By Kevin Kelly
What Can You Learn from a Guy Who Just Died?
Everything… if that guy is Coach John Wooden, who passed away at the age of 99. No matter who you are, what you do… what you’ve achieved or think you’ve achieved… you can learn so much from Wooden, who spent six decades as a basketball coach but many more as a teacher, philosopher and shaper of lives.
And since this is a wrestling column, on a wrestling site, read by wrestling fans… is there anyone in wrestling who is John Wooden’s equal when it comes to influence? When Wooden passed away, every great player who ever played for him at UCLA from Hazzard to Wilkes, from Walton to Kareem… Jerry West and so many more all spoke of him reverently. Players who never played for him like Kobe Bryant, for example, spoke about Wooden’s influence on his life.
