{"id":8751,"date":"2012-04-17T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-04-17T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites-stage.familylife.com\/flministries\/?p=8751"},"modified":"2012-04-17T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-04-17T00:00:00","slug":"how-ucla-coach-john-wooden-learned-about-building-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/articles\/topics\/parenting\/foundations\/character-development\/how-ucla-coach-john-wooden-learned-about-building-men\/","title":{"rendered":"How UCLA Coach John Wooden Learned About Building Men"},"content":{"rendered":"
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One of my heroes growing up was John Wooden, the \u201cWizard of Westwood.\u201d\u00a0He won 10 national championships at UCLA and is considered the greatest basketball coach of all time.<\/p>\n

I was delighted to have the opportunity to interview Coach Wooden a few years ago for a series of\u00a0broadcasts on FamilyLife Today\u00ae<\/em>. The only thing that betrayed his age was a cane that he used to balance himself.\u00a0Everything else about Coach was sharp and steady.\u00a0His daughter sat in on the taping of those broadcasts and said later it was one of her favorite interviews because my co-host and I didn\u2019t just \u201ctalk to Daddy about basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before I get to the essence of that interview, I have to share with you what happened at the end of our time together.\u00a0Coach Wooden had a way of making you feel like he really liked you \u2026 at least that\u2019s how I felt as we wrapped things up.\u00a0He signed his book and handed it to me.\u00a0Being a basketball player who played on scholarship at a small junior college team during the \u201cWooden Era,\u201d I smiled and handed it back to him and said to him, \u201cCoach, you don\u2019t know this about me but I still have the school record in high school when I scored 44 points.\u00a0Why don\u2019t you just write in the front of the book, \u2018Dennis, You could\u2019ve played for me at UCLA!\u2019.\u201d\u00a0He got a sly grin on his face and took the book back.<\/p>\n

I watched as he smiled and scratched out a few words and closed the cover.\u00a0He looked up and handed me the book and said with an even bigger grin, \u201cDennis,<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a man of integrity.\u201d After I thanked him and said goodbye I sneaked a peak at what Coach had written to me:<\/p>\n

Thank you Dennis,
\nSince I never initiated contact for an out-of-state player, why didn\u2019t you contact me?
\nJohn\u00a0Wooden
\n8\/12\/2002<\/em><\/p>\n

After more than 3,000 interviews, my time with Coach remains one of my great favorites.<\/p>\n

The story of Joshua Wooden<\/strong><\/h5>\n

After John Wooden died in 2010 at the age of 99, a chorus of tributes arose from former players and writers.\u00a0It\u2019s hard to think of a sports figure more admired.<\/p>\n

Few of the tributes mentioned Wooden\u2019s father, Joshua Wooden, but that\u2019s the story I\u2019d like to tell.\u00a0When you read about Joshua Wooden, you realize that lessons taught during childhood can reverberate far into the future.<\/p>\n

Joshua raised four sons on a small Indiana farm in the early part of the twentieth century.\u00a0Life on a farm was not easy in those days\u2014there was no electricity or running water, and the family had to grow most of what they ate.\u00a0To keep his boys warm on cold winter nights, Joshua would heat bricks on the family\u2019s potbelly stove, wrap them in blankets, and place them at the foot of their beds.<\/p>\n

From the beginning, Joshua knew he was not just raising boys but also building men.\u00a0The boys could play, but only after they had done their chores for the day. You can imagine that\u00a0on a farm with no electricity or running water, where the family grew most of what they ate, there was plenty of work for four growing boys to do!<\/p>\n

Joshua was a strong man\u2014\u201cstrong enough to bend a thick iron bar with his bare hands,\u201d one of his sons wrote\u2014but also gentle.\u00a0Each night, by the light of a coal-oil lamp, he would read to his family from the Scriptures, and he also read classic books and poetry.<\/p>\n

He believed in building character, and continually emphasized the importance of making right choices.\u00a0Two of his favorite phrases that he taught his sons were:<\/p>\n