Many years ago I wrote a book titled "The Art of Being An Assistant Coach" in which I created a survey and sent to the top head coaches around the nation including Coach Wooden. One of the greatest thrills of my coaching career was having Coach Dale Brown arrange for me to spend a day with him in his apartment in Inglewood, California. My time with Coach Wooden was so incredible that I wrote an entire chapter in my book based on some of our conversations. Here is just a brief excerpt:It was one of the most educational times in my coaching life as well as one of the most thrilling. The date was October 15, 1993, and I was in a rental car heading down the Los Angeles freeway system to spend an afternoon with Coach John Wooden.
To some degree it was somewhat of a pilgrimage; having the opportunity to fly cross country to speak with not just an outstanding basketball coach, but very much a wise man in a great number of areas, especially life. The trip was annual in some form for the LSU basketball staff. Annually Coach Brown maded the trip and from time to time he would take a member of his staff.
During the early days of October, Coach Brown had me over to his house one evening to watch a video tape he had on Coach Wooden speaking at a clinic and talking about his basic coaching philosophy. When I casually mentioned what a thrill it would be to meet Coach Wooden and actually sit down and talk some basketball, Coach Brown got up, went to his office, wrote down Coach Wooden’s phone number on a piece of paper and handed it to me.
“We don’t start practice this year until November 1,” explained Coach Brown. “Why don’t you call John up and make a date before the season.”
I was almost in disbelief. Why would Coach Wooden agree to spend an afternoon with me? After my phone call, I soon found out that Coach Wooden was a gracious as he was wise, and I was soon bound for California.
I spend almost two entire days studying for my trip. I glanced through Coach Wooden’s book Practical Modern Basketball. I sat down and wrote out all the questions in advance that I thought would be the best to get his answers. I then loaded up a tape recorder and some cassettes and I was ready to go. During the session I asked him his opinion on several things from the following areas: philosophy, strategy then and now, practice organization, conditioning, offensive philosophies and fundamentals, the UCLA pressing system, academic philosophy, discipline, avoiding complacency, leadership and captains, scouting, tournament preparation, and how to keep the saw sharpened.
I also found out very quickly that LSU was not the only program that went out to gather information from this coaching legend. The day before I had arrived, he had spent the entire day with Jim Harrick’s staff on the UCLA campus. The day before that he had been with George Raveling at the University of Southern California.
Above all, I was highly interested in what he thought were important qualities for a top notch assistant coach. After all, he had accomplished things in college basketball as a coach that had never been done before and will never again be done. He also had some tremendous assistants pass through under him naming Denny Crum and Gary Cunningham as a near perfect staff. His players also went on to outstanding coaching careers including Crum, Cunningham, Jerry Norman, Larry Farmer, and Walt Hazzard.
It was fascinating that on the survey that I sent to Coach Wooden that he did not rank them in any order. He simply wrote, “They are all extremely important. But we should remember that it is more important to have character than characteristics.”
To some degree it was somewhat of a pilgrimage; having the opportunity to fly cross country to speak with not just an outstanding basketball coach, but very much a wise man in a great number of areas, especially life. The trip was annual in some form for the LSU basketball staff. Annually Coach Brown maded the trip and from time to time he would take a member of his staff.
During the early days of October, Coach Brown had me over to his house one evening to watch a video tape he had on Coach Wooden speaking at a clinic and talking about his basic coaching philosophy. When I casually mentioned what a thrill it would be to meet Coach Wooden and actually sit down and talk some basketball, Coach Brown got up, went to his office, wrote down Coach Wooden’s phone number on a piece of paper and handed it to me.
“We don’t start practice this year until November 1,” explained Coach Brown. “Why don’t you call John up and make a date before the season.”
I was almost in disbelief. Why would Coach Wooden agree to spend an afternoon with me? After my phone call, I soon found out that Coach Wooden was a gracious as he was wise, and I was soon bound for California.
I spend almost two entire days studying for my trip. I glanced through Coach Wooden’s book Practical Modern Basketball. I sat down and wrote out all the questions in advance that I thought would be the best to get his answers. I then loaded up a tape recorder and some cassettes and I was ready to go. During the session I asked him his opinion on several things from the following areas: philosophy, strategy then and now, practice organization, conditioning, offensive philosophies and fundamentals, the UCLA pressing system, academic philosophy, discipline, avoiding complacency, leadership and captains, scouting, tournament preparation, and how to keep the saw sharpened.
I also found out very quickly that LSU was not the only program that went out to gather information from this coaching legend. The day before I had arrived, he had spent the entire day with Jim Harrick’s staff on the UCLA campus. The day before that he had been with George Raveling at the University of Southern California.
Above all, I was highly interested in what he thought were important qualities for a top notch assistant coach. After all, he had accomplished things in college basketball as a coach that had never been done before and will never again be done. He also had some tremendous assistants pass through under him naming Denny Crum and Gary Cunningham as a near perfect staff. His players also went on to outstanding coaching careers including Crum, Cunningham, Jerry Norman, Larry Farmer, and Walt Hazzard.
It was fascinating that on the survey that I sent to Coach Wooden that he did not rank them in any order. He simply wrote, “They are all extremely important. But we should remember that it is more important to have character than characteristics.”
