From the Preacherman…. (from June 2010)
I mentioned some of this on Sunday evening in Vespers worship. It’s a decade old, but still appropriate I think….
John Wooden died last week at 99 years of age. His passing garnered
headlines around the country. The stories chronicling his life achievements
got the major facts correct: 10 NCAA basketball championships in 12 seasons
(1964-75) as head coach at UCLA; a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame
as both a player and a coach; winner of 885 games in his career. He is often
called the greatest coach who ever lived. It is nearly a certainty that his
record of consecutive national championships will never be exceeded in a
major sport at the collegiate level. These items can be read in almost any
obituary of Coach Wooden.
What most articles failed to mention, however, is Coach Wooden’s life-
long membership in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). The fact of
his faith warranted not even a whisper in major newspapers, both in print
and online. His impact on hundreds of players, his insistence on teaching
rather than winning, his iron-clad insistence on teamwork and his deep moral
convictions all are trumpeted in stories of his life, but the connection to his
faith, learned and practiced in the weekly act of the Lord’s Supper, is rarely
made.
It should be. Seldom does a human being make a lasting positive
impact on this world without a sense of being connected to, and working for,
something greater than our individual selves. John Wooden coached his
team and players with an eye on their whole lives, not merely the next play on
the court. His bedrock belief in the importance of teamwork and
fundamentals sounds quaint in our hyper-individualized world, but his
record mocks any and all who would try to match it with some other
method. I am convinced that such things are learned over time in the
practice of one’s faith; perhaps specifically in a tradition such as ours, that
emphasizes the importance of each person to the good of the entire Body of
Christ. Everyone matters or no one matters.
On the first day of practice before each season Coach Wooden did the
same thing: he sat his players down in the locker room and showed them the
proper way to put on their socks and lace their sneakers, so as to reduce the
chance of injury or blisters. The players usually rolled their eyes; they were
grown men, champions. What’s this elementary school stuff? But they
learned to do the little things well, and they won championships because of
- Why? The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed….Jesus said
that. Coach Wooden knew it, too. By heart.
Peace….Chris