5 lessons young athletes can still learn from the legendary John Wooden

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5 lessons young athletes can still learn from the legendary John Wooden

Stephen Borelli, USA TODAY · USA TODAY Sports

Tue, Sep 17, 2024 ·

11 min read

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Even when you play for John Wooden, you have regrets.

It took Andy Hill 25 years after leaving his college campus to realize how much Wooden meant to him. Those were lost years in which he could have learned even more from the late UCLA men's basketball coach.

"I'm the butt of the joke," Hill, a little-used guard on three Bruins national championship teams in the early 1970s, tells USA TODAY Sports. "I'm the laugh of the punch line. Twenty-five years? Really?"

Hill thought Wooden didn't care much about him because he was a reserve. He was more stern father than coach.

It's true that Wooden paid more attention to his starters than his bench players. But when Hill allowed himself to open his eyes to the bigger picture, he realized Wooden was instructing all of his players equally.

After Hill became president of CBS Productions, he realized his most valuable life lessons came from his coach. That's when he reached back out to Wooden … 2½ decades later.

He and "Coach", as Hill always recalled Wooden, collaborated on a top-selling book on leadership, "Be Quick – But Don't Hurry!" That was in 2001, and the men continued an enduring friendship until Wooden died at 99 in 2010.

As they grew closer, Hill told his coach he thought Wooden didn't give him enough attention when they were at UCLA. "I'm really sorry," Wooden replied. "I should have done better."

Wooden, UCLA's coach from 1948-1975, believed part of the definition of success is you never quite get there. The journey of self-discovery is more important, and each day was an opportunity to get better, not just to win.

John Wooden, seen here during the 1971-72 season, guided UCLA to 10 national championships.

"Wooh, he was a curious guy," Hill, now 73, said in our interview last week. "He was always looking to find out about people, which is why, most of the time, when I would take people over to his apartment after breakfast, and I'd walk 'em out, they'd start to cry. Almost every one of them. 'Wow, John Wooden was asking me all these questions?' … He knew more about them than they knew about him."

More than 13 years after Wooden's death, one wonders what the coach who won a record 10 Division I men's basketball national titles (twice as many as Mike Krzyzewski) would think of today's sports landscape? Amateurs are monetized and the desire to win outweighs teaching players the proper manner in which to go about it – and that's just at the youth level.

We can still listen to Wooden. We can think of sports, particularly youth sports, as a journey to discover strong characteristics about ourselves; the focus should not just be on the end results.

Here are five tips Wooden embodied that could empower your young athlete in today's sports world:

1. Your character matters more than your reputation

I thought about Wooden when we got home from my son's 14-and-under baseball tournament in Maryland last weekend. I had watched a hitter on the other team, at the instruction of his coach, call timeout to tie his shoes and adjust his batting gloves for at least 30 seconds.

This would be a fairly ordinary move unless you consider the fact that youth travel baseball is timed, and the umpire had just announced there were five minutes left in the game. This team was stalling to kill the rest of the clock because it was ahead.

Baseball, of course, isn't timed in this manner in high school, college or the pros. And yet stalling when ahead is a practice I have seen a number of times in both of my sons' pre-high school baseball careers.

I related this story to Hill, who told me one of his life's disappointments was not creating a certification process for coaches of youth sports based on Wooden's teachings.

"Most people who coach kids are frustrated former athletes or people who didn't quite make it, and they really don't understand what the goal is and what the job and really get no instruction in it," says Hill, who now watches kids sports as a grandfather. "And it's sad because, as I know at 73, in those teenage years coaches have more time with your youngsters than you do. And the youngster is much more interested in what the coach has to say than what you have to say."

What I saw in Maryland wasn't the type of lesson Wooden had in mind when he said he was more teacher than coach. Wooden, who taught English to high schoolers in Indiana before he went to California, created what was termed the "Pyramid of Success." The pyramid gave those under his supervision something to aspire to other than a high mark on a test or a lot of points in a game.

It stacked 25 personal traits and characteristics − from loyalty and cooperation at the bottom to competitive greatness at the top − that he thought essential for success.

These coaches at my son's tournament perhaps weren't officially breaking any rules, but they were violating a foundational principle of Wooden's pyramid: Team spirit.

Team spirit is not just listening to your coaches because they say to do something. It's listening to yourself. If you, or your teammates or parents, sense something that doesn't seem right, it probably isn't.

Wooden defined team spirit as "a genuine consideration for others. An eagerness to sacrifice personal interest of glory for the welfare of all."

This coach's reputation might be for winning but his character will be defined by how his team went about doing it. Don't let your character as an athlete be defined in this way, too.

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2. In sports, and in life, you control one thing: You

If you're playing to win without embracing the skills and habits it takes to win, you're missing a key point: We try to win so we can get better. Getting better, not just winning, helps us make high school teams and develop life skills that help us face adversity.

Wooden equated success with putting forth one's best effort to achieve his or her full potential, which brought peace of mind.

"There is nothing more satisfying for a teacher than watching his students making his lessons their own," he said.

Game time, to Wooden, was a chance for his players to showcase how much they had learned in working toward achieving that potential.

He rarely "coached" during games, preferring to sit and watch his players execute what he had thoroughly prepared them to do. For the same reason, he didn't like to call timeouts.

If we have ingrained good lessons from our parents and coaches, we don't need to look at those figures during games. We just need to look within ourselves.

"When the game starts, the coach's job is really over," says Hill, applying the name of one of the chapters in the book he co-wrote with Wooden. "Let the kid go. Empower him. Tell him you trust him. Don't hover."

If you look around at your kids' games, you'll see how many parents hover. These same parents loudly challenge the calls of umpires and referees . Let your kids influence the results of games. Don't try and do it yourself.

3. Know how to win and how to lose ...

When their "win" was sealed at my son's tournament, the other team's players taunted ours by telling them to "have a nice trip home." They were happy, solely because they won.

How would they have reacted if they had lost? Youth and travel sports tend to be consumed by end results. Coaches of many club teams charge large fees for you to play for them; parents pay that money expecting to win.

But when we focus solely on winning, we forget the sports journey always has a winner and a loser. How you react to both situations, and react within the journey to get there, equally help shape you as an athlete and as a person.

When you know you have done your best, you can walk calmly to the other team and shake hands. Self control is another foundation of Wooden's pyramid, and we saw it every time he sat seemingly emotionless on the bench as he observed his players, win or lose.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar shakes head coach John Wooden's hand as he comes off the court.

Remember, those players are watching the coach , too. In practice, even if he was strict, Wooden never used profanities. If your coach uses them, it doesn't mean you have to do it, too.

"I love Mick Cronin," Hill said of UCLA's current men's basketball coach. "(But) I wish Mick didn't swear, just because I know that, ultimately, it's not informative; it doesn't help you as a teacher… For some reason, our sports courts are the only places where that language is still allowed. And it gives people a very false impression that they might be able to use it elsewhere… The truth of it is, actually, you can't. You'll get fired very, very quickly.

"The interesting thing is, if you watch NBA games, those coaches don't (swear at) their players at all. They're millionaires; they can't do that."

4. ... but like Caleb Williams, it's OK to show emotion along the way

Late in life, when Wooden reconnected with Hill, he told him there was one trait he regretted leaving out of his pyramid: Love. Out of nowhere, Wooden once told Hill in those years that he loved him. He was learning to express himself better.

Think about USC quarterback Caleb Williams' reaction to his team's loss to Washington last weekend . Williams ran over to his family in the stands and leapt into their arms. He started to cry.

"I love seeing Caleb Williams crying on the sidelines," Hill says. "You should care. Kid puts his heart and soul into it. And the end of the day, that's part of what sports teaches you to do. And guess what? It also teaches you the next morning you get up and you go back to work."

When your young athletes try their best but loses, don't scold them for coming up short. Show them some love. Wooden would agree.

When he and Hill made appearances together, the single most asked question of the coach was: "What do you think of Bobby Knight?" Wooden was a native of the state where Knight rose to fame as a college basketball coach known for winning but also for demoralizing his players with his words, and sometimes his actions.

"He would do a minute and a half of the finest, down-home Indiana kiss-his-ass potpourri you have ever heard," Hill says of Wooden. "And then finish with one line: 'I just wouldn't want anyone I love to play for him.' "

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5. The side with the best players usually wins but we need to see what happens

The opposing coach last weekend also spoke to the heavy-hitting first baseman on my son's team. While coaching first base, he told our player he should come play for their team. You know, the winning team.

Wooden often said it himself: The team with the best players almost always wins. He also had a slew of All-Americans on his teams, including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Walton, Sidney Wicks and Henry Bibby.

But Wooden also found many hidden gems. He didn't just seek out players with skills, but also the temperament and ability to withstand pressure. (He also once didn't offer a player a scholarship because he felt the player was rude to his mother during a recruiting visit.)

In youth sports, coaches often try and load up on talent in hopes of winning as many games as possible. Remember, though, if you're playing at this level, talent doesn't matter nearly as much as it does in college or the pros. I would argue that many of the traits that make up Wooden's pyramid have a stronger impact when talent isn't as dominant a factor.

Among these qualities: Enthusiasm, loyalty, friendship, industriousness, intentness, initiative, alertness, self-control, team spirit, poise and confidence.

Unranked James Madison's men's basketball team won on the home floor of No. 4 Michigan State by exhibiting many of these qualities. Most everyone would agree the Dukes had inferior talent.

The next time you watch a major upset in sports, think of some of Wooden's keys that make up a successful athlete. Then consider how many of these qualities your youth team has.

If you look closely, the outcome, win or lose, is firmly in your hands.

Steve Borelli, aka Coach Steve, has been an editor and writer with USA TODAY since 1999. He spent 10 years coaching his two sons' baseball and basketball teams. He and his wife, Colleen, are now sports parents for a high schooler and middle schooler. His column is posted weekly. For his past columns, click here .

Got a question for Coach Steve you want answered in a column? Email him at sborelli@usatoday.com

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: UCLA legend John Wooden gave plenty of lessons young athletes can use

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