UCLA coaching great Wooden, 99, dies

LOS ANGELES - John Wooden, college basketball's gentlemanly Wizard of Westwood who built one of the greatest dynasties in all of sports at UCLA and became one of the most revered coaches ever, has died. He was 99.

The university said Wooden died Friday night of natural causes at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, where he had been hospitalized since May 26.

Wooden led the Bruins to 10 NCAA championships, including an unmatched streak of seven in a row from 1967 to 1973.

Over 27 years, he won 620 games there, including 88 straight during one stretch, and he coached many of the game's greatest players such as Bill Walton and Lew Alcindor - later known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

From the time of his first title following the 1963-64 season through the 10th in 1974-75, Wooden's Bruins were 330-19, including four 30-0 seasons.

His overall mark as a college coach was 885-203, an .813 winning percentage that remains unequaled.

As a coach, he was a groundbreaking trendsetter who demanded his players be in great condition so they could play an up-tempo style not well-known on the West Coast at the time.

But Wooden's legacy extended well beyond that. He was the master of the simple one- or two-sentence homily, instructive little messages best presented in his famous "pyramid of success," a chart he used to both inspire players and sum up his personal code for life.

Industriousness and enthusiasm were its cornerstones; faith, patience, loyalty and self-control were some of the building blocks. At the top of the pyramid was competitive greatness.

He taught the team game and had only three hard-and-fast rules - no profanity, tardiness or criticizing fellow teammates. Layered beneath that apparent simplicity, though, were a slew of life lessons.

"Not being thrown off stride in how you behave or what you believe because of outside events," is how Wooden said a person maintains poise.

"What you are as a person is far more important than what you are as a basketball player," was one of his key messages.

"It's kind of hard to talk about coach Wooden simply, because he was a complex man. But he taught in a very simple way. He just used sports as a means to teach us how to apply ourselves to any situation," Abdul-Jabbar said in a statement released through UCLA. "He set quite an example. He was more like a parent than a coach. He really was a very selfless and giving human being, but he was a disciplinarian. We learned all about those aspects of life that most kids want to skip over. He wouldn't let us do that."

Asked in a 2008 interview the secret to his long life, Wooden replied: "Not being afraid of death and having peace within yourself. All of life is peaks and valleys. Don't let the peaks get too high and the valleys too low."

Wooden had this advice for players: "Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are."

"When I think of a basketball coach, the only one I ever thought of was coach Wooden," Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said. "He had a great life and helped so many coaches until well in his 90s. Every time I talked to him, he would give me some words of advice. He's the best of all time. There will never be another like him, and you can't say that about too many people."

Nell, Wooden's wife of 53 years, died in 1985. Besides his son Jim and daughter Nancy Muehlhausen, Wooden is survived by three grandsons, four granddaughters and 13 great-grandchildren. Funeral services will be private. A public memorial will be held later.