LOS ANGELES — Sports come at us like racquetballs — zipping highlights and stats and images — so we seldom digest and reflect; instead we simply accept or deflect. You don’t learn life lessons on ESPN.
So it’s poignant that in the week we learned about dignity and character from Armando Galarraga and Jim Joyce, we lost a man who defined those values, bounce-passing them to 12 young men at a time.
The basketball world — from here at the NBA Finals to kids shooting backyard jumpers — mourns the death of former UCLA coach John Wooden, who won a record 10 NCAA titles and did so by setting standards and preaching messages that changed the way coaches coach.
“I just stand in awe of the guy,” said Lakers coach Phil Jackson, who has won a record 10 titles in the NBA.
Wooden gave us Lew Alcindor and Bill Walton and the famed UCLA press, but he will be remembered most for exuding humility. And as if he considered all of us UCLA Bruins, Wooden shared his leadership approach in the “Pyramid of Success,” his famous triangle with 15 pieces inside, each piece featuring a quality and a quote:
• TEAM SPIRIT: “The star of the team is the team. ‘We’ supersedes ‘me.’ “
• CONDITION: “Ability may get you to the top, but character keeps you there — mental, moral and physical.”
• COMPETITIVE GREATNESS (at the top of the pyramid): “Perform at your best when your best is required — your best is required each day.”
My dad, Jere Hochman, is a school superintendent. Before that, he was a youth basketball coach and a budding assistant principal, both gigs inspired by a leader he never met.
“The UCLA press — I was fascinated by it,” my dad wrote me in an e-mail Saturday. “The flow, the logic, all the pieces fitting together (you know that’s how I see the world and do my day job). . . . When I coached basketball, that press was in our repertoire. And, I first read his pyramid of success as an assistant principal — it was a pretty essential reading in leadership. So, from afar, it’s amazing how he reached me, and there are probably millions of ‘me-type’ people out there, far from UCLA or big-time basketball, who were touched.”
I’m often asked about the coolest sports people I’ve interviewed, and I always say Michael Jordan and John Wooden. I met a 92-year-old Wooden in 2003, when he was honored at a luncheon during the NCAA Final Four.
Afterward, I sat next to him while dozens of people stood in a line to shake his hand — and to feel his presence. Even the sons of Pete Mara- vich, statistically the greatest college basketball player of all time, waited patiently that day to meet the greatest college coach of all time.
“I’ve been out for 28 years from actually teaching,” Wooden said to me that day. “And it’s amazing to me that people still know who I am. It’s flattering.”
The pleasure was ours, Coach.
Footnotes.
Heading into tonight’s Game 2 of the NBA Finals, Kevin Garnett must redeem himself for Boston to have any chance of splitting the first two games in L.A. The Boston forward infamously missed two lay- ins, back to back, which the aging Garnett would normally rim-rattle. Then, Lakers post player Pau Gasol told the media that Garnett has “lost some explosiveness.” This will be the matchup to watch tonight. . . . Say what you want about the plus-minus stat used in the NBA — though Nuggets coach George Karl swears by it — but in Game 1, the highest rating was telling. It belonged to the Lakers’ Ron Artest (plus-26), who played teeth-grinding defense all night. . . . Jackson’s teams have won all 47 playoff series when he is the winning coach in the first game of a series.
Benjamin Hochman covers the NBA. Contact: 303-954-1294 or bhochman@
