John Wooden: The Coach's Greatest Coach

John Wooden was a coach, teacher, and most important a true leader. The most essential thing for a leader to have is respect and the ability to listen to those under their supervision. Leaders must know that everyone is important on the team. A leader will let them know, everyone talks to the star player, but it’s the role players who make the team. After a game, Coach Wooden would always take time to mention something a role player did, he knew everyone wanted to hear about Kareem and Bill Walton—the so-called stars, but the role players needed to feel important also. Coach Wooden was a strong believer in discipline. Wooden said, “Don’t be afraid to use appropriate discipline.” Wooden believed the bench is a coach’s best friend, if a player

It might hurt in the short term, but it will pay off in the future. The players will work harder. Coach Wooden stressed three important things to athletes before they joined the UCLA team. First they were coming to get an education and a degree. Second was basketball, it was to pay for their education and third was for social activities. As a result of these standards, Wooden in turn had 90% of his athletes earn their diplomas and graduated while coaching at UCLA.

John Wooden is one of the greatest coaches of all time, in any sport. This book gives insight on how Coach Wooden was so successful during his career. The purpose of the book is to give ideas to new and upcoming coaches. Also, it is proof that a coach can be successful without having to yell and scream or get physical with players. Most definitely, after reading this book I realized that preparation is the key to success. Preparing to the best of your ability is a true test of a winner. Coach Wooden felt preparation was the most important thing in coaching. He would have his team prepared for everything, not only game time situation, but the little things like the proper way to put on a sock or how to tie a shoe

Success is truly found in how well you prepare yourself. Coach Wooden believed that if you prepare to the best of your ability, whether you won or lost you are still a success. He feels you can only be in control of yourself, not what others do. Basically he is saying, work hard and don’t let what others do affect you. Wooden didn’t judge his success on victory or defeat. Instead he based it on how well he prepared his team and himself. Wooden coached at UCLA for over 27 years, the first 14 years in many people’s eyes, he was unsuccessful because he didn’t win a championship. Coach Wooden went on to win ten titles in 13 years; he accomplished more in little over a decade than any other coach did their entire career. Wooden disagrees with Vince Lombardi, coach of Green Bay Packers in 1958-1968 about his saying “Winning isn’t everything, it is the only thing.” I agree with Coach Wooden and his saying “You never fail if you know in your heart that you did the best of which you are