With the recent passing of the legendary Art Linkletter, 97, and John Wooden, 99, this is part two in the series that will now feature the extraordinary life and legacy of John Wooden.

‘Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out,’ was one of Art Linkletter’s favorite John Wooden quotes – and in many ways, it’s one that symbolizes much of what Wooden was truly all about.

While Wooden is likely to be remembered publicly as one of the greatest coaches of all time, personally, he always said he’d much rather his legacy be that of a teacher, because he believed educating others was his primary job. Be it in the classroom, on the court, or in corporate boardrooms, Wooden loved to teach, and his methods made an impact on everyone who had the opportuniy to learn from one of the greatest ever.

Growing up in the Midwest during the Depression, on a farm with no electricity or indoor plumbing, and one of six children, Wooden’s father, an uneducated farmer who guided the family through tough economic times, instilled in him at an early age the importance of hard work, honesty and the value of an education. 

While sports were always a part of his life – Wooden’s father built a baseball diamond among his wheat, corn and alfalfa and nailed a basketball hoop to a hayloff where he and his brothers played countless hours using any kind of ball they could find -- they weren’t Wooden’s only priority.

However, Wooden was a great athlete, there was no denying that. In high school he ran track, played baseball and became an all-state guard in basketball, leading his team to the state title in 1927. After high school, most all of the collegiate Big Ten Conference schools recruited him, but Purdue won out because of their academics and it’s renowned coach.  Interestingly enough, these were the exact same reasons why some of the top recruits signed with UCLA years later when Wooden was coach.

While Wooden was a three-time All American and led Purdue to their only national championship in 1932, his proudest collegiate honor was winning the conference Medal for Academic Achievement as an English major – an award Wooden listed as one of his most attributed accomplishments, alongside his induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame as both a player and a coach (the first person to ever do so) and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

After graduating, Wooden played semi-professional basketball -- barnstorming through the Midwest and even made 134 consecutive free throws which earned him $100 from the team’s owner – the first time he’d ever seen currency so large.

But his principal occupation was as coach and English teacher – a combination that lead him to a number of schools, teams, and winning seasons. As a young high school teacher and coach, Wooden wrote his first personal definition of success that actually became a 15-year project culminating into one of his most revered works, The Pyramid of Success. After a stint in the Navy during WWII, upon his discharge, Wooden took a job as athletic director and coach of the basketball and baseball teams at Indiana State, where he not only completed his Pyramid of Success chart, but again went on to record seasons, ultimately attracting interest from larger schools, namely the University of Minnesota and UCLA.

While both universities sought to hire him, Wooden was partial to staying in the Midwest. However, there were some ongoing negotiations with Minnesota and as it turned out, Wooden set a deadline for Minnesota to decide and when the deadline came and went without the expected phone call from them, he accepted the UCLA offer. Hours later, Minnesota called to say that a heavy snowstorm had knocked out the phone service, and while they pleaded with him to back out of his agreement with UCLA, Wooden was a man of his word.

The rest, as they say, is history and just another example of Wooden’s way to make the best of they way things turn out.

NEXT ISSUE – Part 2 in a series featuring John Wooden

Kelly Ferrin, gerontologist and author of “What’s Age Got To Do With It? Secrets to Aging in Extraordinary Ways” has been studying aging and retirement issues for over 25 years. She was one of the first to ever receive a degree in this field from the prestigious Andrus School of Gerontology at the University of Southern California, the top school in the nation for age-related studies.

website: kellyferrin.com ••• email: ageangel@earthlink.net