Thank you to John Wooden

[UstadKhanAli]

I just wanted to give major props to someone that many in the U.S. admired deeply, not just basketball fans. R.I.P. John Wooden, and thank you.

 

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jun/04/sports/la-sp-0605-wooden-plaschke-20100605

 

 

When I think today of the greatest sportsman who walked a sideline, I think, instead, of where John Wooden lay his head.   It was a tiny bed in a cluttered room in the dark Encino condo where he lived for the last three decades.   ~~~~~~~~~~~~   He showed it to me once, without a trace of discomfort or embarrassment, led me inside and pointed to the threadbare white bedspread, Coach still coaching.   "That's Nell," he said.   It was, indeed, a smiling picture of his beloved late wife of 53 years, propped up above the pillow where he slept.   In the space next to the pillow, where Nell used to sleep, there was another propped-up photo of her.   Below that photo, in the middle of the bed, was a bundle of carefully scripted letters, all in the same intricate handwriting.   "Fan mail?" I asked.   "You might say that," he said.   The letters had been written by Wooden to Nell.   They contained humble descriptions of his day, gentle laughs over private jokes, eternal promises of his affection.   They had been written once a month, every month, since 1985.   They had been written after she died.   "I obviously don't have anywhere to send them," he said. "But I had to write them anyway."   He said he had talked to his wife every day for more than half a century, and it still wasn't enough. He wondered, when you are best friends, can it ever be enough?   "I miss telling her things," he said.   As he led me out of the bedroom in that darkened apartment, I realized he taught me again, only this time it was something that cannot be found in a pyramid or a rolled-up program.   I realized that I had just been given a glimpse into a lifetime of simple devotion, from Nell to UCLA, from a sport that didn't deserve it to children who will never understand it.   Coach had just shown me the meaning of undying love, and, as he led me out of the darkened room, I quietly wept at its power.   This, though, is why I will not weep today, in the wake of John Wooden's death at age 99.   Our loss will be his gain.   He will no longer have to sleep with a photo. He will no longer have to pick up a pen. The light of our lives can finally be with the light of his life.   All these things he's wanted to share with Nell, he can finally tell her himself.   "I haven't been afraid of death since I lost Nell," Wooden told me that day. "I tell myself, this is the only chance I'll have to be with her again."   Heaven knows, he's earned it.   When the great ones leave our courts and fields, don't they usually leave our lives?   Wooden will be remembered today as Coach by those who never even knew he coached.   He won 10 national championships at UCLA, a record that will never be broken, yet many know him only for applying those lessons to real life.   He spent 27 years coaching the Bruins. But after his retirement in 1975, he spent the next years coaching, well, the rest of us.   Guess which job had more impact?   Hint: It was not the one where he earned the name the Wizard of Westwood.   "I am not a famous man," Wooden said. "I hate being called wizard. I am not a wizard."   Everyone called him Coach, and he was a teacher, and that is how he will be remembered, the sports world's greatest teacher, a man whose quiet voice somehow rose above the clatter of those who had long stopped listening.   He will be remembered not for diagraming a triangle offense, but for writing a pyramid bible, his Pyramid of Success long since becoming the best-known sports motivational tool.   He will be celebrated not only for sitting on the UCLA sideline, but for being in the bleachers just above the UCLA bench, where he sat for nearly every home game after his retirement, signing autographs and spinning wisdom.   He will be known not only for his loyalty to his many great players, but for his loyalty to his late wife; he once insisted that if the Pauley Pavilion court was named after him, Nell's name would have to come first, and so it does.   He will be applauded not for any endorsements, but for the one sponsorship he canceled. He removed his support of the John R. Wooden Award