Coach shares his personal philosophy on family, achievement, success, and excellence.
“Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best of which you are capable.”
- John Wooden on Success
I know, I know, John Wooden’s death is old news. Over two months since he died. The throng paying tribute has moved on, the tweets have shifted to fresh targets.
But I downloaded his Pyramid of Success this morning from the eBookPie ebook store and realized again one of my earliest roll models was maybe the wisest of my teachers as well, and, ironically, only just down the block.
In my 20s I was of those who chased wisdom in far off places. I studied with Buddhist monks and Chi Gong masters in Asia, always on the hunt for secrets I thought could not be found in the West. I studied under spindly old Tai Chi adepts who lived in forest tree houses and plump, robed mystics who sat in quiet temples for hours controlling their breath. I was sometimes dedicated, more often restless, frustrated, impatient and always broke. But I also loved to gamble, and sometimes made a few bucks playing cards with other practicing monks.
One Chinese temple where I’d been studying surprised me with a much coveted invitation to live in the temple and become an apprentice monk. It would be a life of study, silk robes with wide yellow sashes, shaved heads, meditation, chinese medicine and practicing kung fu – seemingly all I wanted at the time, the life of Grasshopper. As it happened, that same day a black jack dealer friend called from Nevada and surprised me with a job offer from Harrah’s Casino Hotel in Lake Tahoe.
Make a decision! Failure to act is the biggest failure of all!
I reluctantly turned down the invitation to be a monk, embraced my inner gambler and hopped quickly to the casino job. I have looked back many, many times.
“Be yourself. Don’t be thrown off by events whether good or bad.”
I grew up in Los Angeles in the ’60s amidst a family and neighborhood thick with athletes and sports fans, and I was as avid as any. I was particularly devoted to UCLA basketball, led by the iconic Coach Wooden. Throughout my childhood Wooden’s teams won and won and won some more. I couldn’t get enough. My father once took my brothers and I to LAX to greet the team following one of their many triumphant returns from the national tournament, and I recall being speechless as the mystically towering Lew Alcindor (not yet Kareem Abdul Jabbar) strolled coolly by me in dark shades with a tall, fluffy afro. When Coach Wooden approached he seemed much more my size, and when I asked him to sign my little cardboard poster I’d made from newspaper photos of the team he graciously agreed. I don’t have many keepsakes in my possession, but I still have that little poster.
As UCLA won title after title the Wooden legend grew, the local press heaped praise at his magical consistency and gave him the title of Wizard (which he didn’t enjoy). Our grade school teachers would reverently write his Pyramid of Success on the chalkboard, hoping our often confused and misguided selves would absorb one of his enlightened tips on how to be. We puzzled over his zen-like advice to “Be quick but don’t hurry.” As a role model, John Wooden seemed to me both infinitely wise and calmly invincible. Winning for him began to seem almost a given.
Yet as we later came to realize, and as the world is re-discovering now after his death, John Wooden represented so much more than winning. He was above all a teacher of life, and he practiced a simple life of calm modesty. I remember he used to say that, when his players come out of the locker room after a game, the fans shouldn’t be able to tell if they’ve won or lost. He advocated the blue flame approach, a steady heat.
“Perform at your best when your best is required. Your best is required each day.”
He would have looked good in robes.
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