I believe that John Wooden has read the Book of Proverbs, for reading the Bible is part of the old coach’s daily walk through the world.
He certainly has been through the passage in the eighth chapter that reads: “For wisdom is more precious than rubies, and nothing you desire can compare to her.”
At 98, he lives alone in a cramped Encino, Calif., apartment. He has creaky knees, never made more money in a year coaching college basketball than a beginning teacher makes now, and still mourns a wife who died more than 20 years ago.
Obviously, that résumé hardly defines Wooden, but in the fast-paced universe of big-time college hoops, with its white-light glamour and inflated salaries, the old coach’s legacy appears to many to be antiquated and hopelessly bland.
On the other hand, I am far from the only person who believes that Wooden may be one of the wisest men alive, a mountaintop-like sage of common sense and good will dressed in a cardigan sweater and double-knit pants. Indiana State University recently and aptly named its home basketball floor after Wooden and his late wife, Nell, and with that story making our front page, a flood of good memories about him came back to me.
Few people are privileged to meet their heroes; I’ve met mine twice. I saw Wooden for the first time in April 1987. He had come to Terre Haute to speak at the annual Chamber of Commerce dinner at Hulman Center. When we heard that Wooden was coming to town, my buddy, Joe, and I, both coaching at the time, decided we’d be in the audience to hear him.
After his time at the podium was over, Wooden was ushered off a dais and into the subterranean hallways that constitute Hulman Center’s bowels. As others grabbed their coats or polished off the last of their dinner drinks, Joe and I walked away from the crowded floor and down one of those hallways hoping to meet the coach face-to-face. We did.
He was gracious as we handed him our programs to sign and kicked the toes of our shoes like school kids. I asked him who had written a poem he had recited during his presentation, and he simply said, “I did,” and grinned the same grin that I’d seen as championship nets had been hung around his neck. He asked for my address, because upon learning that I, too, taught English and coached basketball, he wanted to mail something to me.
I didn’t figure I would hear from Coach Wooden again, so I pushed his promise into the back of my mind to go in search of a frame for my autographed program. Months later, a bulging package arrived at my home. Among its contents was that poem, written out in Wooden’s neat hand on his own note paper. Along with it was a small autographed card that held his universally admired “Pyramid of Success.”
Wooden, of course, is a basketball legend. He won 10 NCAA men’s championships — seven in row from 1966 to 1973. He won more than 80 percent of the games he coached; his consecutive winning streak of 88 games is untouched. He led Bruins teams to four undefeated seasons and won 19 Pac 10 titles; he won 149 of the 151 games he coached on his home floor at Pauley Pavilion. The list goes on and on…
But Joe and I went to listen to Wooden that night, not because we hoped he’d share a drill or a play with us that would help our teams win, but because we already had come to know his wisdom through reading his autobiography, “They Call Me Coach.” We were Wooden converts, acolytes who were hardly the same two men who once hoped that the former Indiana State University basketball coach would start losing at UCLA because he was almost certainly beating Indiana or Purdue or Notre Dame like a toy drum.
The second time I met Wooden came at a basketball clinic in Indianapolis. He had to be helped to the stage, for his knees were in even worse shape in those days before his replacement surgeries. He spoke about the “little things” that made him a success, and I sat arrow-straight in my seat, pen and notebook in hand, and jotted down virtually every word he said. He shared tales about “Lewis” (Alcindor, or Kareem Abdul Jabbar) and “William” (Bill Walton), even about how to put socks on the UCLA way. He spoke of rules and discipline and team over self and humility, yet many of my neighboring coaches that day rudely whispered among themselves, apparently thinking that what Wooden spoke of was a waste of time.
It is an oft-repeated question as to whether Wooden could coach now, and if so, could he still win. We don’t question that there is still a place for integrity and wisdom and rules in college basketball; we just wonder if coaches can still win by advocating them.
Solomon also wrote in his first chapter of Proverbs, “Let the wise listen and add to their learning.”
That’s exactly what we should be doing when John Wooden speaks.
Mike Lunsford can be reached at hickory913@aol.com, or through regular mail c/o the Tribune-Star, P.O. Box 149, Terre Haute, IN 47808. He will be signing his new book, “The Off Season, The Newspaper Stories of Mike Lunsford,” at the Arts Illiana Art Gallery on North Sixth Street from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday, and at the Vigo County Public Library’s Author Accolades from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. He will be at the Rockville and Marshall, Ill., libraries Dec. 9 and 11, respectively, and at the Brazil Coffee Co. in Brazil on Dec. 13. Visit his Web site at www.mikelunsford.com.
Mike Lunsford
The Off Season: ‘More precious than rubies…’
- Mike Lunsford
-
-
A walk in the woods
I went for a walk in the woods one day last week after work. It was a warm and green afternoon, and a fresh blue breeze blew in from the west like a new spring friend.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: ‘Dowsers’ provide hope more than science
My grandfather was a man of God. Many times I saw him, his right hand held high in the air at his Wednesday night “prayer meeting,” praising the Lord before weeping at the altar on his knees. And yet, he was a “dowser,” a “diviner,” a “witcher” who, as a favor, would grab a forked sassafras stick and find water for some poor unfortunate whose well had gone dry.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: As of today, it’s unofficially spring
Despite the calendar telling us not to rush things, I think it is all right to go ahead and say spring is here. The Ides of March has passed, Easter is coming soon, and I have already been out in my yard with a rake, getting my boots muddy. It looks like spring to me.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: Twain’s Sawyer helps us yearn for ‘wilderness of childhood’
My cousin, Roger, stopped in one day last summer for a glass of tea and a little conversation. Rog has lived an hour’s drive away for years and now, and besides summer reunions, I don’t see him nearly often enough. He’s a good man who has raised a good family, and he owns a healthy sense of appreciation for not only the life he has now, but also the lives we had years ago as kids.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: Cheerful green of wheat fights winter blahs
There is a light drizzle of freezing rain tapping at the door of my cabin today. It is little more than a week before the words I am writing are due to appear on your breakfast table or work desk with your morning coffee and scrambled eggs. But I write when I can, and today, despite a full schedule of televised football games, and the stacks of ungraded papers in my briefcase, and a good book lying open on my nightstand, I am clacking away on a keyboard to the whir of a heater and the steady drip of my gutters.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: On the simple joys of watching it snow ...
It began to snow about 20 minutes ago, as I write this, light, wind-driven flakes that fall silently into my woods as I watch from a window.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: On this day above all, ‘Peace on earth, good will to men’
More than a year after his wife’s death, the great American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, wrote in his diary on Christmas Day.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: Remembering a Lefty Frizzell-kind of Christmas ...
My brother and sister and I sat around a Thanksgiving dinner table a month ago, shifting in our seats just enough to make our yet-to-be digested turkey sit a little more easily, and, as we often do when we get together, we reminisced about our childhoods for a while.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: The wonders of wading in ‘The Iridescence of a Shallow Stream’
I have no idea how many times I have written a story that begins with the wistful phrase, “When I was a boy. ...”
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: Little man who came to dinner changes feel of household
My 7-year-old nephew, Carson, came to visit us last week. That in itself isn’t earth-shattering news, for he often drops by with one of his parents or the other, the last time dressed as a ghoul for Halloween. But for a couple like Joanie and me, whose youngest child is now nearly two decades past Carson’s age, having a little guy like him in the house, even for a few hours, takes a bit of adjusting.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: Reflections: a bit of red glass and our daily thanksgivings
I sat in the half-light of my old desk lamp a few nights ago, a chilly wind blowing in from the northwest that made me appreciative of my long-sleeved shirt and purring heater.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: Growing up — and ‘old’ — with many mouths to feed
At our family reunion last summer, I asked my brother if I could borrow a pair of photo albums he had put together. Over the past couple of years, I have committed quite a few of our family’s old yellowing snapshots to newly cropped and digitalized lives, and I wanted to do the same with some of the pictures John has collected for himself.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: Violets in October – a pleasant surprise
I guess I don’t pay much attention to the weather forecasts these days because it surprised me a bit when our furnace kicked on a few nights ago.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: A library is a good thing — even a little, homegrown one
I grew up with libraries, and I can’t imagine there ever being a time when I won’t want to wander one exploring it like some bookworm-Balboa, finding an author or title that I never really knew existed before. Creating those “Eureka” moments seems to be a dying interest now that so many of us download and digest books electronically without ever really considering that there just might be some hidden gem we’d have liked even more had we simply stumbled upon it on a shelf by accident. I think those moments of discovery are not unlike kicking up lost treasure a mile from where X marks the spot.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: The ‘soothsayer’ who came to dinner
I’ve had a good time opening my mail these past few weeks. Sure, I still received the usual junk about lower credit card rates and satellite television packages, but the genuine letters made me smile; most were about a story I wrote in late August.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: The agony of de‘feet’ has this writer on his heels
I don’t know if I can electrocute myself by using a computer and soaking my feet in a pan of warm water at the same time, but I am contemplating taking the risk. My feet, particularly the right foot, have staged a 10-digit rebellion over the past few months. After a half-century of commendable service, my pods are screaming to be taken in for repairs, a big inconvenience for a guy who works on his feet all day and whose “sole” form of serious exercise is putting one foot in front of another walking the local roadways.
-
Mike Lunsford: Summer’s hidden beauty worth the wait
The great naturalist John Burroughs once said that nature teaches more than she preaches. I can’t recall a summer where that rings true more than this one, for that old sun of ours truly taught us a thing or two these past three months.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: It’s time to redefine the concept of ‘assisted living’
Although it has been nearly two months now, I can’t forget the few afternoon hours I spent on a hot June day this summer at a local “assisted living” facility in town. I had been asked to speak to a group of men there about Father’s Day, but for most part, the wonderful old guys who came to listen certainly made my day more memorable than I did theirs.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: Observations on smooth stones and blue-green water…
It was raining when I began to write this. Although no one could rightfully call what we got this afternoon a “downpour,” it was nice to have my windows open to hear the steady drops of a passing shower tapping on my dry-as-dust deck and hard-as-concrete yard.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: This summer has us recalling the heat of ’36
It was “only” 99 degrees one afternoon last week when I decided to work on a backyard deck. With a jack and a drill and a little more sweat than I wanted to invest in the project, I went about the business of leveling its sags and dips a bit. The sun pounded down on my head and shoulders like a thug’s blackjack, but as I packed my tools and drank a glass of cool water under a big maple tree a few hours later, I couldn’t help but think about how lucky I’ve been these past few dusty and drought-stricken weeks. I have worked under this summer’s heat lamp for only a few hours at a time, but God help the roofers and utility linesmen and firemen, and so many others, who are out in it day after long hot day.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: We had no better friend than Andy Taylor
The world is a sadder place now that Andy Griffith has died, but at least we still have Andy Taylor.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: Wading deeper into the subject of Blue Herons
Like a relative who has worn out his welcome, the hot, parched weather of this young summer has already overstayed its visit with us, so my wife and I have found ourselves walking our road later in the evenings to keep our feet cool and our backs dry.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: Thanking two dads whose gifts have never stopped coming…
It is nearly a week until Father’s Day, but I have had my dad, and my father-in-law — a second dad to me — on my mind today. I wrote about both men just a few weeks ago, but I have set my mind to write about them again anyway. I don’t want this story to be sad; they both loved to laugh and wouldn’t want that. No, I just wanted to tell them hello, and to thank them again for what they still do for me.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: Raising a flag for my father, veteran or not
My daughter, Ellen, and I stood at my parents’ graves on Mother’s Day a few weeks back and talked about how it couldn’t possibly have been so long since we lost them. My dad, for instance, has been gone for 16 years, and that is nearly unimaginable
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: Time to become one of the boys of summer again …
Besides writing for a living, I teach school, and I’m not ashamed to tell people that I still love my classroom. I’ve been a teacher for 33 years, all of them in the same school district, and virtually all of them in the same building. But I also have to tell you that if the next few weeks don’t slide by pretty quickly, I may just let loose of the last thread of sanity from which I have been dangling for a while now. There are a lot of teachers out there who feel the same way.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: It’s time for us to get the real lowdown on dirt…
I have had my hands in the soil as of late. Two Fridays ago, I planted a viburnum bush, three chrysanthemums and a yellow poplar, not because it happened to be Earth Day, but because it was sunny and warm, and I had the whole afternoon to myself. The dirt I scraped out of and back into the shallow holes I dug near a backyard picket fence smelled good, and when dampened with a few sprinkles of water, it soon found its way into the deep wrinkles of my knuckles and under my fingernails. For the most part, I have nothing but good things to say about dirt.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: Make big money: Raise worms at home for fun and profit…
When I think about all of the crazy things my brother and sister and I did just to make a few dollars when we were kids, I can’t help but feel a little sorry for teens this summer as they try to find jobs in what is supposed to be a very tight market. Money, to say the least, was a rare commodity when we were growing up, but you have to at least give us credit for trying.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: ‘When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d…’
Had white lace curtains been hanging in the west window of my cabin, I would have had a perfect Wyeth painting to watch last Thursday. A gentle breeze was wafting through my screens, and the sunlight of a warm late March day was fractured by the window sill as it poured onto my legs and feet. I could catch the scent of lilacs as it was carried in by that wind, and it and the subtle melody of the chimes that hang just outside made me as lazy as an old cat.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: A report from the country as a new season brings sense of renewal
Regardless of what the calendar may yet say, spring has happened. It couldn’t have come too soon, and it wasn’t just last week and its windy 70s that have convinced me. I have been keeping a journal of sorts in my head for a fortnight now, stashing away reports of birds and buds and sounds in the crammed cabinets of my mind, all in a file marked, “The New Season.”
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: Feeding time at the homestead draws a host of new guests
I stepped outside into the warmth of an unusually mild early March morning last week to do what I always do just before I grab my briefcase and book bag and lunch bag and head off to work. It’s nearly always dark when I leave, even as the sun gets up earlier and earlier in the late winter, so I often go about the business of feeding our cats with porch lights on and a flashlight in hand.
- More Mike Lunsford Headlines
-
Raw: Trucker Bumps I-5 Bridge Before Collapse
Officials: Tsarnaev Friend Linked to Slaying
Major Detours Following Wash. Bridge Collapse
Raw: Texas Deputy Shot by Colo. Suspect Honored
Bridge Collapse Survivor: 'Rough Day'
American Held in Grisly Czech Murders
Raw: Jersey Shore Reopens for Summer
Obama:Sexual Assault Threatens Trust in Military
UK-bound Pakistan Plane Diverted, 2 Men Arrested
Suspect in Killing of Officer Found Dead in Cell
Raw: Memorial Day Flags Placed at Arlington
Jersey Shore Open for Business
Raw Video: Washington State Bridge Collapse
First Person: Mom Discusses Famous Tornado Photo
Officials: Truck Hit Bridge Before Collapse
New Wheelchair Lift Promises More Access
Today in History May 24
Boy Scouts Approve Plan to Accept Gay Boys
Johnson: Don't Blame Islam or UK Policy
Sheriff: No Sign Killing of 2 Kids Was Planned
AK-47-wielding thug may be the most bumbling crook ever
Oklahoma Survivors, Heroes Survey Damage
Trout's cycle a boost for Angels
Raw: New Video of Deadly Oklahoma Tornado
Kim Kardashian Flaunts Pregnant Bikini Body in Greece
NBA star pledges $1M to help tornado recovery
Shakira's Shocking Talent
Morgan Freeman falls asleep on air
GRAPHIC: Blood-Soaked Machete Killer Caught on Tape
Elin Nordegren Furious With Lindsey Vonn For Parading Kids in Public
Camera Captures Climber As He Loses Grip And Falls
Helen Mirren Meets with Dying Boy in Queen Elizabeth's Place
Crowd Chants '¡Si, Se Puede!' After Passage of Immigration Bill
DWTS Crowns a Winner
Police Ram House to End Hostage Standoff
Demi Moore a Rocks Bikini at Harry Morton's Family House
Anthony Weiner: I'm running for New York City mayor
Kate Middleton's Dress Flies Up
VIRAL: Baby makes epic soccer goal
The Hangover Baby All Grown Up
