“Players or coaches?”
“Go right down the line. I think television is mostly responsible. It’s made actors out of everyone.”
At one point, Howland stared at the framed photographs of Wooden’s ten NCAA championship teams while Wooden relaxed in his easy chair. It struck me that Howland was standing, quite literally, in the lion’s den, but if it intimidated him, he did a good job hiding it. Howland asked Wooden if he would come to one of his practices, and though Wooden responded that he did not like to be a distraction, he didn’t rule it out, either. “You won’t be overwhelmed by our talent, but hopefully the effort will be there,” Howland said. “Our players have no idea about defensive fundamentals. They don’t even know how to jump to the ball. We’re going to have to do a lot of teaching in a short period of time.”
Wooden sat forward and narrowed his eyes. “Well, you know we UCLA alumni are very critical,” he said darkly. “So you’d better get it done.”
Wooden leaned back in his chair and laughed. He was kidding. I think.
* * *
Three years later, I was back in Southern California, and Bill Bennett arranged another breakfast with Coach Wooden at Vip’s.
This time we were joined by Tony Spino, and we set off on a wide-ranging conversation, beginning with Wooden’s thoughts on the upcoming 2006–07 college basketball season. The previous March, Howland had taken the Bruins to their first Final Four since they won the 1995 NCAA championship. I asked Wooden if he thought this Bruins team would be as good as the last one. “They could be as good,” he answered, “and not do as well.”
What did that mean?
“You can win when you’re outscored. You can lose when you outscore someone. I must admit, the alumni don’t look at it that way, but I truly believe that. Of the championships we won, I got more pleasure out of the ones we weren’t expected to win.”
Wooden was chatty and playful, as usual, and he was surprisingly up to speed on the news of the day—particularly the sports news. He was still a huge baseball fan, having struck up friendships with Angels manager Mike Scioscia and Yankees skipper Joe Torre. In 2002, Wooden was asked to throw out the first pitch at a World Series game between the Anaheim Angels and the San Francisco Giants. “It was a slider,” he told me. “I threw it halfway and it slid the rest.”
The conversation turned to Giants outfielder Barry Bonds, whose career was winding down amid evidence that he had used performance-enhancing drugs. Did Wooden think Bonds should be voted into the Hall of Fame? “Statistically, yes, but I’m not sure I’d vote for him,” he said. “When his buddy would rather go to jail than [testify], it makes you wonder.” He also had some critiques for the U.S. national basketball team, which four days earlier had been shocked by Greece in the semifinals of the 2006 FIBA World Championship. “We not only have all NBA players; we have the stars. When you have far superior talent, you should keep pressure on all the time. You’re going to give up some easy ones, but you’re going to wear them down. Those other teams have been together longer, so they have better team play.”
I was also curious to hear Wooden’s take on Tiger Woods. Over the weekend, Woods had survived a riveting duel with Vijay Singh to win his fifth straight tournament, a streak that included the British Open. Woods was a once-in-a-generation talent at the peak of his abilities. So I asked Wooden the kind of question that would come up on a sports talk show: Is Tiger Woods the most dominant athlete ever?
Unlike most radio hosts, Wooden had actually lived history. His soliloquy reflected that experience. “I would say Byron Nelson dominated the sport more in his era,” he said. “Check the number of tournaments. Eleven in a row, and seventeen of eighteen that year. Tiger plays in a lot more tournaments. In his particular era, I think Byron Nelson was the most dominant in his sport. Just like Sandy Koufax for two or three years had the most dominant stats. I’ve always said, when trying to pick the best, you need to say best of the era. Remember, Jesse Owens in one afternoon broke four world records. That’s rather amazing.
“I think Tiger will be the most dominant over time,” he continued. “Wasn’t Nicklaus second eighteen times? Let’s see if Tiger at the end can match his total. But I don’t focus so much on majors. That’s like saying someone isn’t a good baseball player if he didn’t win the World Series.”
Wooden ended by paying Woods a major compliment. “What I like about Tiger is his demeanor. He’s handled all this so well, particularly after the death of his father. Demeanor is so important to me.”
Wooden was in excellent health for a ninety-five-year-old man. Six months earlier, he had been hospitalized with a nasty bout of diverticulitis that required four days of blood transfusions, but there had been no further setbacks. He told me he didn’t travel much—and then he talked about all the trips he’d be making in the coming months. “I leave tomorrow for North Dakota. I’m speaking there. The governor is going to be there. Later to Indianapolis for the Wooden Tradition [basketball doubleheader]. I’ll be in Ohio for the McDonald’s All-America game. I’ll be in Kansas City. The NABC is creating something new. In each case, they arrange a private plane. I feel a little embarrassed by it, but I really don’t think I could make it through airports.”
“He keeps his own schedule on that calendar,” Spino said. “He’s always busy. I’m surprised he has time to fit me in, actually.”
It was mesmerizing to listen to the workings of such a sharp mind in an old man. Except for his appearance, his slight stoop, and his cane, there was nothing old about Wooden at all. I asked him why he thought he had lived so long. “I’m often asked that,” he replied. “I say it’s not because I never used alcohol, because George Burns drank and smoked every day. Churchill drank. So it’s not that. I feel it’s just a question in my case of practicing moderation. I’ve had peace with myself. That’s a pure guess.
“Of course,” he added, “I’m realistic. You know you don’t have too much time left, but that doesn’t bother me. I’ve been blessed in so many ways.”
Breakfast was over, but Wooden again invited me back to his apartment, just as I had hoped he would. As we were about to get up from the table, he scooped up the check. “Please, Coach,” I said. “Let me pay for breakfast.”
“Are you on an expense account?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He slid the check toward me just as quickly as he had grabbed it.
As we made our way out of the restaurant, Wooden said hello to strangers who recognized him and good-bye to regulars who knew him. Leaning gently on his cane, moving quickly without hurrying, Wooden reached the front door, turned around to give one last wave, and stepped into the California sunshine, another splendid morning in the long winter of a wonderful life.
* * *
Spino had to go to work, so it was just the two of us in his den. This time, the conversation wasn’t quite so centered on basketball. Wooden talked about his life, he talked about his family, and most of all, he talked about his love of poetry. “I taught it in high school, and I studied it in college and wrote a paper on it,” he said. “Poetry is beautiful. It paints a picture. A lot of people don’t like it, but I can’t understand that.”
Wooden did not strike me as someone who was given to deep self-evaluation. When I asked him what his greatest flaw was, he replied, “Oh, I have many flaws.” Okay, I said, name one. “Well, organization was one of my strengths for a long time, but just look at that right there, that table with all that stuff on it. You’d see the same if you looked at my bedroom.” This was not exactly the stuff of Dr. Phil.
I prodded Wooden about his treatment of referees, and he admitted that he was not always polite with them. He told me about his odd habit of sticking hairpins into trees and his challenges in remaining consistent during the turbulence of the sixties. “All change isn’t progress, but there is no progress without change. We have to keep that in mind.” But inevitably, he kept bringing the conversation back to poetry. He pulled out a file full of poems, many of which had been written by Swen Nater. He read a dozen or so to me and recited another half dozen by memory. Poetry wasn’t just a passion for Wooden: it was his catharsis.
I reminded Wooden that when I visited him three years earlier, my wife was pregnant with our first child. Now, I was returning as the father of two young boys. Wooden congratulated me and told me that the most important aspect of parenthood was to set a good example. That nugget was followed, naturally, by another poem, called “A Little Fellow Follows Me.” Wooden spoke it by rote.
At the end of our visit, Wooden told me he wanted to give me something. He ambled over to his small desk, opened a drawer, and pulled out an eight-by-eleven slab of cardboard. “A Little Fellow Follows Me” was printed on that board alongside a photograph of a man walking on a beach wearing a navy blazer, slacks, and a white sailor’s hat. A small boy walks a few paces behind him.
I asked Wooden to autograph the photo for my sons. He sat at the desk, turned on the lamp, and in his meticulous, cursive handwriting he wrote, “To Zachary and Noah. Love, John Wooden.” Today, it hangs framed on a wall in the bedroom Zachary and Noah share. I like to think of it as Wooden’s voice speaking to them from the grave, in rhyme.
* * *
When the
Sporting News
named John Wooden the top coach in the history of American sports in July 2009, I saw a clip of him being interviewed on ESPN. It was the exchange that led his daughter, Nan, to decide not to let him do any more on-camera interviews. I could see why. I was taken aback at how much Wooden had aged in the three years since I had last seen him. When he was asked what winning the award meant to him, he deflected its significance and meandered into another rendition of one of his favorite poems.
The years have left their imprint on my hand and on my face.…
It took him so long to get through it that the interview cut off after just one line.
For the first time, it occurred to me that John Wooden might actually die, just like every other mortal. I realized that if I were going to see him again, I had better do it soon.
When I called Bill Bennett to arrange for a visit, he told me in confidence that Wooden was not doing well. The coach had gone through several hospitalizations, yet he was still hanging on. When Bennett called me back to say he had gotten me an appointment, he warned me that I might get a phone call that morning saying that Coach was not up to it. There was no way to know for sure.
On the morning of August 15, 2009, I met Bill in the parking lot outside of Vip’s. Wooden was late, which was very unlike him. Just when I started to think he might cancel, Jim Wooden rolled up in his van, with his father sitting in the passenger seat. Jim pulled a wheelchair out of the back, placed it next to the car, and asked me and Bill to help the coach into it. Wooden was dressed in a light blue V-necked sweater, and his hair was neatly combed. “Hello, Coach. You’re looking handsome and spry,” I said. Wooden did a double take and said with a gusto that surprised me, “You have a great sense of exaggeration.”
As Jim wheeled his dad through the front door of Vip’s, Lucy Na, who owned the restaurant with her husband, Paul, came over to greet him. Wooden took her hand and kissed it. Lucy and Jim helped Wooden out of his chair and lifted him into his booth. A waitress came over, poured him some coffee, and asked how he was doing.
“Well,” Wooden said, “I’m here.”
That was no small accomplishment, considering he was just two months shy of his ninety-ninth birthday. “Hope I make it, but if I don’t, I’ve had a long run,” he said of the big day. “My eyesight is not nearly as good. My hearing is probably going away. My memory is slipping, too. But I’m still around.”
His voice was deep and quiet, and his speech was a little slurred. At times, I had to strain to hear him over the clatter of the restaurant, but all things considered he was pretty clear, and he still had the old Wooden wit. When I asked him if he still ate at Vip’s often, he replied, “Conservatively speaking, seven days a week.”
What was his typical day like? “It starts off in the morning here. Then I go back. I listen to the news, watch some television. Then I lie back in the den and snooze. Maybe read something during the day. I’ve always been an avid reader, but my eyes aren’t very good. I can honestly say with all the problems, I don’t have a lot of pain.”
As the four of us ate, we talked about what his one hundredth birthday would be like. I told him the city of Los Angeles might throw him a parade, but he laughed it off. That prompted Jim to say, “In either case, we’ll celebrate it with or without you? Is that what you’re saying?”
“You’ll celebrate the death,” Wooden replied.
We talked about whether he could be a successful coach in today’s era. I pointed out that I didn’t think he would like modern-day recruiting. It was too time-consuming and unethical. Maybe he wouldn’t even want to be a college basketball coach at all. “I’d be satisfied in high school,” he said. “I honestly believe if I hadn’t enlisted in the service, I would never have left high school teaching. I’m sure I would never have left. I turned down several colleges because I was happy with what I was doing.”
As it turned out, I was extremely lucky. I had caught Wooden on a very good day. After breakfast, he invited me back to his apartment. Bill Bennett and I drove behind Jim’s van and pulled into the garage alongside them. On the way over, Wooden heard on the radio that Michael Vick, the NFL quarterback who had recently been released from prison after serving a nineteen-month sentence for setting up an illicit dogfighting ring, had found a new team.
“Did you hear Vick signed?” Wooden asked me.
“Yes,” I replied.
“With who?”
“The Eagles.”
He smiled. “As Mother Teresa said, forgiveness will set you free.”
When we got into Wooden’s apartment, Jim wheeled him into the den. I helped Jim lift his father out of his wheelchair and lower him into his easy chair. I could feel the bones in Wooden’s back. There was very little meat on his frame, but he was alert and eager to talk. I asked him about the confrontation with Bill Sweek, the falling out with Edgar Lacey, the awkwardness between him and Jerry Norman. I even asked him about Sam Gilbert. He didn’t flinch in the slightest. (“My conscience is clear.”) Since nobody seemed to know what his political views were, I asked if he minded if I pried him on it. “Go right ahead,” he said. He told me he had voted for Democrats and Republicans for president over the years, and he revealed that he had voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 election. “I didn’t vote for Barack Obama because I thought he was outstanding,” he said. “I just liked him better than the others. That’s all.” (Spino later told me that Wooden believed “only a fool” would want to be president of the United States.)