The Art of Manliness - #434： Legendary Coach John Wooden’s Secrets of Leadership

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00:00:58.240 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. John Wooden has

00:01:07.980 been called the greatest coach of all time. During his tenure as coach of the UCLA men's

00:01:12.160 basketball team from 1948 to 1975, he led his team to four undefeated seasons and 10 national

00:01:18.020 championships, seven of which happened in consecutive years. But the funny thing is, winning wasn't John

00:01:23.580 Wooden's goal as a coach. That was simply a happy byproduct of the ultimate aim he had for his team

00:01:29.000 both on and off the court, to perform their very best in whatever they did. My guest today had the

00:01:33.740 pleasure of working with Coach Wooden while he was still alive on several of Wooden's books about

00:01:37.520 teaching and leadership. His name is Steve Jameson, and today on the show, Steve shares some of Wooden's

00:01:41.960 best nuggets of wisdom on the pursuit of excellence. We begin our conversation discussing Coach

00:01:45.620 Wooden's definition of success and why winning wasn't part of it. Steve then shares how Wooden was able to

00:01:49.980 impart his vision to his team so effectively through his quiet but intense court presence.

00:01:54.520 Steve then digs into Wooden's famous pyramid of success and why his folksy, almost quaint advice

00:01:58.580 resonates so much with people. We end our conversation discussing how Wooden kept a check on big egos on

00:02:03.200 his team and kept success from going to his own head as well. This episode is filled with actionable,

00:02:07.800 timeless advice. After it's over, check out the show notes at aom.is slash Wooden.

00:02:19.980 Steve Jameson, welcome to the show.

00:02:26.580 Happy to talk about John Wooden with you.

00:02:29.000 Well, yeah, you've spent your career writing and working with John Wooden about basically distilling

00:02:34.320 his leadership philosophy, his coaching philosophy. I'm curious, for those who aren't familiar with him,

00:02:40.580 because he was a phenomenal coach, but some people might not be familiar with him. Give us a

00:02:45.500 thumbnail sketch of his life and career and what made him such an exceptional leader and coach.

00:02:49.980 Perhaps what sets him apart from every other coach is that record of national championships that

00:02:57.600 he accumulated, 10 national championships in 12 years, seven of them in consecutive years.

00:03:04.780 This is, he's got five or six records that are preposterous. Seven national March Madness

00:03:11.480 championships in a row is one of them starting in 1967, 1968, 1969, 70, 71, 1972, and 1973. Every year,

00:03:22.680 a March Madness national championship, 88 straight games in a row, all-time winning streak, division

00:03:29.660 one basketball, men's basketball. And the, again, some of these things are almost get silly. He has the

00:03:36.160 longest winning streak. He also has the third longest winning streak, 47 games. And in between the

00:03:43.640 University of San Francisco is in second place with 60 straight games. So it's just one thing after

00:03:49.960 another, including four perfect seasons. So that kind of separates him from the pack, a resume that

00:03:56.060 is historic.

00:03:57.820 And I'm curious, how did you connect with him? I mean, how do, and how has your life changed because

00:04:02.660 of that relationship you built up with him?

00:04:04.540 In retrospect, it's almost embarrassing because I was working on a magazine article that was

00:04:10.600 kind of exploring what top coaches did in their management and their thinking that might apply

00:04:17.220 in business. And John Wooden was nearby. I knew his record was pretty good, but I wasn't in awe of him.

00:04:26.280 This is, I'm not bragging about it. It was my own stupidity, but he was nearby and I, you know, 0.98

00:04:31.040 he had won some championships and I contacted his publisher, got his phone number, called him up and 0.98

00:04:36.580 he said, sure, I'd like to talk to you. Come on over. What's your name again? So it was a very modest

00:04:41.860 beginning. And from that, we did eight books and many of them were bestsellers. We did a book on

00:04:49.580 leadership. There's a Wall Street Journal bestseller and a PBS show called Wooden, A Values Victory and

00:04:55.540 Peace of Mind. But it started out just with his little interview. I spent three hours with him,

00:05:00.640 went home, transcribed it, and read it. And everything that he said was just a gem of wisdom,

00:05:08.280 of leadership, of practicality. And I went back and eventually talked him into doing a book

00:05:13.980 and the book led to another book, et cetera. But it was from a very modest beginning.

00:05:20.200 Right. So let's dig into that philosophy because what impresses me about John Wooden is that

00:05:28.100 unlike a lot of coaches or what we think of as a good coach, he didn't yell, he wasn't rah-rah, 0.86

00:05:35.860 yet he was an effective leader. How did he lead quietly? How was he able to convey to the people

00:05:43.420 he was coaching what he wanted and get them to do that without getting in their face and without the

00:05:48.340 typical, you know, rah-rah stuff? I think part of it was the fact that as a leader, he had a command

00:05:57.080 presence. And we did, I mentioned, eight books together. And there's so much material in there.

00:06:04.440 And people have asked me to sort of, well, distill it. And I would distill it for you in this way.

00:06:12.260 He knew his stuff. As a leader, he was made of the right stuff. And his definition of success was

00:06:21.320 radical. And all of those things go to his command presence. His ability to lead in a quiet is maybe

00:06:29.240 not the right word, but he certainly was not a screamer and a tantrum guy. It was a very firm

00:06:35.700 hand he had on the controls. He knew his stuff because he had been an All-American at Purdue.

00:06:40.820 He had been an All-State basketball player at Indiana High School, where he went to high school,

00:06:46.540 Martinsville. And at college at Purdue, he had a great coach there. So he understood the mechanics

00:06:52.020 of basketball and how to teach those mechanics. But it's that second part where his, as a leader,

00:06:58.500 he was made of the right stuff. He was a man of integrity. He was a man whose word meant something.

00:07:06.180 He was a man who did what he said. So people, his players particularly, when he said something,

00:07:12.900 he meant it and they knew it. So he didn't have to jump up and down to get their attention. And he

00:07:20.560 didn't. But he had a very firm, maybe stern approach to practices and all the rest. It was a

00:07:28.420 when he talked, people listened. And then the third part of it was his definition of success

00:07:34.080 was radical because he didn't mention winning as one of the components of being a success at the

00:07:39.100 highest level. For him, success was all about effort, not about winning. In his world, winning

00:07:46.660 was a byproduct or an after effect, a consequence of true success, which was making the effort 100%

00:07:55.120 to do the best you're capable of doing. Okay. Well, there's a lot to break down there. So let's

00:07:59.940 go back to this, his idea of success. So it wasn't winning games, but he did that in spades, as you

00:08:06.920 talked about in your, in our introduction there. So it was effort. How did he determine what, I mean,

00:08:14.320 what was the metric he used, whether a player had given 100% of his effort? What did, what was he

00:08:21.100 looking at? Well, first of all, I have to chuckle when you say metric, because in the 15 years I work

00:08:26.860 with him on a variety of projects, metric was never used, but I understand what you're saying. And,

00:08:32.180 and, and he would too. His metric, if you want to apply it to him, was the quality of effort you put

00:08:41.040 forth to bring forth your best. And in the context of teams, it would be bringing out your best in

00:08:47.760 ways that serve the team. So how, how do you know if somebody is doing their best?

00:08:54.020 You don't. And this is the, the, the, the, the tough part of applying what he says, because

00:09:00.460 you are the only one, he would say this, your boss doesn't know if you're doing the best you can do.

00:09:06.640 Your, your wife, your girlfriend, your dog, maybe your dog does, but you are the only person

00:09:13.160 that can look in the mirror and say that you truly gave all you had to give. Well, that kind

00:09:18.900 of leaves the responsibility up to the individual. And if you're the kind of individual that's given

00:09:24.700 to fooling yourself, then you're on a slippery slope. If you look in the mirror and you're honest

00:09:30.580 with yourself and you can say, I've done everything I can do, whatever the context, basketball or

00:09:35.580 business to bring out my best, you have succeeded. You are a success. His definition of success,

00:09:43.120 which, uh, if you'll let me, I'll, I'll give you right now is peace of mind. Success is peace of

00:09:51.720 mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort 100% to become the

00:10:00.580 best you're capable of being. That's a long sentence. What he's saying is success is trying

00:10:07.980 your best to be your best. And only, you know, if you've done that. So if you are fooling yourself,

00:10:14.420 you're not going to achieve the results that you're after. He called those results, by the way,

00:10:18.940 winning was, as I mentioned, it's a by-product. Success is, is in the effort. If that effort produces

00:10:24.260 winning, so be it. Sometimes you'll do your best and you'll lose. Right. Well, and you, I mean,

00:10:29.180 I'm sure as he worked with his players, he, he gained a grasp of what their best effort was.

00:10:34.520 And you highlight instances where they would win games and he'd be disappointed in their,

00:10:40.620 their effort. Right. But a good coach can understand what's going on in front of him

00:10:45.300 and a lackadaisical effort during a game, for example, you can smell that. But when the dynasty

00:10:52.860 was in the process of, of rolling, they would play teams that they would beat by 50 points,

00:10:58.740 especially preseason. And he didn't look at that score necessarily as indicating they had won the

00:11:05.680 effort that he smelled. If I can use that word on the court, what he was seeing, were they putting

00:11:11.700 forth in his view, the best they had, even though they might've been ahead by 30 points, that was his

00:11:18.020 gauge, not the final score. The same thing was done when the game was close. The score was a,

00:11:23.860 was a possible indicator that his team had achieved success in putting forth their best

00:11:31.140 effort, but it wasn't always the case. I asked him one time, coach, are you saying that you would

00:11:37.080 rather have a team put forth their best effort and lose than give a second rate effort and win?

00:11:44.520 And he, he kind of looked at me with disdain because we'd been working together for a while

00:11:50.620 and he said, haven't you been listening? My standard was effort. My standard was how hard you work to be

00:12:01.300 your best. And if you do that and lose, you have achieved success in my, in my opinion. Well, I had set

00:12:08.360 a trap for him and I said, ah, can you give me an example where you lost a game of importance and

00:12:16.260 you were happy that your team had achieved success as you defined it? And he pointed to a game, a

00:12:23.960 semifinals, a national championship, 1962. Walt Hazard was on that team, one of the great players in

00:12:29.380 college history and a great NBA player. And they were playing the defending champion. Cincinnati came

00:12:34.940 down the court. They were behind by two points with 30 seconds left. And, uh, the team had just

00:12:40.520 had a phenomenal season of cohesion and effort and preparation. They had achieved success and they

00:12:46.480 had played their hearts out in this game. And Walt Hazard was called for a foul charging. The press

00:12:52.620 later said it was a phantom foul that he hadn't charged. He hadn't, the referee saw something that

00:12:57.360 wasn't there. They lost the game. Afterwards, John Wooden went into the locker room and, and told his team,

00:13:03.940 how proud he was of them and how they had succeeded at the highest level and that they

00:13:09.800 should walk out of that locker room with their heads held high. And he suggested to me, there's

00:13:16.060 an example of a game that had a lot of consequences. We would play in the national championship for the

00:13:21.380 first time. If we won, we lost, but that team. And then he had this wonderful way of showing his

00:13:28.780 pleasure. He said that team, my, oh my, how proud I am of that team and what they did. That's the best

00:13:36.760 example that I got from him of effort is more important than the final score. Effort is everything.

00:13:44.940 So, so there, he had an immense control of his emotions. Like it wouldn't even said he, he didn't

00:13:49.700 like emotionalism. Was this something that he naturally, he was just, he naturally had the ability

00:13:54.960 to control his emotions or was this something he had developed throughout his life? Yeah, to develop, he had

00:13:59.600 a temper and it was a hot temper. When he was a kid, he would occasionally end up in fist fights. He talks

00:14:06.200 about one he had with his brother that he, his dad caught the two of them fighting and swearing and gave

00:14:13.060 him a good whipping. In those days, he weren't sent to jail for that kind of behavior. The dad taught him a

00:14:19.520 lesson though. Don't, don't let your temper get out of hand. Well, it took more than that. John

00:14:23.940 Wooden as a coach occasionally early on would let that temper get out of hand. He was a coach at

00:14:31.500 Dayton, Kentucky for two years when he was first coaching out of Purdue university and got in a

00:14:36.720 physical altercation with a lineman on the football team, the Dayton, Kentucky green devils. The

00:14:42.460 lineman decided he was going to take a break during calisthenics and gave coach one a little

00:14:47.440 sass. They had a physical altercation. So he had a temper that could flare up, but he recognized

00:14:54.280 early in his coaching that it was getting in the way of performance and progress and that it was a

00:15:03.720 hindrance. And he eventually compensated to the level where you describe him as quiet. And I would

00:15:11.040 describe him as very intensely controlled, but that temper did get under control. And I, at one point

00:15:18.580 asked him how he did it. You know, maybe we've got some tips here for people who have anger management

00:15:24.220 problems. And I said, how did you get the temper under control? And he said, I just did. I said, well,

00:15:31.220 you know, you can't just say you just did. What did you have some like steps or some kind of

00:15:36.480 guidelines or anything? No, I just did. I recognized that it was getting in my way and I

00:15:41.380 just, just got it under control. That was, that was as much as I could get from him as to how he

00:15:47.020 did get control of that emotionalism. He was all for emotion, but when emotion tipped over and got out

00:15:54.940 of control, emotionalism, he called it, that was when you had a problem because you were no longer in

00:16:00.940 control. Performance requires control. And, and when you're suddenly all wrought up and out of

00:16:07.300 control, you're vulnerable. And he did not like being vulnerable as a coach or have his team in a

00:16:12.860 similar situation where they're out of control with anger or jubilation, as he called it, the,

00:16:18.660 the exuberance of being ahead or, or winning. He liked everything to be on a steady keel.

00:16:24.480 Another defining feature of Wooden that I like about him is his collection of rules and

00:16:30.920 maxims. And this, I guess, is this something that he he's developed all throughout his life? He was

00:16:35.540 always collecting these things. Yes. He, he was a learner throughout his life, just, I guess, by,

00:16:41.600 by inclination, collected ideas on coaching from his coaches. He was a voracious reader. He majored in

00:16:48.600 English at Purdue university and was an honor student, studied Shakespeare for a couple of quarters

00:16:53.160 and along the way began collecting these maxims or aphorisms that helped him in his own life or would help

00:17:00.600 his team in his coaching. And can I give you a couple of them? Yeah, no. Yeah, please.

00:17:06.960 One that goes really to the heart of his thinking and his, his own teaching and coaching as a

00:17:15.000 basketball coach was don't mistake activity for achievement. And in basketball, it's a game of

00:17:23.180 constant motion. You can fool yourself because there are, the whistles are blowing and the feet are

00:17:28.600 running and the balls are being thrown back and forth during practice. And is anything being

00:17:32.620 accomplished? Don't mistake activity for achievement. I asked him once, boy, a long time

00:17:40.740 ago, 18 years ago, I know the year count because in 2000, he was selected as the greatest coach of the

00:17:47.980 20th century by various publications, ESPN and sports illustrated said he's the greatest coach in

00:17:54.360 American history. And so I saw him about two months after some of these awards were given. And I said,

00:17:59.100 Hey, congratulations. You're the coach of the century. How does it feel? And he said, it's ridiculous.

00:18:06.500 There is no such thing as coach of the century. Well, I said, let me ask you this. You, a lot of people

00:18:13.540 think you are that. Let me ask you to tell me what you think you were good at. You may not think you're the

00:18:19.760 coach of the century, but you had to be great at something. What in your mind were you great at?

00:18:25.700 And he thought for a second and said, I was perhaps as good at organization as anyone coaching in my

00:18:33.600 era. Now, organization means every minute of a practice, for example, is planned every minute.

00:18:41.700 He kept each minute, each three minute, each five minute segment on three by five cards that he

00:18:48.540 would keep year to year. So he would reference from this year to the next year to the back five

00:18:52.900 years. What would, what did we do in practice? Who did we do it with? Did it help this organization

00:18:59.220 made his practices like a Swiss watch? And it goes to his, his saying, don't mistake activity for

00:19:05.900 achievement. His activity was meticulously planned. So there was one that really, I think goes to who

00:19:13.140 he was and how he did things, but he had all kinds of them. He would tell his players the best way to

00:19:18.920 improve your team is to improve yourself, discipline yourself. We're talking about control, self-control on

00:19:25.660 temper, discipline yourself and others won't have to. Wonderful, wonderful ideas. Time spent getting even

00:19:33.960 would be better spent getting ahead. All of them, by the way, are listed in the back of his best

00:19:41.260 selling first book, Wooden, A Lifetime of Observations on the Court and Off. One that I like a lot, he got

00:19:48.380 from his dad, make each day a masterpiece. And he, he was really good at that. He, he made sure that each

00:19:56.020 day had elements of, of great performance and improvement. Each day he tried to make his own

00:20:02.960 masterpiece. He was something. Yeah. What I, what I love about these maxims is they're so, I mean,

00:20:08.580 some at first blush, they can be, they just appear very folksy and too simple. But the thing is like,

00:20:14.800 if you actually put them into practice, they work, which is, I think the, why he's so enduring and

00:20:22.160 timeless. I do too. I think that there was substance to what he was saying and, and how he was saying it

00:20:29.400 and who he was. One writer many years ago said that the secret to John Wooden and his coaching and

00:20:38.640 teaching was his simplicity. And that's sort of what you're getting at. He, he was able to teach

00:20:45.120 in ways that were easily comprehensible and the mechanics of basketball. He would break down,

00:20:51.620 for example, what you're supposed to do when you're under the basket, anticipating a rebound,

00:20:55.640 where your hands are, eyes, balance, feet, the bend in your knees, all of this, he would break down,

00:21:02.160 teach, put back together. And all of the elements, when you bring it down to the individual parts of

00:21:09.020 it are rather easily understood. The same with the maxims that you're talking about. Don't mistake

00:21:15.840 activity for achievement. Wonderful. One of the others that he had, he had a list of ideas from his dad

00:21:23.720 called the seven point creed, but in there are exhortations to be better and, and how to make

00:21:31.920 your life a positive, productive life. Be true to yourself, which is a variation of something in

00:21:38.440 Hamlet that Polonia said to his son, Laertes, be true to yourself, help others make each day your

00:21:46.240 masterpiece, make friendship a fine art. There are seven altogether, but when you follow those

00:21:51.960 admonitions, the seven point creed that his dad offered him over the years, wow, you become an

00:21:59.920 extraordinary person. And John Wooden was extraordinary. We're going to take a quick

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00:24:05.120 today. And now back to the show. Yeah, in our family, we actually, we have a family meeting

00:24:10.240 once a week. And so my seven-year-old and my four-year-old, every week, they recite the,

00:24:16.880 I guess, John, he wouldn't call them the two-by-threes. So it was like, that his dad gave

00:24:21.920 them. Two sets of threes. Two sets of three, yeah. Never lie, never steal, never cheat, never whine,

00:24:27.500 never complain, don't make excuses. That's become a family tradition in our household.

00:24:33.040 That's wonderful. That's wonderful. Well, what I've found in working, it was a privilege

00:24:38.660 to work with John Wooden. But what I've found is so many people love what he said, love what he taught

00:24:47.200 above basketball. In all of the books that we did, there were no tips specifically on basketball,

00:24:56.660 no tips on how to shoot a free throw, no tips on basketball. It was how to bring out your best in

00:25:03.820 the context of basketball. And as he felt, those ideas that transcended basketball would help make

00:25:12.240 his players better people. And that was really, I know it sounds maybe old-fashioned or corny.

00:25:18.860 That really was his goal. He wanted his players. They could use, as you are with your children,

00:25:23.860 use in their own lives to be better people. He was a teacher. He never called himself a coach.

00:25:30.940 Others did, but he felt that he was a teacher. And his main objective as a teacher was to help others

00:25:37.220 achieve their personal best. And as he would tell anyone who asked, if you do that, if you achieve

00:25:43.700 your personal best, make the effort to do the best you're capable of doing, you're a success.

00:25:49.440 So one thing that he spent his, I think his life working on was the pyramid of success.

00:25:56.380 What was this? When did he start developing and what was his goal with this pyramid of success?

00:26:01.260 He started working on the pyramid of success in 1933. And I'll back up one step. When he began

00:26:07.380 teaching at Kentucky, in Dayton, Kentucky, he was upset that a youngster who worked hard in his English

00:26:13.900 class and got a B would have the parents come into the class after school and complain that their son

00:26:21.660 had failed or their daughter had failed to got a B and had done the best they could do. John Wooden was

00:26:25.840 very, very unhappy with that. And he saw it most visibly in basketball where a son, someone's son

00:26:32.120 wouldn't make the team or would be a sixth player, wouldn't score a lot of points and come and say,

00:26:36.280 what's wrong with my kid, coach? What's wrong? He's, he's not measuring up. And John Wooden knew that in

00:26:42.520 many instances, that youngster had done the best they could do and they were being judged of failure.

00:26:49.400 So that's, that really, that was repugnant to him. And so he came up with his definition of success

00:26:56.340 for them, a way of measuring themselves that went to absolute criteria of effort, how hard they worked

00:27:03.200 to bring forth their best. And once he had done that, he realized that as a teacher and coach, you needed to

00:27:09.220 show people how to do something. You couldn't just say, Hey, shoot a free throw. You needed to show

00:27:14.280 them how to do it, where the chances of success were the highest. This success, as he defined it,

00:27:19.560 making the effort 100%. And he came up over a period of years with 15 qualities, personal characteristics

00:27:29.240 that he viewed as fundamental to being the best you can be. He also, and this was very creative,

00:27:36.080 used a pyramid and each block personified one of those qualities that he felt so important. Hard work,

00:27:45.220 enthusiasm, friendship, cooperation, loyalty, self-control, alertness, on and on, skill, team,

00:27:55.920 spirit, poise. There are 15 wonderful qualities that he viewed as the starting point for the kind of

00:28:03.480 success that he was telling his students and anyone else who cared to listen were fundamental for

00:28:10.680 success at the highest level. I've said to many people, John Wooden had a standard of success that

00:28:17.860 was higher than winning. And that higher standard was the quality of the effort you put forth. And the

00:28:25.640 pyramid of success was a blueprint, a guidebook to how you could go about achieving success,

00:28:33.800 making that total effort to become the best you're capable of becoming.

00:28:38.720 So I'm curious, throughout his career, he coached a lot of big stars. One of the most famous ones was

00:28:45.960 the player that would go on to become Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. And there's a lot of other stars

00:28:51.020 throughout his career. But at the same time, he was able to maintain a team that was team-focused.

00:28:57.340 So how did he do that? How did he manage all these, you know, what could be possibly big egos

00:29:02.920 so they're all focused just on the team?

00:29:06.580 Part of his skills, I might call it part of his genius, was to understand human nature and to

00:29:16.040 work with individuals in ways that were positive. He understood that when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar,

00:29:23.260 who was Louis Alcindor, when he joined the UCLA Varsity in the 1967 season, that the hard part

00:29:32.020 of the equation would not be coaching Kareem, but rather helping the rest of the players understand

00:29:41.280 Kareem's role and Kareem's uniqueness. And to keep the team in balance, emotionally and mentally,

00:29:53.000 he would, at press conferences after a game, everybody wanted to ask him questions about

00:29:58.680 Louis Alcindor. And he would say, please, before we take any questions, I just want to point out.

00:30:05.000 And then he would pick a player who didn't get a lot of attention and say that so-and-so,

00:30:10.660 boy, that, you know, that steal that he made just at the half, that really made a big difference in

00:30:15.560 the whole game. He would shine a little of the spotlight on other players who didn't get it,

00:30:21.160 knowing Kareem would get more than his share, obviously. And in practice, he would occasionally

00:30:27.860 lay it on a little hard with the superstar to show that they didn't get special treatment.

00:30:33.700 He understood he had to work very hard to keep the team in sync and working together because if it

00:30:42.600 didn't, it would, it would break apart. You needed, he wanted that beautiful team spirit that he talked

00:30:48.040 about. And when he was a grade school basketball player in the little country school in Centerton,

00:30:54.020 where they played on a dirt court, their coach, who was the, you know, not really the coach,

00:30:58.680 he was the principal of the school, but they had a little basketball team. And his coach taught him

00:31:03.320 is that the star of the team is the team, believe it or not, that he carried through from grade school

00:31:09.540 all the way to his teachings as a coach in high school. And then at Indiana State University for

00:31:15.620 two years, Indiana State Teachers College, rather, and then UCLA, the star of the team is the team.

00:31:20.820 And it's not Bill Walton, and it's not Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, even though the celebrity they

00:31:29.460 achieved, obviously they were the star of the team. But the greater concept is the idea that

00:31:37.860 those superstars need the rest of the team for the team to win. And he had a little way of explaining

00:31:45.080 it when he would meet with a team. And again, he tells his story in wooden, he would describe a

00:31:52.620 car, a team as like a beautiful Grand Prix racing car. And that Grand Prix racing car might have a

00:31:59.480 powerful engine, a spectacularly powerful engine. That would be someone like Louis Alcindor. But that

00:32:06.540 engine needs a frame. And that frame of the car needs wheels. And the wheels need lug nuts. And he

00:32:16.860 was saying that each of the players that he was talking to had a role, you might just be a lug nut, 0.84

00:32:21.440 you might be the 12th player on the team at the end of the bench, but you had a role to play. And if the

00:32:28.780 lug nut comes off, the wheel comes off. And that powerful engine is, is dysfunctional. That would be

00:32:35.760 how he would try and add all kinds of approaches to work on the self-image of the team. That we're

00:32:41.060 not just backing up the superstar. We're in this together. And that was part of his magic. He had

00:32:46.580 superstars. I mean, totally crazy big superstars with Louis Alcindor and Bill Walton. There were other

00:32:53.800 prominent players. But those, those two particularly, he worked very hard on making the rest of the

00:33:00.280 players understand that the, that, that the team was the star of the whole process.

00:33:05.920 So as we've been talking about, he had a phenomenal career yet. He, I don't know,

00:33:11.520 stayed humble throughout all of it. How was he able to do that?

00:33:15.200 Well, I, uh, I think that there were two things involved. One was his, uh, basic nature. Some of us

00:33:23.340 are gregarious and walk into a room and start shaking hands. He was an introvert by nature.

00:33:30.060 And I think the other part of it was he was a very, he was a man of faith and, uh, he read the

00:33:37.100 Bible. I, he showed me one of his Bibles one time and it was threadbare. He had read it so much over

00:33:42.120 the decades, but there's so much in the Bible. It goes to this being humble. Pride goes before the

00:33:48.320 fall. Everyone who is arrogant of heart is an abomination. Those kinds of phrases stuck with 0.95

00:33:55.980 him. They were meaningful to him. And I think it, it went to his basic nature, which was, he was

00:34:02.300 humble. He was a modest man. He might've been a little bit shy in fact. And as the fame came about

00:34:09.740 and as the dynasty was underway being created by him, he just never got caught up in it all. In fact,

00:34:16.380 it was a distraction, the acclaim, the celebrity, all of it contributed to his retirement in 1975.

00:34:22.700 He just, he got tired of the, the bubble that he was in. And, and there were other reasons. He had

00:34:28.720 some health problems and his wife who he loved more than anything was having health problems,

00:34:33.800 but he also just the, the, the celebrity, the acclaim, the attention was all distasteful to him.

00:34:40.280 And so that kind of all went to why he was the same at the beginning as he was at the end.

00:34:46.460 It was, it was unbelievable. When I met him, he had been retired for many years and yet he was like

00:34:52.700 your favorite uncle. There was no sense of, I'm meeting a big shot. I'm meeting a great legend in

00:34:57.700 sports. He was just as friendly and down to earth as you could get. And everybody I have talked to

00:35:04.560 going back to his early days in Martinsville, the people that he knew and coached say the same

00:35:11.120 thing. He was at the end, just as he was in the beginning. Do you think, uh, he would be just as

00:35:17.800 successful today as a coach as he was back in the sixties? Well, let me, let me put it to you this

00:35:24.980 way. As I mentioned at the beginning, he won 10 national championships, seven of them in a row.

00:35:31.000 Could he do that again? Well, in 1963, he had not won a national championship. His teams had never

00:35:39.800 played in a national championship game. So at the end of that season, if you had said to anybody,

00:35:45.740 sports writer or John Wooden, do you think you can win 10 national championships in the next 12 years?

00:35:52.500 Everyone would think it was preposterous. What I'm saying is if you'd asked somebody back then,

00:35:58.680 whether he could do it, the answer would be absolutely not. He did it. Could he do it again?

00:36:06.920 Absolutely not. But who knows? I'll tell you this. Good coaching is good coaching. He knew his

00:36:13.500 basketball. He was a modern thinker. He was open to ideas. He was a man that people wanted to follow.

00:36:20.940 They wanted to do what he said, the players, and that's a pretty effective formula then and now.

00:36:28.200 So, you know, it's a good bar room conversation. Could he do the same as he did then? I don't know,

00:36:33.780 but he'd be among the best coaches coaching today if he were still at it.

00:36:37.780 Are there any wooden light coaches or leaders today that you see?

00:36:41.840 Well, this is a good question. I'll give you the one who always gets mentioned and rightfully so is

00:36:46.240 Coach K. Coach Kraszewski at Duke has won five national championships, has the same attitude towards

00:36:52.200 his players, that the players' lives mean something in addition to what they mean as players. He cares

00:36:57.400 about his guys. But John Wooden told those who asked about this that there were many, there are many

00:37:05.940 coaches, thousands of coaches out there like him. The reason that he gets the attention is because of

00:37:13.520 that record. But when I say like him, I mean they have the same values. They teach the same good

00:37:20.540 things. They are concerned about their players after they graduate and that they do graduate.

00:37:26.220 At the high school level, most coaches and most of the sportsmen and women, they are in it because

00:37:31.380 they see this coaching as a teaching mechanism to help kids. It's not just about winning games.

00:37:38.480 That's obviously a big part of it. But it's about helping these student-athletes become better people.

00:37:46.060 And I believe the high schools and colleges are full of great coaches like that today. It's when big

00:37:52.840 money starts to get involved that things change.

00:37:55.400 I'm curious, after all this work, you know, working with him for so long, what's been, what has been the

00:38:01.500 big change in your own life? Working with him, talking with him and writing about him?

00:38:05.220 This may sound kind of silly, but one of the biggest things that I've come to see, he died 10 years ago,

00:38:14.020 2008. Increasingly, I have come to comprehend how fortunate I was to have worked with him and to have

00:38:23.240 gotten to know him and to become a friend. It was an absolute stroke of great fortune for me that it occurred

00:38:31.760 because to become a friend or a collaborator or a co-worker assistant to someone of his

00:38:40.780 achievement and to see how he dealt with it and how he created it, it was simply a stroke of the

00:38:48.040 greatest good fortune. And then along the way, you see how a man with, like him, a man with his

00:38:54.960 credentials, stays humble. He treats everyone the same, whether you're the boss or a bus boy at a

00:39:01.020 restaurant, you get the same good treatment. He was sincere. He never got caught up in materialism.

00:39:07.980 He made $32,500 the last year he coached. That's what he was paid for the last five years of his

00:39:15.900 coaching. He had an assistant coach who was coaching at Duke. It was Denny Crum, Louisville,

00:39:21.840 who was making more than Coach Wooden while they were both coaching. He just didn't get caught up

00:39:27.400 in material items and celebrity. It was all kind of unseemly to him. All that mattered was this

00:39:34.580 teaching, teaching, teaching, and that's what mattered. Maybe that's why he was so good at it.

00:39:40.180 Well, Steve, is there any place people can go to learn more about your work and Coach Wooden?

00:39:45.180 Coach Wooden would be very happy if you were interested in learning a little more about what he did and

00:39:49.940 what he taught. As I said, we did eight books. The one that really is popular and broad-based is this

00:39:57.060 book called Wooden, A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections. And then his book on leadership

00:40:03.600 is called Wooden on Leadership. And that was a bestseller for the Wall Street Journal and it goes

00:40:10.320 into leadership and his ideas on it. Both are great, great exposés. Exposés is the wrong word.

00:40:16.760 Both tell very full stories of what he did, how he did it, what he believed. They're great reading.

00:40:25.040 He was great.

00:40:26.600 Well, Steve Jameson, this has been a great conversation. Thanks for coming on.

00:40:29.360 Thank you very much. Appreciate your taking some time to talk about Coach John Wooden.

00:40:34.320 My guest there was Steve Jameson. He worked with Coach Wooden on several of his books. They're all

00:40:38.420 available on Amazon.com and bookstores everywhere. The Essential Wooden is out in paperback. It's

00:40:42.600 fantastic. If you want a good overview of Wooden's philosophy on leadership, teaching, and coaching,

00:40:47.020 pick it up. It's available on Amazon.com and bookstores. Also, to find out more information

00:40:50.400 about Coach Wooden, go to CoachWooden.com. You can find the pyramid of success there. You can print

00:40:55.320 off if you want. Also, check out our show notes at aom.is slash Wooden, where you can find links

00:40:59.540 to resources. We can delve deeper into this topic. Well, that wraps up another edition of the Art of

00:41:16.060 Manliness podcast. For more manly tips and advice, make sure to check out the Art of Manliness website

00:41:19.900 at artofmanliness.com. And if you enjoy the show, you've got something out of it, I'd appreciate it

00:41:23.360 if you take one minute to give us a review on iTunes or Stitcher. It helps out a lot. And if you've done

00:41:26.740 that already, thank you. Please consider sharing the show with a friend or family member who'd

00:41:30.540 think get something out of it. As always, thank you for your continued support. Until next time,

00:41:33.800 this is Brett McKay telling you to stay manly.

The Art of Manliness - August 22, 2018

#434： Legendary Coach John Wooden’s Secrets of Leadership

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