Mike Lopresti, Gannett sports columnist, has an enjoyable column on John Wooden. Wooden is about to turn 99 tomorrow. He comes from the town of Hall, Indiana. Lopresti’s account has Wooden’s memory fading along with the town.
He had a stand-out playing career, first with Martinsville High School and then with the Boilermakers. After that he coached high school ball in South Bend, then college at Indiana State, and, most famously, a ridiculously successful career at UCLA.
Just goofing around with the Google, I found a Sports Illustrated article about “Gentle Johnny Wooden” from 1969. Wooden seems to have been the kind of guy every Hoosier could be proud of – hard working, good at basketball, humble, and victorious. Happy birthday, coach.
He was also a self-admitted cheat. So I don’t think I agree that every Hoosier can be proud of him.
I don’t know if Wooden is an “admitted cheat,” but it’s certainly beyond dispute that a well-heeled UCLA booster named Sam Gilbert was very, very generous with UCLA players in Wooden’s day. Whether Wooden was complicit, innocent, or willfully blind is the big dispute, and I’ve never cared all that much about it to look it up. Bob Knight and Digger Phelps, to name a couple, have been critical of Wooden for that reason.
I have to admit that the Lopresti column rubbed me the wrong way. It’s not as if Wooden is forgotten in Indiana. The gym at Martinsville High School bears his name, as does an annual college basketball invitational held at Conseco Fieldhouse. Wooden lived in the town of Hall only until he was 8 years old, meaning he left in around 1919, and he spent his schoolboy days elsewhere. Lopresti acts as if there is something wrong with the idea that Bob Knight is a bigger deal there than a coach who hasn’t lived in Indiana since he left ISU 61 years ago. No historical marker? Well, it’s John Wooden, a basketball coach, not Abraham Lincoln. Maybe a UCLA fan should take care of it if it means so much. Again, I think Wooden was an excellent coach, although the corruption in his program (setting aside the issue of whether he was personally corrupt) adds something of a taint to his legacy. But this is just one on an interminable line of articles that treat Wooden as if he’s the smarter and more pristine younger brother of Jesus Christ. He was a basketball coach, but he isn’t perfect, and neither is his legacy.
Like him or not (I used to hate when UCLA won almost every year) we still have to admit he was a good coach. It is true that in most parts of the country he is fading from memory. I asked a couple of people today, who is Johnny Wooden and they did not know. Reminds me of another Indiana athlete that dominated his sport. There is a sign at his birthplace in Oxford (southeast Benton County, Indiana). This athlete drew over 100,000 for an appearance just to see him. Then he left Indiana in his prime, not by choice, he was sold. He finished up in Savage, Minnesota. The athlete I am talking about is a four legged one named Dan Patch. In just a couple races he outdrew the Chicago Cubs entire season (and they won the World Series that year). Harness racing was the auto racing of its day, and at many of Dan Patch’s events, there was no betting as in later years he often ran against the clock only. His world record mile at 1:55 stood for 54 years (Doug wouldn’t you like to run a 1:55 mile?) Like Wooden there are some remnants of his memory, in Oxford, in record books at places like the Indiana State Fairgrounds, and the new commuter rail line in the Twin Cities. There will come a time when Bobby Knight will be forgotten by most of the country as well, even in parts of Indiana.
There’s a Dan Patch Days festival in Benton County as well I think. I had never bothered to figure out who (or what – as it turns out) Dan Patch was.