The first basketball book I owned was Coach Wooden's "They Call Me Coach." His annual introductory letter to players particularly impressed me, with his commitment to making decisions based on the well-being of the team.
He is very much a product of his upbringing. In Steve Jamison's book he describes struggling to get the family mule (Sally?) going...his father came over and whispered something in the mule's ear which got her moving. He makes the point that yelling isn't always the best way to get your way.
An English major, he developed his success framework over years. He didn't believe in cursing. His foulest oath signifying displeasure was "Goodness gracious sakes alive."
Wooden's achievements are legendary - coach, mentor, educator, author, philosopher. He was the first man inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame as both a player and a coach.
As UCLA coach (a job he accepted when an expected call from a Big Ten school didn't come through in time), his teams won ten NCAA Championships including nine during a ten year period.
He is famous for his encyclopedic attention to detail, including his annual instruction to players about putting on their socks to prevent blisters.
Here are a few of my favorite Coach Wooden quotes:
"Never confuse activity with achievement."
"Little things make big things happen."
"Be quick but don't hurry."
"Never criticize a teammate."
"Don't whine, don't complain, and don't make excuses." (from his father)
"All progress requires change, but not all change is progress."
"Make every day your masterpiece."
From a basketball standpoint, he is renowned for his team's success, his recruitment of galactic stars (most notably Lew Alcindor/Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Walton), his "UCLA" 2-2-1 press, two guard front offenses (including the 'UCLA' cut), and the longest winning streak (88 games) in men's college hoop history. As I recall, Notre Dame and Austin Carr ended that magnificent streak. He believed that doing what his teams did best would usually outperform what in investing is called "style drift."
On the negative side, UCLA had a reputation for going up to if not over the line with boosters and mano-a-mano legendary Cal Coach Pete Newell's Bears defeated the Bruins in the last eight meetings.
In his masterwork Practical Modern Basketball, he composes a complete opus on running a basketball program, everything from basketball fundamentals to uniform specifications and three pages on the role of the manager. He discussed recommended rest and eating schedules in a remarkably "hands on" approach. He was famous for "sandwich" technique, interspersing criticism between praise.
I remember hearing him talk about Bill Walton's greatness, explaining that in practice Walton "never tired of doing the little things" that achieve greatness.
In this TED talk, he shares some of his philosophy and discusses the what and who of his "perfect player", the identity of which might surprise you.
*Apologies for any errors; I construct coaching profiles from memory for authenticity.
