the director.
IGNORE PROGNOSTICATIONS
Of course, when Sports Illustrated and other magazines predicted before the season began that UCLA would win the national championship,
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ALCINDOR
OF
AGE
THE
Lewis and I were so different in many ways, but we were in total agreement that the team’s best interests always came first.
complacency could have arisen within players. I told them, “If Sports Illustrated could predict the future, they wouldn’t be wrong so often.”
I told the Bruins that the only prediction they should believe is mine —namely, that we will work extremely hard today in practice.
Nothing else is certain. Ignore predictions, both good and bad. Ignore outside criticism and praise, because they’re usually wrong. Pay attention to one thing: the effort you make to help UCLA become the best team it can become.
To their credit, the young men on those teams with Lewis came close to doing just exactly that in winning three national championships.
Lewis was superb, but he was superb because of his teammates—and his own desire to be a team player.
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NEVER RUFFLED, NEVER RUDE
During his playing days at UCLA, Lewis was subjected to treatment I had never seen or heard before, even in the old Jim Crow days when we traveled to Kansas City with Clarence Walker for the NAIB tour-MY PERSONAL BEST
nament. Lewis bewildered people; his extreme height, color, athletic ability, and celebrity along with UCLA’s dominance of college basketball at the time were just more than some could handle. Their comments reflected an opinion that Lewis was a spectacle, “some thing”
rather than someone, an object and not a man.
On one occasion, a woman seeing Lewis for the first time pointed her finger at him and said within earshot, “Will you just look at this big, black freak!” as if he was a creature in the zoo. I explained to him the
cruel comment—and others—was not racist, but simply shock, amazement, and awe. Lewis understood there was more to the woman’s comment than just shock. He knew racism in a way I couldn’t.
Through it all—the crude comments, the racial invectives, the physical pounding officials allowed opponents to give him, the discomforts of being extraordinarily tall (airplane seats, hotel beds, doorways, chairs, clothes, showers, cars, phone booths, taxis, classroom desks—nothing Lewis was stoic under stress; calm in the
most competitive situation.
was sized for a seven footer, and everything became a source of minute-to-minute aggravation)—Lewis Alcindor never complained, whined, or made excuses. This was true on small issues as well as big ones.
THE GAME OF THE CENTURY
On January 20, 1968, UCLA faced the Houston Cougars in what was being billed as the “Game of the Century.” It was played in the Houston Astrodome, a building so big that I reminded players before we took the court, “Use the restroom now. You won’t get back here until halftime. It’s too far away.”
At the time UCLA had won 47 consecutive games (the all-time
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record was 60) and ranked number one in the country, as well as was the defending NCAA champions. Houston was undefeated for the season and ranked second nationally. Additionally, each team would bring a reigning superstar to the game—Lewis Alcindor, Jr., and the Cougars’
Elvin Hayes, or the “Big E,” as the media referred to him.
In my opinion, the buildup surrounding this game became almost MY PERSONAL BEST
silly. In fact, it was initially called the “Game of the Decade,” but pro-moters couldn’t resist upgrading it. To me, the contest meant even less than a regular conference game, which affected standings, and it wasn’t an NCAA tournament game where losing meant the season was over.
But the hoopla was unlike anything basketball, and perhaps sports, had seen to that point.
In fact, some say it brought college basketball into the modern media age, because it was the first regular season game ever televised nation-
ally in prime time. It was also played in front of the largest crowd—
about 55,000—in the history of basketball, college or professional.
What went fairly unnoticed during the pregame hoopla was the fact that Lewis had trouble seeing the basket or anything else clearly, because he had been poked in his left eye during a game with California two weeks earlier. The Jules Stein Eye Institute determined that he had double-vertical vision caused by an abrasion on the iris of his eye—when he looked at a basketball hoop, he saw two or three of them stacked on top of each other.
Lewis sat out the two previous games, and if he hadn’t insisted on giving it a try, I would have been very comfortable keeping him on the bench in the Astrodome. But he wanted to play. Competitors want to play even if it means going out there on crutches.
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Subsequently, in the nationally televised Game of the Century, Elvin Hayes was spectacular, making 17 out of 25 shots, scoring 39 points, grabbing 15 rebounds, and blocking three of Lewis’s shots. Then, with ALCINDOR
twenty-eight seconds left, Elvin made two pressure-packed free throws OF
to win the game for Houston, 71–69. His picture was immediately on AGE
the cover of the next Sports Illustrated.
THE
Lewis scored 15 points, the lowest total of his entire varsity career.
NO EXCUSES
After the game, Elvin suggested that his rival, Lewis Alcindor, Jr., wasn’t so great after all, and that we now knew who really was the greatest college player in the country—Elvin himself.
Meanwhile, Lewis said nothing of his problem; he wouldn’t allow it to be an excuse and didn’t complain about his poor vision or how it had damaged his play. He simply moved on. But not before taping the cover of Sports Illustrated to the inside of his locker at Pauley Pavilion. It featured a picture of Elvin Hayes soaring over Lewis to score a basket.
Two months later, UCLA faced Houston again in the NCAA semi-
finals in Los Angeles. By then Lewis’s vision was back to normal and so was his game. The Bruins outscored the Cougars, 101–69. Elvin scored 10 points. Afterward, there was no gloating or boasting from Lewis. His self-control and poise were amazing in both circumstances, winning or losing, excuses or not. This is quite admirable.
The following night, Lewis and the Bruins won their second straight NCAA championship, defeating North Carolina, 78–55. They would 159
win a third consecutive title the following year against my alma mater, Purdue, 92–72. It was the culmination of what many predicted when Lewis Alcindor first arrived at UCLA.
ALCINDOR
OF
AGE
A STARTLING INTRODUCTION
THE
In his freshman year, 1965–66, Lewis and his frosh teammates—Lucius Allen, Ken Heitz, Lynn Shackelford, Mike Lynn, and others—played an exhibition game against the UCLA Bruins varsity, a team that had just won two consecutive NCAA championships (in those days, freshmen were not eligible for the varsity).
The contest was played with great fanfare because it was the inau-gural game at the new state-of-the-art Pauley Pavilion. On Saturday
night, November 28, 1965, one day after United Press International had picked the varsity Bruins to be number one in the nation, the freshmen defeated them 75–60 in front of over 12,000 fans. In fact, it would have been worse if their coach, Gary Cunningham, hadn’t put the starting freshmen on the bench with four minutes to go.
The media saw a wonderful opportunity to ask an awkward question immediately following the game: “Coach Wooden, how do you feel about having your national championship team lose to the freshmen?”
I replied, “The future looks good.” And it did. As far as I was concerned, if the varsity Bruins had to lose to somebody, who better than my freshmen?
My pride in those years when Lewis was a member of the
UCLA
varsity and a superstar centered on the fact that his teammates never lost their identity and always played as a real team. I worked hard to achieve that, and so did they.
16
THE TEAM WITHOUT?
I refer to the 1970 UCLA Bruins—Henry Bibby, Steve Patterson, Curtis Rowe, Sidney Wicks, Andy Hill, Jon Chapman, Kenny Booker, Bill Seibert, Rick Benchley, John Vallely, Terry Schof ield, and John Ecker—
as the “Team Without.” When people ask, “Without what?” I reply,
“Not without what, without whom!” Lewis Alcindor, Jr., had
graduated.
His departure brought hope to schools around the country that perhaps UCLA would f inally get its comeuppance and fall back to the ranks of normal college basketball programs. This was something of an insult to the returning players—the Team Without—because many of them felt they had also contributed to the national championship in 1969; some had also been members of the 1968 championship team. Even though Lewis was popular with his teammates, all of them soon adopted an attitude of “We’ll show you we can do it without the big guy.”
Personally, I also had a new perspective. For three years with Lewis as a member of the team, outsiders simply assumed UCLA would win games and championships—automatically. With his departure, of course, that assumption disappeared. In a sense, after three seasons I 161
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162
could once again coach to win rather than coaching “not to lose.” It’s correct to say that both the team and I felt we had a little something to prove.
MY PERSONAL BEST
Of course, with Lewis gone, some of our returning players found an opportunity to feel their oats a little and assert their new prominence and importance.
On October 14, 1969, the annual team picture day, one of our top players showed up with considerable muttonchop sideburns. I said,
“There’s a clippers in the dressing room. I want those trimmed off before the team picture is taken in f ifteen minutes.”
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He said, “Coach, you haven’t got the big guy this year. You need me.”
WITHOUT?
I looked at my watch and replied, “You’re right, I don’t have the big TEAM
guy this year and I won’t have you either if you don’t shave those side-THE
burns off in . . . fourteen minutes.”
A short while later, the full team posed for our off icial picture. Not a muttonchop was in sight. I’ll admit this particular young man may have been having a little fun testing the waters a bit. I never begrudged a youngster who tested but then complied.
In the 1970 NCCA f inals, Sidney, Curtis, Henry, Steve, and their teammates faced a sizable challenge. Jacksonville had three players taller
than our center, six-foot-nine Steve Patterson: seven-foot-two Artis Gilmore, seven-foot Pembrook Burrows, and six-foot-ten Rod
McIntyre.
After three years with Lewis towering over most opponents, UCLA was now in the position of being the “short” team—again. However, the Team Without played “tall.”
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WITHOUT?
TEAM
THE
In the f inals at Maryland’s Cole Field House against Jacksonville University, Sidney Wicks scored 17 points, grabbed 18 rebounds, and dominated Artis Gilmore. And the Bruins outscored Jacksonville 80–69. The following year, 1971, Steve Patterson led the Bruins to another national championship with 29 points in the f inals against Villanova. UCLA’s “comeuppance” following the departure of Lewis Alcindor had extended the Bruins’ string of consecutive titles to f ive—
eight altogether—and the future looked promising.
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Practice is where champions are created.
MY PERSONAL BEST
Getting ready to join the 1972 Bruins’ varsity team following the upcoming departure of the Team Without was the “Team With.”
With whom? Bill Walton.
Sidney, John, Steve, and the other members of the Team Without are very close to my heart, right next to the squad that won our f irst national championship in 1964. Both teams were discounted early (and
late), both believed in themselves, and both worked so hard all the way.
Most of us like to achieve diff icult things that others say we can’t do.
Those teams did just that, and along the way gained my everlasting affection.
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BOY
ARMF
INDIANA
Whatever suggestions I made to referees were aided by my rolled-up program.
Although I didn’t use profanities, Lewis Alcindor claimed I was an expert at giving the “antiseptic needle.”
You must earn the right to be proud and conf ident.
17
THE WORLD OF WALTON
NEVER BEFORE OR SINCE
I am very fond of Bill Walton, but still shake my head in wonderment over his antics at UCLA in the 1970s. He seemed to lead two separate lives. One was the conscientious student, All-American athlete, and tall, talented team player. The other Bill Walton was an angry antiestablish-ment rebel who protested the war in Vietnam by lying down in the middle of Wilshire Boulevard, disrupting classes at the university, and closing the administration building. He was even arrested by police during one of his demonstrations.
How a nonconformist rebel conformed to my requirements for selfless team play is still a mystery to me; you’d have to ask Bill. What is not mysterious is this: if you took all the centers who ever played basketball, selected ten fundamentals you’d like a center to have, and graded each one on a scale from one to ten, I believe Bill Walton, when healthy, would be number one. It would be diff icult to select anyone over him.
169
Copyright © 2004 by John Wooden and Steve Jamison. Click here for terms of use.
He might not have been the defensive player Bill Russell was or the offensive player that Wilt Chamberlain was, and he didn’t have Shaq’s enormous power or the deadly hook shot that Lewis had (no one does), but I rather feel Bill might rate right at the top overall.
THE WALTON YEARS
The three extraordinary seasons—historic, really—during which Bill was a member of our UCLA varsity squad, 1972–74, eventually caused a unique problem no coach has ever faced.
As sophomores, Keith Wilkes, Tommy Curtis, Greg Lee, and Bill Walton had a perfect 30–0 season and won the 1972 NCAA national 170
championship against Florida State, 81–76. In the history of college basketball, only four other teams had ever achieved this (a perfect season and national championship). Two of those teams were from UCLA, 1964 and 1967—but those Bruin squads, for various reasons, had greater emotional constancy.
For example, the dominant presence on the 1967 squad was Lewis MY PERSONAL BEST
Alcindor. In 1972, it was Bill Walton. The temperaments of these two young student-athletes were vastly different. Both were hardworking, unself ish, and extremely competitive, but Lewis was quiet, contained, and self-controlled, while Bill was f iery, excitable, and visibly intense.
Reflecting Lewis’s almost stoic style, the 1967 Bruins—Lynn Shackelford, Kenny Heitz, Bill Sweek, Jim Nielsen, and others—were much less disrupted by their perfect season and national championship, almost taking it in stride. The sophomores also benef ited from the maturity of
junior Mike Warren, perhaps as smart an on-court player as I’ve ever coached.
I feared otherwise for Bill and his fellow Bruins as time went on.
Thus I tried to head off a potentially serious problem. Following their undefeated sophomore season and 1972 national championship, I met with Bill and the others—the media called them the “Walton Gang”—
and said, “Fellows, I’m very proud of you and next year you’re going to be even better. We’ll know more about each other and what to expect from one another. The
Bru
ins will be a much superior
team because of it.”
I looked around the room—
172
they were pleased to hear this,
smiles were everywhere and heads
nodded in agreement—and then
added solemnly, “But by the time
you are seniors, you’ll very likely
become intolerable.” Then I left
MY PERSONAL BEST
the locker room.
What was I trying to do?
Obviously, I was trying to avoid
having them become intolerable,
uncoachable, and overconf ident.
As I predicted, they were an
improved team the next season,
perhaps as good as any I’ve ever
coached—30–0 and another NCAA championship. But as I feared, the
“Walton Gang” would not be a better team the following year, their f inal season.
FAILING TO PREPARE IS PREPARING TO FAIL
As seniors, Bill, Tommy, Keith, Greg, and the others worked hard in practice and said all the right things, but I sensed something wasn’t there. I felt at times the boys were just paying lip service to doing what they were supposed to do. My gut feeling was they were just too sure of themselves, going through the motions, flirting with complacency.
A coach needs to take care of this, and I couldn’t f igure out how to do 174
it, how to snap them out of it. The results conf irmed my instincts.
After two NCAA championships and two perfect seasons during
which they won 60 consecutive games by an average margin of 27
points, the Bruins suddenly had close games that shouldn’t have been close, won some they shouldn’t have won, had trouble holding leads, and seemed to lack the consistent on-court discipline of the previous MY PERSONAL BEST
two years.
Specif ically, in the second game of their f inal season, 1973–74, we played Maryland at Pauley Pavilion where the Bruins had not lost a game in almost four years. We narrowly survived, 65–64.
My Personal Best Page 10
