100 Things UCLA Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die
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100 Things UCLA Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781629374741 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Triumph Books |
| Publication date: | 11/06/2018 |
| Series: | 100 Things...Fans Should Know Series |
| Pages: | 336 |
| Sales rank: | 1,047,212 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.90(d) |
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CHAPTER 1
John Wooden
In his final years, as he sat in a recliner inside his condominium penning monthly love letters to his late wife and autographing fan mail that he sometimes paid the postage to return, John Wooden answered a telethon's worth of phone calls from his former UCLA players.
Sometimes they would call just to check in on the coach. On other occasions they wanted to hear his reassuring words of wisdom. There was a telepathic tone when Wooden said "Hello."
"Whenever you called Coach Wooden, it was like he was just expecting your call," said Jamaal Wilkes, who went by Keith Wilkes when he starred at small forward for the Bruins. "I mean, to a man, that's what all the guys say about him. It was like he knew you were going to call."
It must have been a skill that Wooden developed late in life, because he never anticipated the call that would have drastically changed the course of UCLA history, not to mention the power structure in college basketball for parts of four decades.
In 1948, Wooden was a fast-rising coach at Indiana State Teachers College mulling tentative job offers from Minnesota and UCLA, when the Golden Gophers, his preferred choice, called to tell him they would meet his condition that he hire his own assistant. Wooden wanted to accept. Problem was, the call came later than expected after a snowstorm had prevented Frank McCormick, Minnesota's athletic director, from reaching Wooden at the scheduled time.
Only minutes earlier, Wooden had fielded a call from UCLA and, figuring that Minnesota was not interested in his services, agreed to coach the Bruins. A man of conviction, Wooden kept his word even after the offer he truly wanted came from Minnesota.
Wooden would go on to guide UCLA to an unprecedented 10 national championships, including seven in a row from 1967 to 1973. He was equally iconic as a life coach whose Pyramid of Success transcended basketball and inspired a nation.
"He saw himself as a teacher first, which he was," Wilkes said. "He was an English teacher and he had a way with words. He could say so much in so few words and it applied to so many different situations."
The man who liked to be called "Coach" had developed a taste for simplicity growing up on a farm in rural Indiana. The family home had no running water or electricity and the first basketball Wooden used consisted of old rags stuffed into black cotton stockings. He would shoot at a tomato basket with the bottom knocked out inside the hayloft of a barn.
Wooden showed an early aptitude for baseball as well as basketball but had to give up the former sport because of injuries. He starred in basketball at Martinsville High before going on to Purdue, where he learned many of his detail-oriented ways from coach Ward Lewis "Piggy" Lambert. A wiry 5'101/2" and 178 pounds, Wooden earned a reputation for tenacious play and became the first three-time consensus All-American.
He graduated in 1932 and married his high school sweetheart, Nell Riley, while accepting his first coaching job at Dayton High in Kentucky, where he also taught English. A coaching stop at South Bend Central followed before Wooden provided fitness training to combat fighters as a Navy lieutenant in World War II. Wooden's first college coaching job came after the war at Indiana State Teachers College (now Indiana State University), where he led the Sycamores to a 44–15 record in two seasons.
The call to coach UCLA in 1948, at age 37, was hardly akin to assuming control of a basketball power. The Bruins had posted a winning record in only three of the 21 seasons immediately preceding Wooden's arrival, so their capturing the Pacific Coast Conference's Southern Division in his first season was widely viewed as a breakthrough. The Bruins posted a winning record in each of the next 12 seasons but never made it past the first round in any of their three NCAA tournament appearances.
Wooden was laying the groundwork for something much bigger. It came in the way he taught his players to pull their socks tight to avoid blisters and repeated sayings such as "Be quick but don't hurry" and "Failing to prepare is preparing to fail."
"When I went there as a 17-year-old, I knew he would make me a better basketball player, but I didn't realize how much influence he would have on [me] in terms of how I approached life, because he was a teacher," said guard Gail Goodrich, who played for Wooden from 1962 to '65. "He taught us principles and things like that that you could carry on in your life."
Goodrich was the leading scorer on the team that finally broke through during the 1963–64 season, going from unranked in the preseason to stunning Duke in the national championship game while posting a 30–0 record. That started a run of unparalleled success, with the Bruins winning back-to-back titles to transform Westwood into Title Town for more than a decade.
Players respected Wooden but didn't always like him or his strict adherence to a set of principles that often ran counter to the desires of young men yearning to fully explore the freedoms of college life.
"He had all these rules and all this stuff and he was very subtle, but he was very demanding and strict," recalled forward Sidney Wicks, who played on three national championship teams. "He would tell you, 'Hey, this is how we play here, this is what we do, so I'm just letting you know this is how we do things.' And then you had to find your way in that system; the system doesn't change for individuals. It expands for you, but it doesn't change and you have to stay within the parameters of what they were trying to do."
Wooden was a master of psychology, sternly pushing those who needed prodding while taking a softer approach with players whose psyches were more delicate. Everyone knew to be on their best behavior when Coach blew his whistle and yelled, "Goodness gracious sakes alive!"
"He knew how to communicate and motivate players based on their personality," Goodrich said. "I was the type of person who probably didn't take a lot of yelling nicely. I would drop my head, so he wouldn't embarrass me in front of the other players."
Wilkes once went to see Wooden, fully intending to quit the team over the intense pressure he felt, before being calmed by an impromptu poetry recital.
"I came away so refreshed and I just couldn't believe he did that," Wilkes said. "Then, of course, the next day it was back to practice, but that's what I remember most. The only thing that made it sane was Coach Wooden, his approach, his philosophy — 'Do your best.'"
The Bruins usually did, beating Kentucky to win a 10 national title in Wooden's final game in 1975 after he had surprised many two days earlier by announcing his retirement. Some argued that he became even more influential after leaving the sideline, inspiring a legion of admirers with his philosophies, which were applicable to many other endeavors besides basketball.
Wooden became the first person inducted to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as both a player and a coach. In 2003, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor given to a civilian. That same year, the court inside Pauley Pavilion was rededicated as Nell and John Wooden Court.
Wooden remained a fixture at UCLA home games long after his retirement, sitting behind the Bruins bench. He died at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center on June 4, 2010, prompting the school to permanently retire his seat. A statue of Wooden clutching a rolled-up program stands outside Pauley Pavilion, the coach still inspiring to this day.
"He really saw himself training young people first and foremost," Wilkes said. "Now, he wanted to win, don't get me wrong — he was a very competitive, feisty guy — but he truly saw himself as a teacher first and that was how he ran his program. With all the expectations, the stresses, the winning streak, the undercurrent of everything that's going on when you basically have a group of teenagers in a major media market with all the distractions, it was him that held it all together."
CHAPTER 2Jackie Robinson
The man who would go on to break Major League Baseball's color barrier did not represent a racial first for UCLA athletics.
When Jackie Robinson transferred from Pasadena Junior College (as Pasadena City College was known then) to join the Bruins' football team in the fall of 1939, UCLA already had black stars Kenny Washington and Woody Strode gracing its roster. Robinson's arrival did represent confirmation of the school's forward-thinking ways, which were not shared nationally ... or even locally.
Robinson and Ray Bartlett, who accompanied Robinson in making the move from PJC to UCLA, picked their new school in part because they did not feel welcome at crosstown rival USC. "We knew USC was prejudiced over there because they didn't have Negros playing sports," Bartlett told the Daily Bruin, UCLA's student newspaper. "UCLA was more friendly and gave us the area and type of opportunities that we wanted."
Prejudice proved an inescapable part of their experiences, however. UCLA had to play all of the Texas schools on its schedule at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum because black players were not accepted in the South. Robinson and Bartlett also encountered racism in Northern California during a trip to play Stanford in 1939 when they were the only two players who were refused service. The entire group departed together, leaving one penny as payment.
Robinson once groused that he never felt fully embraced at UCLA except when he was starring on the field. Of course, given his prowess as the first four-sport letterman in school history, that was a good chunk of his time on campus.
Robinson, the grandson of a slave and son of sharecroppers, was born in Cairo, Georgia, in 1919. He moved to Pasadena with his mother and siblings in search of a better life when he was just an infant. Though he would famously ignore physical and verbal abuse while playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers years later, young Jackie had no tolerance for racist insults.
When a white girl called him the n-word, he responded by calling her "cracker." When the girl's father emerged and began throwing rocks at Robinson, he picked them up and threw them right back. Willa Mae Robinson, Jackie's sister, would say that his talent for throwing a football and baseball came from those less-than-sporting exchanges.
Robinson gave fans a teaser of sorts when he played four sports at Muir Technical High School before going on to Pasadena Junior College, where he attained national fame by leaping 25'61/3" in the long jump. Duke Snider, who would later become Robinson's Brooklyn teammate, recalled Robinson once leaving one of his junior college baseball games in the middle of an inning to go compete in the long jump while still in uniform, only to return to the baseball game as if nothing unusual had happened.
Robinson's exploits were so well known that a Stanford alumnus, realizing Robinson could shatter his alma mater's hopes in four sports, offered to pay for his education in "any Eastern college you choose, so long as it's not on Stanford's schedule."
Robinson starred primarily in football and basketball at UCLA and did what he could for the baseball and track teams in the spring, given the overlap in schedules, not to mention growing fatigue. The shortstop's finest moment on the diamond was undoubtedly his debut, when he went 4-for-4 and stole four bases, including home, against Los Angeles City College. But he would hit only .097 in his first and only baseball season, prompting many to regard it as his weakest sport.
Robinson enjoyed far more success in football. He averaged 12.24 yards per carry as a wingback in 1939 for the first unbeaten team in school history. The Bruins went 6–0–4, tying for first place in the Pacific Coast Conference while being ranked as high as No. 7 nationally.
Gifted with a natural burst of speed, the 6-foot, 195-pound Robinson almost single-handedly engineered UCLA's 34–26 triumph over Washington State in 1940. He passed for one touchdown, returned a punt 60 yards for another touchdown, and had scoring runs of one and 75 yards.
"I still marvel at the way Jackie Robinson evaded three Cougar tacklers who apparently had him cornered on his first touchdown run," Bob Ray wrote in the Los Angeles Times. "They all wound up falling flat on their faces, grabbing nothing but night air. Jackie has more than a change of pace — it's a change of space."
Robinson used his shiftiness to lead the nation in punt returns in each of his two seasons, averaging 20.1 yards in 1939 and 21.0 in 1940.
He also found plenty of success on the basketball team, twice leading the PCC's Southern Division in scoring with averages of 12.4 points and 11.1 points per game. In his first season with the Bruins, Robinson scored the winning basket to help his team complete a 35–33 upset of California.
In track, Robinson won the PCC long jump competition with a leap of 25 feet before going 24'101/4" to capture the event at the NCAA championships.
Robinson dropped out of school after the 1941 basketball season, taking a job with the National Youth Administration. He later became a second lieutenant in the Army, being stationed close enough to Pearl Harbor to hear the exploding bombs, before receiving a medical discharge and joining the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro League.
That preceded his historic signing with Branch Rickey's Dodgers, largely made possible by his time at UCLA. It was those two years that gave Robinson the credentials as "a college man" who had played with and against integrated teams that Rickey had sought in a player who could break baseball's color barrier.
Robinson compiled a lifetime average of .311 with the Dodgers from 1947 to 1956, was Rookie of the Year in 1947, National League Most Valuable Player in 1949, and elected to the Hall of Fame in 1962. After his baseball career ended, Robinson was a director on the national board of the NAACP and served as first vice president of People United to Serve Humanity.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "100 Things UCLA Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Ben Bolch.
Excerpted by permission of Triumph Books LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Foreword Gail Goodrich ix
Foreword Kenny Easley xi
Introduction xv
1 John Wooden 1
2 Jackie Robinson 6
3 Lew Alcindor 11
4 Bill Walton 16
5 Arthur Ashe 20
6 Gary Beban 24
7 Rafer Johnson 27
8 Jackie and Flo-Jo 30
9 Troy Aikman 33
10 4.8 Seconds 37
11 Reggie Miller 40
12 Gail Goodrich 44
13 Lisa Fernandez 47
14 Kenny Washington 51
15 Karen Kiraly 54
16 Meb Keflezighi 57
17 Kenny Easley 60
18 Al Scares 64
19 Russell Westbrook 69
20 Don MacLean 73
21 See a Game at Pauley Pavilion 77
22 Walt Hazzard 80
23 The 1963-64 National Championship 83
24 Keith Erickson 87
25 The 1964-65 National Championship 89
26 Lucius Allen 92
27 The 1966-67 National Championship 95
28 A Rainy Night in Westwood 98
29 The 1967-68 National Championship 100
30 Sidney Wicks 103
31 The 1968-69 National Championship 106
32 Henry Bibby 109
33 The 1969-70 National Championship 112
34 The 1970-71 National Championship 115
35 Keith Wilkes 117
36 The 1971-72 National Championship 120
37 The 88-Game Winning Streak 123
38 The 1972-73 National Championship 127
39 Marques Johnson 129
40 The 1974-75 National Championship 132
41 David Greenwood 135
42 The Pyramid of Success 138
43 The O'Bannon Brothers 140
44 The 1994-95 National Championship 143
45 Henry Russell "Red" Sanders 148
46 The 1954 National Football Championship 151
47 Tommy Prothro 153
48 The 1966 Rose Bowl 156
49 Ann Meyers 159
50 The 1978 AIAW National Championship 162
51 Cade McNown 164
52 The 20-Game Winning Streak 167
53 The Hurricane Bowl 171
54 Chris Chambliss 174
55 Do the Frisbee Cheer 178
56 Visit the Athletic Hall of Fame 181
57 Sinjin Smith 185
58 Chase Utley 187
59 J.D. Morgan 190
60 Dave Roberts 192
61 Brett Hundley 195
62 See a Game at the Rose Bowl 198
63 John Sciarra and Mark Harmon 201
64 The 1976 Rose Bowl 204
65 Jerry Robinson 207
66 Sing the Fight Songs 209
67 Gerrit Cole 214
68 Visit Jackie Robinson Stadium 217
69 2013 College World Series Champions 220
70 Woody Strode 223
71 Don Barksdale 226
72 Alumni Game for the Ages 228
73 Bob Waterfield 231
74 Myles Jack 234
75 Donn Moomaw 237
76 Dick Linthicum 240
77 Burr Baldwin 242
78 Jonathan Ogden 245
79 Terry Donahue 247
80 The Unlikely Rose Bowl 250
81 Meet Joe and Josephine Bruin 253
82 Randy Cross 256
83 Bill Kilmer 259
84 The Steve Lavin Years 261
85 Kevin Love 264
86 Three Consecutive Final Fours 267
87 Meet at The Bruin 271
88 Ducky Drake 273
89 Eat at John Wooden's Breakfast Spot 276
90 John Barnes 278
91 First to 100 NCAA Team Titles 281
92 Anthony Barr 284
93 Johnathan Franklin 288
94 Walk the Concourse Inside Pauley Pavilion 290
95 Eric Kendricks 293
96 The Game That Would Never End 296
97 Visit John Wooden's Den 298
98 Lonzo Ball 300
99 The Comeback 304
100 The Hiring of Chip Kelly 307
Acknowledgments 311
Sources 313
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