In honor of what would have been John Wooden’s 100th birthday, the Los Angeles Daily News constructed a panel of reporters that covered the legendary UCLA coach over the years for a discussion on his life and coaching career.
Steve Bisheff, Joe Jares, Jill Painter, Ron Rapoport and Kevin Modesti discussed Wooden’s life for nearly an hour, reflecting on the “Wizard of Westwood.”
I would say his greatest contribution is his wisdom and his Pyramid of Success,” said Painter, a columnist for the Daily News, on Wooden’s legacy. “And we have so much still from his wisdom of all these quotes and maxims that he had, ‘Make each day your masterpiece,’ and the beauty of it is that everybody … I mean my sister has his Pyramid of Success in her classroom, she uses it. She doesn’t coach basketball, she uses it with her kids. His wisdom can be used, and is, from the CEO of Starbucks to me, to you, to children in his children’s books.”
While we all know Wooden as the greatest college basketball coach of all-time, most people forget that he was also one helluva basketball player during his era.
He was the Michael Jordan of his time,” said Bisheff, a former sports columnist at the Orange County Register. “They considered him that.”
Wooden died of natural causes on June 4 at the age of 99.