Subject: A Great Coach....

On Tuesday the best man I know will do what he always does on the 21st
of the month. He'll sit down and pen a love letter to his best girl.He'll say how much he misses her and loves her and can't wait to see
her again.

Then he'll fold it once, slide it in a little envelope and walk into
his bedroom. He'll go to the stack of love letters sitting there on her

pillow, untie the yellow ribbon, place the new one on top and tie the
ribbon again. The stack will be 180 letters high then, because Tuesday
is 15 years to the day since Nellie, his beloved wife of 53 years,
died.

In her memory, he sleeps only on his half of the bed, only on his
pillow, only on top of the sheets, never between, with just the old
bedspread they shared to keep him warm.

There's never been a finer man in American sports than John Wooden, or
a finer coach. He won 10 NCAA basketball championships at UCLA, the
last in 1975. Nobody has ever come within six of him.

He won 88 straight games between January 30, 1971, and January 17,
1974.
Nobody has come within 42 since.

So, sometimes, when the Basketball Madness gets to be too much -- too
many players trying to make Sports Center, too few players trying to
make assists, too few coaches willing to be mentors, too many freshmen
with out-of-wedlock kids, too few freshmen who will stay in school long

enough to become men -- I like to go see Coach Wooden.

I visit him in his little condo in Encino, 20 minutes northwest of Los
Angeles, and hear him say things like "Gracious sakes alive!" and tell
stories about teaching "Lewis" the hook shot. Lewis Alcindor, that
is...who became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

There has never been another coach like Wooden, quiet as an April snow
and square as a game of checkers; loyal to one woman, one school, one
way; walking around campus in his sensible shoes and Jimmy Stewart
morals.

He'd spend a half hour the first day of practice teaching his men how
to put on a sock. "Wrinkles can lead to blisters," he'd warn. These
huge players would sneak looks at one another and roll their eyes.
Eventually, they'd do it right. "Good," he'd say. "And now for the
other foot."

Of the 180 players who played for him, Wooden knows the whereabouts of
172. Of course, it's not hard when most of them call, checking on his
health, secretly hoping to hear some of his simple life lessons so that

they can write them on the lunch bags of their kids, who will roll
their eyes.


"Discipline yourself, and others won't need to," Coach would say.
"Never lie, never cheat, never steal," and "Earn the right to be proud
and confident."

If you played for him, you played by his rules: Never score without
acknowledging a teammate. One word of profanity, and you're done for
the day. Treat your opponent with respect.

He believed in hopelessly out-of-date stuff that never did anything but

win championships. No dribbling behind the back or through the legs.
"There's no need," he'd say.

No UCLA basketball number was retired under his watch. "What about the
fellows who wore that number before? Didn't they contribute to the
team?" he'd say.

No long hair, no facial hair. "They take too long to dry, and you could

catch cold leaving the gym," he'd say. That one drove his players
bonkers.

One day, All-America center Bill Walton showed up with a full beard.
"It's my right," he insisted. Wooden asked if he believed that
strongly.
Walton said he did.

"That's good, Bill," Coach said. "I admire people who have strong
beliefs and stick by them, I really do. We're going to miss you."
Walton shaved it right then and there. Now Walton calls once a week to
tell Coach he loves him.

It's always too soon when you have to leave the condo and go back out
into the real world, where the rules are so much grayer and the teams
so much worse.

As Wooden shows you to the door, you take one last look around. The
framed report cards of his great-grandkids, the boxes of jelly beans
peeking out from under the favorite wooden chair, the dozens of
pictures of Nellie.

He's almost 90 now. You think a little more hunched over than last
time.
Steps a little smaller. You hope it's not the last time you see him. He

smiles. "I'm not afraid to die," he says. "Death is my only chance to
be with her again."

Problem is, we still need him here.