When I was a UCLA student, I looked up to John Wooden. When I became an adult and a parent, I came to appreciate him even more. I liked his approach to coaching and mentoring, and I admired how he used sports to build character. As he said, “What you are as a person is far more important that what you are as a basketball player.” In the tributes his players gave him before and after he died, it’s clear that he was more than a coach to them. He was a mentor and a father figure. He produced winning teams by turning his players into winners.
I’m now dealing with situations in my league that make me wonder if his lessons are lost on this generation of coaches and players. Strangely enough, the incidents started on the day he died. The incidents all stem from placing winning above everything else. Read the rest of this entry »
