Interview With John Wooden

MJ: Coach John Wooden, thanks for joining us today.

JW: You're very welcome.

MJ: You are considered by most people to be the greatest basketball coach in collegiate history. How do you feel about that title?

JW: I don't think think it could be accurate at all. I'm pleased that people think that I'm among the better ones, but I'm very reluctant to say that anyone's the best in anything, but it's nice to be considered one of the best in your profession.

MJ: Now how old are you today, coach?

JW: I'm 86, not today, I was 86 a few months ago, but I'm on my way to 87, now.

MJ: Now, tell us about your love of basketball. Where did that all start?

JW: I was born in Indiana, and I think at the time, Indiana was probably

the foremost state in the United States as far as basketball was concerned.

For example, I went to high school in a town that the population was

listed on sort of a ......? outside of town is 4800. Our high school

gymnasium seated 5200, and it was always full. We had a very outstanding

high school coach and ......was always .....we were, we played for the

championship. We survived about seven or 800 high schools and we were the

last two because all of them enter the tournament to begin with. Every

team.......no one is eliminated, until they are eliminated on the court and

we played for the state championship all three of my years- lost twice and

won once, but Indiana, they're just crazy about basketball, too much so,

really. There are many of a...many high school gymnasiums that will seat

from seven to 10,000 people. Many of them are just like the one where I

went to high school......the population of the town itself.

MJ: What attracted you to basketball?

JW: I guess just being raised in Indiana, everybody was. They say that

the first present of any boy born in Indiana would receive would be a

basketball, and it'd go into the crib immediately, and you just sort of

expect it. There were...crazy about it, and then of course as I get into

grade school...I went to a small country grade school, and I lived on a

farm about eight miles north of Martinsville where I went to high school,

and my first year, I still lived on that farm and we lost it in the

depression and had moved into Martinsville, but I went to a small

three-room country grade school, but we had a grade school basketball team

and we played some other grade schools around, not too far away of course,

and outdoor courts and sometimes we shoveled snow off the courts so we

could play, but everybody was interested in basket ball.

MJ: In your book, "They Call Me Coach," you talked about the very first

basketball that you created and the goal. What were those created of?

JW: Well, mother took an old cotton sock, a black cotton sock that women

would wear in those days and stuffed it with rags, trying to make it about

the size of a basketball and do the best you could on stuffing it with rags

making it as round as possible, and Dad tacked up on the barn door a....not

the old basket...peach basket, but it was an old type of a basket that he

tacked up on the barn door and that's where I and my brothers really would

play and then, again we played at this grade school.

MJ: Did the ball bounce very well?

JW: No, we couldn't dribble it. Maybe that's a good sign, if we could

dribble it, we'd probably all want to dribble the ball all the time.

MJ: Can you maybe give us a general history of basketball and how it

started?

JW: It's started to originate, Dr. James Naismith (?) is considered the

originator of the game at a YMCA back in Springfield, Massachusettes and

his reason, he wanted to get a sport that would be between the football

season and the baseball season, and he got the idea of this, and the rules

were quite different, considerably different, but anyway, that was the

origin of it. In the original rules, there were nine players on the side

and the court was divided into three areas, in three in one end and three

in the middle and then three in the other end. You couldn't leave your

feet to shoot and the basket actually, originally, it was only nine feet

high. I've often read that it was ten feet high because Dr. Naismith

tacked a peach basket up on the railing around the gym that happened to be

ten feet high and that's the reason it was ten, but actually, the original

was nine feet high and it changed to ten feet, and it gradually emerged in

rule changes here and there that have come down through the years and of

course it seems like they're always considering some other new rules.....

MJ: What do you learn about life by playing basketball? How do, how do

basketball principles apply to life?

JW: Well, I'll answer that by saying how I think they should, but don't

always do, but they do in many cases. You learn to work with others. You

learn to be considerate of others. You learn the value of good

conditioning, and it's a extracurricular activity from which can be helpful

not only to the participants but it serves as as something for the

non-persistant, something non-persistant they could watch and enjoy. The

fact that thousands and thousands and millions of people who in the United

States each year will be watching basketball games and it's good for the

salesman and the butchers and teh bakers and the others. It gives them an

outlet and something that's a nice, a good sport. I think that basketball

is the best of all spectator sports of all the team sports, and I think

there's reasons for that as...for the spectator, the ball is the largest of

any ball that's used in any other......the puck, the hockey puck or the

football, or the baseball, the volleyball, and so on. It's the largest

object, therefore the spectators can see the ball all the time. It's

played on the smallest area. A basketball court is not nearly as large as

a baseball diamond or a football field and some others are a soccer field

and so on, so the spectators are closer to the action. It's a game of

action, there's movement, constant movement and the spectators can get more

interested in that, and I think when......game of tremendous finesse and

skill and I'm disappointed in many ways of the professional game today in

as much as I think they're permitting it to become too physical.

MJ: Pushing and shoving and...

JW: ........playing professional ball today is, sometimes it's more like

wrestling than it is playing basketball. I don't think there's any reason

for that. I don't like it, but perhaps one reason of the popularity is the

showmanship. Now, I don't like showmanship. I don't like the dunk for

example, but it's just (?)very popular now and people love it and the

players love it and so on, but I don't like it, I think it has hurt the

finesse of the game itself, but it is a tremendous spectator sport. You

can see when they score. I watch a hockey game and I didn't see the puck

go in, and baseball, the ball is small and football the ball is hidden a

good part of the time so it's a great spectator sport.

MJ: Well, Coach, you're a very modest man, but you did win ten national

championships at UCLA which is absolutely unprecedented. What would you

say is the secret. What was the secret to your success?

JW: Good players! No matter, no matter what, you don't win consistently,

unless you have outstanding players. Now, I, I hope this doesn't sound

modest, but not everyone wins with the great players, no one wins without

them. There are coaches that make you feel that.... yeah, me, I did it,

and it's just not true. If they don't have the players, they don't do it,

no one does it, but not everybody can win with them, but I think that is

the...what percentage, I don't know, coaching has some...to do...well of

course it does, but just like, you know, coaches aren't all the same.

Doctors aren't all the same. Lawyers aren't all the same, farmers aren't

all the same, sailors aren't all the same...neither are coaches all the

same.

MJ: You coached some great players during your years. Can you tell us

about a few of them?

JW: Well, probably the one that gained the most publicity of all is one

who is now know as Kareem Abdul-Jabar. ... There was Lewis Alicindor when

he played for me, seven to one, tremendous athlete, very bright. He'd of

been just as he is...he would have been.... if he was only 6'1" instead

of 7'1, outstanding student, honor's student. He knew why he was in

college, to get an education, not just to play basketball and yet he had

tremendous longevity in the pro-game afterwards. He played for twenty

years, and has the all-time ...score in professional basketball history,

and yet he was one that only interested in schooling, but he was interested

in team-play. When he was at UCLA, we won three consecutive championships

and there's no question in my mind that his tremendous ability was the

one...one individual thing that probably had more to do with, and I had

some other fine players to go with him, because you know, ? was just one,

but with the other fine players that I had, without him, it would have

been extremely difficult, and always just a wonderful young man with whom

to work. I had a player a few years after him, .....Bill Walton, was also

a great center, about 6'11" great player, great in every aspect of the

game. Also an outstanding student. These two great players were honors

students, outstanding, and then I had such players as Mike Warren, a guard,

who came, actually from Indiana, at the high school from where I had taught

back there years before, and at that high school where he played, his coach

had played for me at that same high school ........World War II and so he,

he's probably as smart a basketball player as I've ever seen play. He

went for me a... almost te...no excuse me, almost nine consecutive games

without a turnover, now you can imagine a point guard, ...having the

ball....to go nine consecutive games without turnover...I say that, people

don't believe, they think I'm .....and it actually happened, so as smart a

basketball player that I've ever seen play. I had a tremendous guard by

the name of Gill Goodrich and one by the Walt Hazard. I had a great

forward by the name of Keith Erickson, David Myers, and I'm, I'm missing

out on a lot of them, but let me tell you something that's even more

important. I had at UCLA 168 letterman in my 27 years there. Over twenty

became attorneys, there's eight ministers, there's several doctors, there's

several dentists, there's several businessmen, there's several

teachers...almost all my players graduated from college, and all have done

reasonably well in whatever profession they chose. I'm proud of that.

MJ: Can you talk a bit about your early years in Indiana, especially the

influence of your father on your life?

JW: Well, my father was a tremendous influence on my life, and all fathers

should be. Dad, maybe I didn't appreciate it at the time, but I think, in

retrospect, he was just one of the wisest people I think that ever came

along. Maybe not from book-learning, but I think he was instrumental of

how he didn't have any money at all to help us go through school, and

there were not athletic scholorships. I think, it's his...well, I think

he's ....I and my three brothers all got through college on our own, and

all became teachers, and I think .....more from Dad. He had a lot of

things. He said, "Never trying to be better than someone else, learn from

others, but never cease trying to be the best you can be." "When you get

concerned in regard to things over which you have no control. It will

adversly effect the things over which you have control." Now, that was a

part of Dad... I never heard him use profanity. I never heard him speak an

ill word of anyone else. I've often said that I think the word gentleman

was coined for one of two people, either Abraham Lincoln, my favorite

American, or my father. He was just a ...a ...he was a wonderful person.

MJ: When did you decide to retire from coaching and why did you retire?

JW: A difficult question to answer. There were several reasons probably

for my retirement. I could have stayed on for three more years. It's

mandatory retirement, in the system here in California, but if you

become....at 67, but if you become 67 after the school year starts, then

you could have finished that school year, so I could've coached for three

more years without mandatory retirement, but my health had not been real

good and I had a little heart problem and my wife's health wasn't good and

I knew she wanted me to retire and that had a lot to do with it, probably

more than anything else, and then I wanted to retire when I knew that the

material that I was leaving...would be....we had done so well, I knew it

was going to be tough on whoever succeeds you, and if you had, if you left

the cupboard bare it would be really difficult for them, and I knew ....I

could see with the material that I had left over and those that were coming

in for the next three years at least, we were going to be among the very

finest teams in the country and I wanted to leave that type of material for

my successor. I've known coaches who retired, and they retired because

they didn't have anything left coming up so it's now is a good time...it's

going to be miserable the next two or three years so we better retire, and

I didn't want that to happen in my particular case. That had a little

something to do with it, now was a good time, and maybe some little

insignificant reasons.

MJ: You write in your book about faith, and how you don't separate faith

from your work. What would you say to those who say you're supposed to

separate faith from the things you do?

JW: Well, I just simply don't look at....I don't try to advise others. I

think by example, more than anything is my way of teaching......

MJ: Coach, you talk in your book about faith, what does that mean to you

first of all, and what would you say to those who say you're supposed to

separate from the things you do and from your work?

JW: Well, I think, it's a hard question for me to answer, but I think,

"I must have faith, I must believe, I must...if I didn't have faith in the

future, there's not much reason for being around really. I believe, I

could quote some of the scriptures that show the importance of faith, but

it's kind of like, if you don't have faith, you're living with uncertainty,

you're afraid of the future. I'm not afraid of the future at all. I have

faith that things will work out the way they should work out as long as I

do what I should. I think too many people....they want things to work out

the way they want them to work out, but they don't want to do what they

should to help that come about, and I just can't imagine anyone believing

in just themselves. I think...I don't know where my path will lead, but I

believe that Somebody's directing it and that should be enough for me. I

should accept that, and now that's in my personal life, that's in my work.

It's just in everything. I just, ? I must have faith.

MJ: What is your life like these days, Coach? How do you spend your time?

JW: Well, I have ten great grandchildren now with an 11th one on the way

in a couple of months and I spend as much time with them and my seven

grandchildren, my two children, my daughter lives very close me and I see a

lot of her, but they're all within fifty or sixty miles of me and I see all

of my children, and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren almost every

week, and I live for them, but I'm doing some writing, I'm working on a

couple of more books now. I love poetry and I dabble in it and I'm working

on a book on poetry just for my family, not for publication, but I'll

have it bound if I finish it, just for my families. They wanted me to and

that's a result of something else, and I'm working on those two books and I

read quite a bit. I still enjoy reading and do a lot of that and that and

spending time with my children and grandchildren, my family, that keeps me

pretty busy.

MJ: What would you say your priorities are as you look back on your life?

JW: Well, I've said, that my priorities are not the way they should be.

My priorities have been family, faith, and then profession. Now, faith

should be first, but I believe, and I've said... if I really kept my family

first in the way I should, I, I think the Lord will understand and I think

it will be all right, I think He'll understand, and that's what I've tried

to keep. I think those who put other things, or put, put profession,

certainly, money-making ahead of other things, ....really happy people, and

I don't think they every have true peace of mind and without true peace of

mind you don't have much.

MJ: Do you have any regrets, either professionally or personally?

JW: I've made many mistakes, I'm imperfect, but I've always tried to do

what I thought was right at that particular time, but I've made mistakes,

yes. I need forgiveness.

MJ: What advice would you have to maybe a young fellow who wants to play

basketball, wants to be the best, wants to play in the professional league

someday?

JW: There's so many things enter in to it, they're here in schools in the

schools in the country.....day there, literally thousands of youngsters

that think they're going to play professional basketball and there's going

to be a minute percentage that will ever be able to make it. So my, when I

........the youngsters, think first of education, get a good education.

That's the most important thing in the world. Get a good education. From

that education you're going to have something that's going to serve you

well all the rest of your life no matter how great an athlete you might be,

it will serve you for only a comparably small number of years of your total

life, so don't put all your eggs in one basket in a sense. Now, I think

sports are a fine extra-curricular activity, and if you're very good at it,

work at it, do the best you can to become the best you can in it, there

again, following my dad's advice don't try to be better than somebody else,

but never cease trying to be the best that you can be, and we're all equal

as far as that respect. We're not equal as far as size, we're not equal as

far as speed, we're not equal as far as appearance, we're not born in the

same environments, we do not all have the same opportunities, but we're all

equal as far as having the opportunity to make the most of what we have and

trying to improve that at all times. I coined my own definition of success

in 1934, and this is what I tried to teach to youngsters, and try to live

myself. I'm not saying I did, I'm just saying I tried. My definition for

success is, "peace of mind attained only through self-satisfaction in

knowing you made the effort to do the best of which you're capable." And I

think we are all equal in that respect. Now, that probably, that, my

definition probably came from what Dad tried to teach about,"never trying

to be better than someone else, but never cease trying to be the best you

could be." And then about that time I ran across a verse, and the verse

merely said, "At God's footstool to confess, a poor soul knelt and bowed

his head. "I failed!" he cried. The master said, "Thou didst thy best.""

That is success. I read that about the time I was...working on coining my

own definition of success. That made a profound effect upon me and then

you know, there was a third thing that had something to do with it too, and

that was a professor that I'd had in high school ..... in that class define

success and the discussions that we had, that went on in the class, a

little of that sunk in, too.

MJ: Coach Wooden, thank you for joining us today.

JW: Well, you're very welcome, Mark, it was a pleasure.