Rubbing shoulders with ‘great ones’ still inspiring

News out of Los Angeles that former UCLA men’s basketball coach John Wooden has returned home from a rehab center after recovering from a fall brought back a lot of memories for this coach. The sprightly gentleman is 97 years young.

Back when I began to coach basketball, Wooden and his UCLA Bruins were at the height of Division I hoops fame.

At that time, I was beginning my interscholastic coaching career at Boston Junior High School in rural Indiana. My assistant coach, Jim Robertson, a former star player at nearby Winchester High School, encouraged me to attend a coaches’ clinic with him in nearby Cincinnati to hear the likes of the aforementioned Wooden of UCLA fame, Dean Smith of North Carolina fame and Gene Bartow, who was hanging his hat then at Memphis State as their coach.

What a time we had.

When it was Coach Wooden’s turn to speak, he calmly sat down on the front of the temporary staging and removed one of his Puma sneakers, tossing it carefully into the crowd.

“Lightest shoe I ever wore,” he said.

“I bet most of you don’t even know how to properly tie a sneaker,” he added.

The legendary coach would go on to demonstrate the Wooden way to tie sneakers so that they don’t come untied.

“In our gym – a game or practice – if your shoe comes untied, you’re off the floor and you don’t go back in.”

Attention to detail had always been Wooden’s reputation, but none of us in the crowd had any idea just how detailed he was until that spring day in Cincinnati.

I would be back in Maine in a couple of years, and one of the first things I wanted to do was run a clinic comparable to the one Jim and I attended together.

I figured I’d start at the top and invite coaches Wooden, Smith and Bartow to my very first clinic.

I started with Wooden.

No one was more surprised than I was when the legendary coach answered his own phone at UCLA.

I introduced myself, and we talked briefly about the Ohio clinic. I was disappointed when he politely told me about his long-term contract with the Medalist/MacGregor people for speaking engagements and writing about his famous Pyramid of Success. I was saddened, but I kept thinking how important Coach Wooden made me feel.

“Good luck,” he said.

Next up, I tried Dean Smith who, for the record, did not answer his own phone. He, too, was locked into the same sponsor for speaking. Uh-oh, I’m thinking, is this the way my clinic-running career is going to go?

It wasn’t.

Coach Bartow was cordial and even offered me advice on what to pay these Division I big boys. From there, we added Ray Meyer from DePaul, and we had ourselves quite an entourage of speakers for our first two clinics in Maine.

This is the time of the year when I always think back on how neat it was to rub shoulders with some of the nation’s elite in coaching. Whether it was Dave Odom from Wake Forest – he is now at South Carolina – or Johnny Orr at Michigan – he’s now retired after a stint at Iowa State – we had the chance to hang around with some great ones.

All this so-called March Madness always takes me back to the day I saw John Wooden in person, and the many pearls of wisdom he imparted to each of us in attendance.

30-Second Time Out

As the so-called Sweet 16 teams make their way to the men’s Final Four in the next round, I couldn’t help thinking about a similar clinic I attended in New Mexico in 1983 at the Final Four with then-UMaine men’s hoop boss Thomas “Skip” Chappelle. Skip gave me the guided tour of all the D-I great coaches’ hangouts, most notably then-Northeastern coach Jim Calhoun’s, who today hangs his hat at UConn. He has won two national titles there.

March Madness may be a tad politically incorrect – yes, it is – but in my house it’s March Gladness, for spring is truly on its way.

Like Calhoun, Skip would’ve excelled further in coaching if given the opportunity in a larger program. He remains a Maine legend as a player and as a coach.

bdnsports@bangordailynews.net