heads held high—and they did. Their coach joined them in that walk.

  If you trace the origins of the subsequent ten national titles, this team is a good place to begin because two starters—Walt Hazzard and Fred Slaughter—moved on to play a central role in the 1964 UCLA national championship, but they moved on with the addition of a powerful ally: the full-court press.

  THE POWER OF THE PRESS

  Prior to the start of the 1962–63 season, my assistant coach, Jerry Norman, got me thinking about reinstating the press, primarily because of two new arrivals: Gail Goodrich, a tremendous competitor, and Keith Erickson, perhaps the best pure athlete I’ve ever coached. Keith also had 124

  size and quickness. He was the perfect fifth man for the system and would become the on-court “dictator” of the press—basically the on-court captain of the system.

  I had used the press at South Bend Central and Indiana State, but had never stuck with it at UCLA, because it’s difficult to teach and requires both great athleticism and supreme conditioning. Frankly, I also MY PERSONAL BEST

  thought most college teams could easily figure out how to get around it. I was wrong about that.

  The goal of the press is to create mistakes, that is, more and more errors until the opponent’s offense starts to break apart. You create these mistakes by applying a stifling and aggressive defense up and down the court—starting, of course, the instant the opponent tries to in-bound the ball under their own defensive basket. Done right, it can upset the

  opponent psychologically. Coach Forrest Twogood of USC said it was like being locked up in a casket for six days.

  The press becomes almost insidious and takes advantage of human nature. An opponent who makes a mistake tends to hurry and try to correct the mistake. This often can cause another mistake; one com-pounds another, and suddenly you see players dribbling off their toes, passing into the stands, or throwing the ball into the opponent’s hands.

  Of course, when this happened, UCLA tried to capitalize on the errors by scoring points quickly. Soon I saw games where there would be a scoring burst—the media called it the “Two-Minute Explosion”—

  where we’d outscore the other team by 10 or 15 points. In fact, in the finals of that 1964 national championship—the year after we began installing the press—Duke was leading UCLA 30–27 midway in the 125

  first half when their offense started to break apart under our press. The Bruins scored 16 straight points in two and half minutes. Duke never recovered, and UCLA won its first national title.

  1963 is when I committed to teaching and applying the full-court CHAMPIONSHIPS

  press. We lost in the NCAA regionals that year to Arizona State, but I had recognized during the season that we were on the verge of creating a kind of team unlike anything basketball had seen before. The combination of conditioning and execution with the Bruins’ fast break and full-court press could be very destructive. In tandem, they would allow us to set the speed of the game—fast—which would ultimately give the team in better condition an edge. Conditioning, of course, was a priority I learned from Piggy Lambert at Purdue.

  Knowing that every 1963 starter, now well-schooled in the press, would be returning in 1964—Walt, Fred, Keith, Gail, and Jack—led me to write the following poetic prophecy prior to the 1964 season: With every starter coming back

  Yes, Walt and Gail and Keith and Jack

  And Fred and Freddie and some more

  We could be champs in sixty-four.

  Twelve months later, UCLA won its first national basketball

  championship.

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  MY PERSONAL BEST

  Better than a trophy, blue

  ribbon, or gold medal.

  13

  THE FIRST NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP

  UNDERSTANDING PEOPLE

&nb
sp; A good parent, teacher, coach, or leader—and really they’re all the same—must understand human nature. No two individuals under our supervision are alike and shouldn’t be treated as if they were. I didn’t recognize this when I started out.

  By the time the 1964 season arrived, I’d been at it for three decades and my understanding of human nature had improved. This became an important factor in the Bruins’ first national title and those that followed, because the difference between a good

  team and a great team is usually a leader’s ability to

  A good parent, teacher,

  understand others—human nature —and teach

  coach, or leader—and really

  accordingly.

  they’re all the same—must

  Three of the group’s most talented players, Walt

  understand human nature.

  Hazzard, Gail Goodrich, and Keith Erickson, all

  brilliant athletes, were very independent souls and completely dissimilar. Treating them alike would have been counterproductive. I had 127

  Copyright © 2004 by John Wooden and Steve Jamison. Click here for terms of use.

  always advised players that if a coach “bawls you out,” consider it a compliment. It means the coach cares about you and your importance to the team; otherwise, the coach wouldn’t bother. Not all players are able to take this advice to heart, however; so I learned to adjust my teaching accordingly.

  Gail Goodrich was very high-spirited but had to be worked with in an almost gentle manner. Given a sharp rebuke, he’d go into a shell and almost sulk. Nothing would be accomplished. I had to tone down

  my critical comments about his

  technique or whatever and offer

  instructions in a softer way.

  As a result, I’d try to combine

  a compliment with a criticism. I

  might have said, “Gail, oh boy, if

  you could just cut to your right

  like you cut left, that would

  really be something to see.” And

  he’d do it just like that. Earlier on

  in my teaching career, I would