George Rebane

John Wooden, a gentleman, mentor, and a teacher of character, died today aged 99.  John Wooden was also the legendary basketball coach at my alma mater UCLA, and a man revered by all who were fortunate enough to know him.

My high school basketball coach Sy Korach was a friend of John Wooden, and when I announced that I would be attending UCLA in the fall of 1958 Mr. Korach wanted to introduce me to him.  I recall that Coach Wooden invited us down to the Westwood campus on one spring evening in 1958.  Mr Korach drove me down and marched me into the Men’s Gym to Coach Wooden’s office. 

He greeted us both very cordially, sat us down, and after a few words with his friend Coach Korach, he turned to me and put a very nervous 18-year-old at ease with questions about my basketball experience and academic plans at UCLA.  He invited me to come out for the team that fall.  As we said our good-byes, it was clear to me that this man taught his players more than basketball.

(When fall came, I made some serious life decisions about what I wanted to be when I grew up.  I decided that I was neither smart enough nor good enough to major in physics at a research university AND play national class basketball for Coach Wooden, and also get an Army commission from my undergraduate years at UCLA.  I chose physics and ROTC, graduating as Distinguished Military Graduate with an award of a regular Army commission.)

Obviously John Wooden and UCLA did not miss my services on the basketball court, as the 1960s and 70s, years of legend, rolled by.  But a close friend, colleague, and fellow engineer (and a world class UCLA track athlete) had some ideas to apply the rocket science we were selling to the military to analyze sports performance.  I was intrigued, so we noodled out a few system concepts that we wanted to bounce off respected coaches before we would bet the farm on a new company to deliver these analytical services.  My friend knew George Allen of the Washington Redskins football team, and I knew John Wooden.

I called Coach Wooden, who at that time was firmly ensconced in the pantheon of gods.  He took my call personally and I invited him to have lunch with us so we could wash his brain about the application of math and computers to sports.  He was immediately enthused, and before too long we three were having lunch in a fine Italian restaurant in Westwood.  Sports analytics aside, the lunch was one of the memorable experiences of my life.  My friend and I discovered (again) that John Wooden was the rare and real individual true to his worldwide reputation.

After we delivered him back to his campus office in the Wooden Center (pretty neat to have a huge sports center built and named for you while you’re still in harness), there occurred a delightful little episode that underlined the genuine John Wooden.  Walking toward the large entrance to the Center, Coach Wooden was explaining to us an esoteric point about using a screen while going for the basket.  To make sure we understood, he set up the play right then and there on the expanse of concrete filled with students coming and going.

Everyone, of course, recognized the Wizard of Westwood, gave us some room and stopped to watch as the coach set up an imaginary basketball court with the key here and the basket there.  He then positioned both of us, told my friend that he had the ‘ball’, and that he should dribble toward the basket.  I was to be the screen and the coach would defend.

You now have to picture three guys – one very famous, the other two unknown – in suits and ties dribbling and throwing an imaginary basketball while going for a lay-up.  John Wooden was being the genuine John Wooden.  It was another teaching moment and his heart and soul was in it to the hilt.  And as the master, he was able to bring ours along with his in that unlikely demonstration that afternoon in front of an astonished crowd of students.  We did it several times until we got it right.  That was the last time I saw John Wooden.

Rest in peace Coach.