When I speak to people about my dad, Coach John Wooden, one of the first things they usually want to know is what he was like in the “real world,” outside of what you saw at a basketball game.
Dad was a simple, consistent person, who developed and lived by a core set of principles his entire life. He wasn’t a brimstone preacher—either inside the locker room or at our house. He was a motivator in a different way—by being a true teacher, and not “just” a coach.
Over the years, his players and the other people he met through basketball came to understand very well that Dad’s philosophies and approach weren’t some sort of program that he followed some of the time, or “put on” to look better in the media or in recruiting.
He talked about what he believed. He followed it. And he never stopped thinking about ways to make small improvements. He was always teaching, but he was also always learning.
Basketball was very important to my dad, but the core beliefs and philosophies he had—many of which Jason and Tom talk about in this book—aren’t about basketball.
They’re about life.
It always amazed Dad that he became more famous in retirement than he ever was as an active coach. But I think that fame came for exactly those reasons. People began to understand that those principles applied to far more than basketball—especially in the business world.
In the last two and a half years of Dad’s life, I was fortunate to be able to spend two days of every week with him. It was the best time in my life. So many of the friends he made in and outside of basketball would come by, and he stayed connected to the game.
The talks he was able to give in corporate America through people like Tom really brought him a lot of joy. It wasn’t about the money he could make. It was about getting his core message through to people young in life—the pyramid of success, the two sets of three, making friendship a fine art.
I heard him say those same things for fifty years, but they weren’t just catchphrases. They’re the basic building blocks of a life well lived. I used the same principles with my own kids, and now they’re using them with their own children.
When we’re shooting hoops, my grandson—John Wooden’s great-great grandson—will use the backboard on a shot and say, “That’s what Paw-Paw wanted me to do.”
Dad would have been thrilled to know he influenced Tom and Jason to go out and help so many people in the business and sports worlds.
Jim Wooden
June 15, 2015