John Wooden - Greatest Coach of All Time in Any Sport
John Wooden (born October 14, 1910) was coach of the UCLA Bruins basketball team from 1948 to 1976 and the most winning coach in basketball history. You might ask, what does this have to do with coaching outside of sports? Check out Wooden’s Pyramid of Success and 12 Lessons for Leadership(www.coachjohnwooden.com/puramidpdf.pdf). Both speak to self responsibility and values that are foundational for all coaching.
In October 1987, Werner Erhard hosted a satellite broadcast with famous sports coaches of the time. The discussion purpose was to identify the uniform distinctions of coaching, regardless of the subject being coached. Jim Selman moderated the discussion and documented the outcome in an article called “Coaching and the Art of Mangagement” in 1989 (http://paracomm.com/documents/Art_of_Management.pdf).
You can learn more about Wooden at http://youtube.com/watch?v=RHvWILGkvQM. What else can you share about Wooden and his impact on coaching as we know it today?
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Comment by gregg on 26 April 2008:
Any idea what became of the footage from the October 1987 program? That would be really interesting to see,
gregg
Comment by Vikki G. Brock on 26 April 2008:
Hi Gregg,
I have seen the actual video footage and it was really well done. I will check and see who has the copyright as we would like to get it for our virtual archives so people could see it. When I get the info I will post it here.
Comment by Rey Carr on 1 May 2008:
I had the luck to be a student at UCLA when the basketball team had an undefeated season and won the NCAA championship with John Wooden. I played a different sport for the school on a team with a less than stellar season, but Coach Wooden was an inspiration to virtually all athletes at the school. Part of his legacy for coaching was his emphasis on personal best and all the psychological factors that contributed to or prevented excellence. What I learned most from hearing comments from other athletes working with the “Wizard of Westwood,” was how important it was to not just “talk” about what was essential but also to “act” in ways that demonstrated that talk. In my experience as an athlete he was the first sports coach I had encountered who emphasized personal qualities and character. I would amend Vikki’s headline from ‘John Wooden - Greatest Coach of All Time in Any Sport’ to “John Wooden - A Great Life Coach Who Also Coached Basketball.”
Comment by Vikki G. Brock on 14 May 2008:
Thanks for the revised title. I see this as looking beneath the lens of what Wooden was doing (coaching basketball) to the deeper levels of emphasizing personal qualities and building character. If we used that lens to look at all people, no matter what their job was, we might broaden our definition of life coaching and find more life coaches in various field.
Comment by Rey Carr on 14 May 2008:
I’m sure Coach Wooden would be delighted with your broader definition, Vikki. He believed that people are defined by what they do, not just what they say they do. Maybe this viewpoint is reflected in the “portfolio” method of documenting coaching activity for certification created by the ICF. On the other hand, can you imagine saying to Coach Wooden, “I’m sorry, we can’t hire you because you don’t have ACC certification.”
Comment by Vikki G. Brock on 14 May 2008:
Rey, you are so right about certification and I believe the ICF portfolio track does address this in its own way. The bigger question is, how do we have a broad and inclusive definition of coaching while still holding some standards? My vision is to have coaching woven into the fabric of living for all - and I’m not sure that is certifiable or maybe it is me that is certifiably optimistic and idealistic.