My favorite birthday of all time was February 20, 2003. That was the day I got to meet and have lunch with one of my heroes—not a general or politician or movie star. I got time with a teacher named John Wooden, who happened to be the most successful and well-known college basketball coach in the world. He taught young men at UCLA to play basketball and—more important—how to live a successful life. He was a Level 5 leader through and through.
My admiration and respect for John Wooden began when I was just a kid. You see, basketball was my first love. I’ll never forget the day in fourth grade when I attended a high school varsity basketball game. It enthralled me. For the next dozen years, I played basketball just about every day. And because I was a great fan of the game, I knew about Wooden. How could I not! During his tenure with the UCLA Bruins, Wooden won 620 games in twenty-seven seasons. His teams won ten NCAA titles during his last twelve seasons, including seven in a row from 1967 to 1973. At one point, his teams had a record winning streak of 88 consecutive games. They had four perfect 30-0 seasons.1 They also won 38 straight games in NCAA tournaments and a record 98 straight home-game wins at Pauley Pavilion. John Wooden was named NCAA College Basketball’s Coach of the Year in 1964, 1967, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, and 1973. In 1967 he was named the Henry Iba Award USBWA College Basketball Coach of the Year. In 1972, he received Sports Illustrated magazine’s Sportsman of the Year award. He was named to the Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach in 1973, becoming the first to be honored as both a player and a coach.2 When I got the chance to actually meet him in person, I was beside myself. I’d admired the man for almost forty years! How often do you get the chance to meet one of your greatest heroes? And for it to happen on my birthday simply made it sweeter.
My day with Coach Wooden started at his favorite restaurant. For the first thirty minutes over lunch, we chatted and got acquainted. Coach was a delight and very easy to talk to. Before long, I opened up a notebook I had brought with me and requested, “Mr. Wooden, would you mind if I asked you some questions?” I had spent several hours preparing for my meeting, since there were many things I wanted to learn from him. After graciously agreeing to answer my questions, he patiently did so for the next three hours, starting at the restaurant and finishing at his home nearby.
John Wooden was more than a teacher and coach. He was a homespun philosopher. His thoughts and theories have been recorded in dozens of books. But reading about him and knowing his quotes couldn’t hold a candle to hearing from the man himself. Coach exuded an inner dignity that made me feel worthy and humble at the same time. The wisdom of his words was amplified by the extraordinary character he displayed in his life. I didn’t just meet the coach; I experienced him.
As Coach spoke, I carefully wrote notes, and his ideas had extra credibility to me because I could feel his concern for me and desire to be helpful. Integrity, respect, and kindness pervaded everything he said. His wisdom was the result of his having lived by his principles for ninety-three years. Even more striking, everything he did seemed effortless.
During our conversation, Coach showed me a card that was important to him. He said that his father had given it to him when he was twelve. (That would have been in 1922!) Coach said that he read it every day, and he always did his best to live what it said. On the card was written:
Be true to yourself.
Make each day your masterpiece.
Help others.
Drink deeply from good books.
Make friendship a fine art.
Build shelter against a rainy day.
Pray for guidance and give thanks for your blessings every day.
I believe the people who knew him would agree that he succeeded in following his father’s advice, and his efforts made an extraordinary impact on the lives of many people. That day, as I left John Wooden, I realized that I had been in the presence of an extraordinary man—a true Level 5 leader.
I was fortunate to get the chance to meet John Wooden. I was even more fortunate that for the next seven years I had the privilege of meeting with him several more times and continuing to learn from him—for while he had made a great impression on me from afar, he made an even stronger one up close. In fact, when I teach the 5 Levels of Leadership and I am asked to give an example of a Level 5 leader, John Wooden is the person I most often talk about, because I think that by studying his life anyone can learn great leadership lessons. And as the closing thought in this book, I’d like to show you how John Wooden’s life exemplified the 5 Levels of Leadership.
John Wooden coached basketball for thirty years. Like all leaders, he started by receiving a leadership position and got the opportunity to make the most of it. Many coaches rely very heavily on their positions. Their attitude is I’m the coach; you’re the player. Do it my way. That’s not always the best approach to take, but there are moments when it’s appropriate. And Coach used his position when needed, though he did it with a soft touch.
For example, Coach Wooden’s practices were not long, but he demanded the full attention of every player each time they practiced. If a player lost focus and slacked off, Coach would kick him out of practice.
Coach Wooden told me once that the bench was the greatest power a coach had in getting the best out of his players. If they failed to play the game his way, he would use his position as coach to put them on the bench and not allow them to play in the game. That happened to Sidney Wicks, a very gifted basketball player at UCLA. The first day that Sidney joined the team and practiced with them, everyone knew that he was the most talented player on the team. However, he also came to the program with a very selfish attitude. He wanted to play the game his way and not do what Coach Wooden required.
Coach said that Sidney spent a lot of time sitting on the bench his first year on the team. That frustrated Sidney, because he wasn’t playing as much as he wanted to. Coach told me Sidney would say, “Why can’t I play more? You know I’m the best player on the team!” Coach would reply, “Yes Sidney, you’re the best player on the team, but the team doesn’t play their best when you’re in the game.”
Being the coach of the team gave Wooden authority, and with someone like Sidney, he had to use his authority—at least in the beginning. When needed, Coach didn’t hesitate to use his position. But like all great leaders, he realized the limitations of positional leadership and did all he could to increase his influence with his players. Position may get a leader compliance from players, but it won’t give championships. For his team to do better, Coach knew he had to function at a higher level of leadership, which he did.
Position may get a leader compliance from players, but it won’t give championships.
One of John Wooden’s heroes was Mother Teresa. He often quoted her, saying, “A life not lived for others is not a life.” Coach also lived those words. He built strong relationships with his players, and he always did what was right for them. For example, Wooden’s first college coaching job was at Indiana State in 1947, after his World War II service in the U.S. Navy. That first year, his basketball team won the Indiana Collegiate Conference title. As a result, they received an invitation to the National Association of Intercollegiate Basketball (NAIB) National Tournament in Kansas City. But Wooden declined the invitation. Why? At that time, the NAIB had a policy that banned African-Americans from playing in the tournament, and Coach was not willing to exclude Clarence Walker, one of his players who was black, from playing. However, the next year when Coach again led Indiana State to the conference title, he accepted the invitation for the same tournament after learning that the organization had reversed its policy banning African-American players. Wooden coached his team to the tournament final, where his players lost to Louisville. (That was the only championship game his teams ever lost during Coach’s career.) And Clarence Walker became the first African-American player in postseason tournament play.3
Throughout his long career, Coach’s relationships with all of his players were special. And after his career as a coach was completed, he maintained his close ties to the men he had once led on the court. Every time I visited him, our conversation was interrupted by a phone call from one of his former players checking to see how he was doing. And every time we rode in a car together, he would ask to stop at the post office so that he could mail letters he’d written in response to people who wrote to him or asked him to autograph something. More than once he told me, “If, as a leader, you listen to them, then they’ll listen to you.” He understood that leaders listen, learn, and then they lead.
“If, as a leader, you listen to them, then they’ll listen to you.”
—John Wooden
After he died, I had the privilege of attending Coach John Wooden’s memorial service at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion on June 26, 2010. His pastor, Dudley Rutherford, said,
During the last week of his life, I told Coach, “Do you remember all those autographs you signed?” And he said, “Yes.” (It was at this moment where we didn’t know how much longer he was going to be with us.) I said, “Coach, all those people are praying for you right now. All that love you gave, that kindness you showed, those people are all praying for you this very moment.” And he smiled. Coach would be humbled today by all the attention he’s receiving, but we really didn’t have a choice, now did we? Because we were compelled to gather here today to celebrate his life. I was thinking about how Coach would always generously greet and sign his signature… all the autographs that he gave. And I’m wondering today, just show of hands: How many of you have in your possession, at your house, your home, you have something he signed to you? Raise your hand if you have something Coach signed.
I looked around the arena as thousands of hands were lifted. I would estimate that 80 percent of the people in attendance raised their hands. It was a reflection of Coach’s kindness and his willingness to make others feel special.
Coach sure made me feel special. I was especially honored when he asked me to write a foreword for his book A Game Plan for Life. What a privilege! It was my chance to do something for someone who had done so much for me. Likewise, I was delighted when Coach offered to write a foreword for my next book, Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Learn. With the assistance of Don Yeager, his co-writer, it was one of the last things Coach wrote before his death.
Coach Wooden had such a great personal touch. Each time I visited him, after we said our good-byes, I would take the elevator down from his condo and walk outside to the visitor’s parking area. As I reached my car I would turn around and look up toward the balcony of his unit. And there would be Coach, watching me leave and waving good-bye to me. That will always be my fondest memory of him—warmly connecting as any good Level 2 leader would.
Leaders on Level 3 produce, and that can certainly be said of John Wooden. As both a player and a coach, he was a winner. He learned to shoot baskets on a hoop his father had forged himself. He took his high school basketball team to the Indiana state championship three years, winning it once. He was a three-time All-American at Purdue, leading his team to two Big Ten titles and a national championship. And he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame as a player long before his induction as a coach.
Coach was a great athlete who could play many sports. He won basketball championships as a player, but his single greatest athletic feat might have occurred on a golf course. Golf Digest lists John Wooden as one of only four people to hit both a double eagle and a hole in one in the same round of golf. That feat was accomplished in 1947 at the South Bend Country Club in South Bend, Indiana.
Wooden started his career as a high school coach and an English teacher. His first year coaching basketball, his team had a losing record. That’s significant because it was the only time in his entire coaching career that he had a losing record! In his eleven years coaching high school players, his record was 218-42.4
After coaching the 1947–48 high school season, Wooden became the head coach at UCLA. He had originally pursued the head coaching position at the University of Minnesota, since he and his wife, Nell, wanted to remain in the Midwest. And the Golden Gophers actually offered him the position, but he didn’t hear about it until he had accepted the job at UCLA. And since he had given the California university his word, he declined Minnesota’s offer.
Coach Wooden turned around UCLA’s basketball program in one season. Prior to his arrival, they had experienced a losing season. His first year as UCLA’s coach, the team won the Pacific Coast Conference (PCC) Southern Division Championship with a 22-7 record. It was the most wins in a season for UCLA since their basketball program had begun in 1919.5 The rest of Wooden’s professional career has become legendary. A career record of 885-203 (.813 winning percentage). Ten national championships. Four undefeated seasons. Named NCAA Coach of the Year seven times.6 And in 2009, he was named by the Sporting News as the greatest coach of all time in any sport.7
Since he had experienced such a productive career as a leader, I wondered what he missed most about coaching. So I asked him. His answer surprised me: “What I miss the most are the practices, not the games.” He explained, “I wanted to win every single game I ever played in or coached. But, I understood that ultimately the winning or losing may not be under my control. What was under my control was how I prepared myself and our team. I judged my success, my ‘winning,’ on that. It just made more sense.” Coach summed up: “Winning games, titles, and championships isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, but getting there, the journey, is a lot more than it’s cracked up to be.” That’s great perspective from a great leader who always produced on Level 3.
Coach Wooden said, “Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.” That’s what Level 4 leaders want for themselves and those they lead: to reach their potential.
“Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.”
—John Wooden
As well as any leader I’ve ever studied, Coach selected the most talented people he could find and then developed them to become the best they could be. The list of players on his UCLA teams is a Who’s Who of great players: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Walton, Sidney Wicks, Walt Hazzard, Gail Goodrich, Keith Wilkes, Curtis Rowe, Marques Johnson, Dave Meyers, and Lucius Allen. Yet Coach was more proud of his players’ accomplishments in life than their achievements on a basketball court. His face would light up as he talked about the men who fulfilled leadership responsibilities in education, government, religion, and business. These were the people he developed. Time and again, his players said that Coach’s desire was to use basketball to teach them how to live and lead, not to win championships.
How did Coach Wooden succeed so effectively on Level 4? Here is my take on it.
Coach always picked players who would not only play basketball well but also be good team members, good students, and good citizens. He did that by analyzing four areas:
Like all good leaders, Coach Wooden had a clear picture of who he wanted on his team. As a result, he recruited the best players—people who would have potential to be developed and win championships.
As I’ve already stated, you can’t win without good players. But if you have good players, you still may not win. To have a chance, you must develop them. At that, John Wooden was world-class. And his method was so simple, anyone can follow it:
After that, Coach would let the results speak for themselves. He used to say, “If you prepare properly, you may be outscored, but you will never lose. You always win when you make the full effort to do the best of which you’re capable.”
“You always win when you make the full effort to do the best of which you’re capable.”
—John Wooden
I first became aware of Coach Wooden’s Pyramid of Success in the 1970s when I was a young aspiring leader. He began developing it in the mid-1930s and finalized it in 1948.8 That was when he began teaching it to his players. It gave him a concrete way of teaching them what he considered important. He taught it to others until he died.
When I discovered the pyramid in a magazine, I cut it out and taped it onto my filing cabinet so that I could review it every day. I realized that within the pyramid were qualities and values that I needed to embrace and possess. I pass it on to you. (See pyramid on the next page.)
Coach Wooden considered the values he taught to be much more important than basketball.
The Pyramid of Success is protected by John Wooden Legacy, LLC. All rights reserved.
I have no doubt that Coach Wooden reached the Pinnacle level of leadership. There is evidence of it everywhere. Since 1977, the most coveted player of the year award in basketball has been the John R. Wooden Award. It is basketball’s equivalent of football’s Heisman Trophy, with the winner announced during a ceremony held at the Los Angeles Athletic Club. Two annual men’s basketball events called the John R. Wooden Classic and the John R. Wooden Tradition are held in Wooden’s honor. And on July 23, 2003, John Wooden went to the White House where the president of the United States presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
Further evidence of the respect Coach Wooden has received from others could be seen at his memorial service at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion. Thousands of people attended, including many of his former players. Wooden was most proud of their accomplishments after they left basketball, and their individual successes are a testament to his ability to develop leaders.
During the ceremony, spotlights emphasized Coach’s life and accomplishments. A light shone on his seat in the arena where he had watched the Bruins play after he had retired. That seat has now been retired, and no one else will ever sit there again. A light shone on the basketball court so that everyone would notice the names of Nell and John Wooden, for whom the court was named. Lights were shone on the ten National Championship banners to remind everyone of his coaching accomplishments, which will never be repeated in men’s college basketball.
Yet, in spite of all the accomplishments and awards, the depth of Wooden’s leadership can be best measured by his character. Pastor Dudley Rutherford echoed this at Coach’s memorial service when he said,
I told his family at his private funeral that his greatness lies not in what he did; his greatness lies not in what he taught. His greatness lies in who he was; his character, his values, his convictions, his faith. And although he battled some health issues during the last couple of years of his life, he never once contracted the malignancy of pride. No physician ever diagnosed him as having the syndrome of selfishness. EKG revealed no trace of ego, and no MRI ever showed the slightest taint of prejudice. Morally, he had a clean bill of health. Spiritually, he was a humble man who had put his faith and trust and belief in God and in God’s one and only Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And although Coach was never boisterous about his faith—he was never obnoxious about his faith; he never pushed it on anybody—he simply lived day by day trusting, walking, living, believing in the one who was the Savior and his Lord.
During the service, broadcaster Dick Enberg described his last visit with John Wooden. As Enberg stood up to leave, Coach had smiled and pointed to his forehead. Enberg described how he walked over and kissed Coach’s forehead, saying, “It was like kissing God.” Coach loved a quote attributed to Socrates: “I pray thee, O God, that I may be beautiful within.” That was John Wooden’s prayer, and I believe God answered it.
At the close of the memorial service the people who attended did not exit quickly. They had spent two hours honoring a wonderful leader, and afterward they just wanted to stay and soak up the atmosphere. I believe many were thinking, I want to live and die like he did. I know I was.
Many times people don’t find out how wonderful a leader was until he dies. They go to the funeral or memorial service, and they are surprised to discover how many other lives were impacted by the person. In the case of Coach, we didn’t have to wait to find that out. Players from four decades of teams had received the benefit of his leadership, and so did the people they have led after their days on the court. And millions more had watched from afar as he led teams to victory. I wish I were more like him: giver, grower, teacher, coach, leader, and friend. He was wise, honest, principled, disciplined, humble, humorous, courageous, and faithful. He was a Level 5 leader. The world needs more like him.