Wooden the Legacy of John

Wooden

The legacy of John Wooden extends well beyond any of his games, because the philosophy that guided his actions as both player and coach includes insights into success above and beyond the game of basketball. In his 1997 book Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections on and Off the Court, written with Steve Jamison, Wooden offers insights from his life, demonstrating how the same ideals that helped him to become the only person to enter the College Basketball Hall of Fame as both player and coach also helped him through his personal life (Forck, 2010, p. 20). By comparing the advice and insight Wooden offers in his book with contemporary sports psychology, it is possible to identify a few relatively simple ideas that can enhance real-life coaching situations.

Although not the central focus of this study, it is necessary to begin with a brief recounting of Wooden's impressive biography, if only to preemptively include some evidence in support of Wooden's coaching philosophy. Wooden began his ultimately legendary basketball career in high school, where "he led his high-school team to the state final 3 years in a row, winning the championship in 1927," demonstrating the kind of repeated successes that would come to characterize his tenure as the UCLA basketball coach (Forck, 2010, p. 20). Wooden went on to play basketball in college, winning the 1932 national title before graduating and working as a teacher (Forck, 2010, p. 20). After a stint in the Navy and some time spent coaching basketball at Indiana State University, Wooden eventually took the job at UCLA and set the stage for an unprecedented string of successes (Forck, 2010, p. 20).

Upon taking over UCLA's basketball program, Wooden practically transformed college basketball by shattering records and making up new ones: "From 1948 to 1974, the Bruins won 620 games and 10 national titles. [Wooden's] teams had four perfect 30-0 seasons, won 38 straight NCAA tournament games, held an 88-game winning streak and won 98 consecutive home games" (Forck, 2010, p. 20). As mentioned above, Wooden's successes were enough to gain him entry into the College Basketball Hall of Fame as both a player and a coach, making him one of only three people to do so. Beyond his own achievements, Wooden also helped to coach some of the best professional players the world has ever seen, such as Bill Walton and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Wooden & Jamison, 1997, p. x, xiii). However, contrary to what one might expect, Wooden does not view these success as a the result of any special secret or unique perspective; rather, he attempts to account for his own remarkable life by drawing general, simple maxims out of relative experiences, and combining them to form a coherent philosophical approach.

To best explain Wooden's approach, it will actually be easiest to skip to the latter sections of Wooden's book, because it is here that he unifies his observations into a relatively straightforward "pyramid of success" (Wooden & Jamison, 1997, p. 165). For anyone with a passing knowledge of Wooden's coaching philosophy, his Pyramids of Success" will be familiar, or at least not surprising. Wooden's "pyramid of success" is a visual representation of his overall philosophy, developed "after hundreds of hours of reflection over a period of fourteen years" (Wooden & Jamison, 1997, p. 175). The pyramid is made up of fifteen blocks, each with its own attribute and maxim born out of Wooden's observations on life and coaching (Wooden & Jamison, 1997, p. 173).

While it is not necessary to discuss each block of the pyramid in detail here, one may examine a few blocks in particular in order to get an idea of virtues and attitudes that Wooden sees as crucial for success. Perhaps the most obvious but nevertheless crucial virtue is a sense of teamwork and cooperation, which Wooden emphasizes by including four different blocks pertaining to these virtues ("friendship," "loyalty," "cooperation," and "team spirit") (Wooden & Jamison, 1997, p. 188). He emphasizes the need for this camaraderie and cooperation on both the level of the players and the coach, and argues that they are central precisely because "they bring together and amplify the qualities at the cornerstones [of the pyramid]: industriousness and enthusiasm" (Wooden & Jamison, 1997, p. 180). For Wooden, the basis of success both on the court and off is personal industriousness and enthusiasm wedded to a strong "team" or community, because only then can the group function as something larger and better than the sum of its parts.

Although team spirit and cooperation are a central foundation of Wooden's philosophy, he also puts a special emphasis on personal responsibility and control, dedicating numerous blocks of the pyramid to related topics. For example, the entire second tier of Wooden's pyramid concerns itself with self-control, alertness, initiative, and intentness, all virtues that are necessary in order for the individual to ensure that he or she is bringing their entire attention and ability to bear on the task at hand (Wooden & Jamison, 1997, p. 183). As Wooden notes, "complaining, whining, making excuses" and other examples of self-sabotage keep "you out of the present," and thus prevent one from effectively applying oneself, regardless of the situation (Wooden & Jamison, 1997, p. 184).

Although Wooden relates his philosophy through relatively simple maxims and sometimes folksy anecdotes (as befits his Midwestern roots), his approach to coaching and life actually aligns with more in-depth research into sports psychology (Miller, 2004, p. 111). To begin, even before one considers the details of Wooden's statements regarding successful coaching, playing, and living, one may note that even his approach to writing and teaching is buttressed from more recent research into the subject. For example, a 2009 study examining the coaching and non-coaching experiences and knowledge of successful coaches found that, in addition to previous "elite-level athletic experiences," experiences in fields other than coaching helped coaches to more effectively communicate due to their broader range of experience (Adam & Gordon, 2009, p. 420-421). Although much of Wooden's book draws on his career as a basketball coach for anecdotal inspiration and demonstration, his time spent living on a farm was no less crucial to the development of his coaching philosophy; in fact, the realization that "even a stubborn mule responds to gentleness" can be seen as the root of Wooden's belief in encouragement and motivation over punishment and coercion (Wooden & Jamison, 1997, p. 4). Thus, even Wooden's simple, generalized maxims drawn out of his myriad experiences seems to conform with research into effective coaching, because his ability to draw these generalized statements out of his specific, varied experiences demonstrates the kind of mutability coupled with resolution that is necessary for effective leadership.

However, it is also worth pointing out that Wooden's favoring of encouragement, gentleness, and the "carrot" over the "stick" does not correspond to any kind of undue softness or effusive praise for those being led. Instead, Wooden suggests that the most effective forms of encouragement are those that seem to stem from within the individual, rather than being imposed from without, because it is these internal motivators and controls that will continue to operate well after any external motivation has ceased to be effective (Wooden & Jamison, 1997, p. 185). With this in mind, it makes sense that Wooden was relatively notorious for his "negligible use of praise," because in a context where the team members' motivation comes from within rather than without, " praise becomes virtually unnecessary" (Tharp & Gallimore, 1976, qtd. In Hansen, Wade, & Hamel, 2003, p. 46). This is not to suggest that Wooden is unaware of the need for proper recognition and validation, but rather that for him success in part comes from the fact that self-confidence must be "earned and deserved" rather than unrealistically inflated through overzealous and ultimately unhelpful praise (Wooden & Jamison, 1997, p. 115).

Allowing motivation and confidence to spring from within rather than attempting to apply them from without is core to Wooden's philosophy, and, based on contemporary research, successful sports psychology in general, because allowing (and in some respects forcing) individuals to take responsibility for their own motivation and inclusion generates more robust players, both physically, mentally, and emotionally. The goal is not so much to push players towards achievement, but rather challenging them to push themselves, because a self-motivated individual will always be able to wring more out of his or herself than any coach (Hansen, Wade, & Hamel, 2003, p. 47). Encouraging self-motivation and challenging players helps them to develop more effective coping strategies, both in terms of responding to the emotions brought on by competition and the various responses to success and defeat. The kind of self-motivation encouraged by Wooden results in more robust, resilient players that are simultaneously more able to effectively operate as a whole.

Wooden's focus on self-control, alertness, initiative, and intentness is also validated by recent research. In particular, one study regarding the effectiveness of different rhetorical and stylistic approaches to sports psychology practice highlighted how much more attentiveness and self-control have become central issue in coaching due to the ubiquity of digital devices (Collins, 2012, p. 20). Distractions, whether a simple as a cell phone or as complex as an interpersonal relationship, not only keep one out of the present, as Wooden argues, but also distance the individual from the team as a whole by dividing the individual's attention (Collins, 2012, p. 22). Though a seemingly minor point, the importance of shutting out distraction is highlighted by Wooden's belief that it is team cohesion which unites and multiplies the individual players' abilities. Furthermore, the ability to stay alert, present, and engaged with the team can serve to alleviate the anxiety that arises from competition, because the individual will better function as a seamless element of the team, rather than a lone actor attempting to force him or herself into the flow of the game (Collins, 2012, p. 22).

Because of Wooden's straightforward style and the way he manages to pair down the findings of peer-reviewed research into simple maxims, it is easy to generate some ideas as to how one might apply Wooden's coaching philosophy to real-life situations. Perhaps most obvious place to start would be with the bottom of Wooden's pyramid, which is almost entirely committed to concepts of teamwork, industriousness, and enthusiasm. From the perspective of a coach this means evaluating one's own enthusiasm and how that is conveyed to the players, because whether they intend to or not players will take after their coach, making every interaction count. If the coach is unenthusiastic, short of temper, or otherwise nonconstructive, this can bring down the entire team by discouraging cohesion and encouraging discontentment, which leads to distractions such as complaining.

For assistant coaches and other subordinates leaders (such as captains and elder players) the bottom tier of Wooden's pyramid is arguably even more important, because their enthusiasm, loyalty, and self-motivation is what allows the coach to effectively lead. If an assistant coach is undermining the head coach, through a lack of enthusiasm, a sense of disharmony, or any other reason, then the entire leadership structure suffers, and as suggested by the importance of the base of the pyramid, the success of the entire endeavor is in doubt. Thus, for anyone attempting to apply Wooden's principles to real-life situations, examining the way in which enthusiasm and cooperation are fostered and expressed is the first step, because it is only by evaluating and potentially altering this base can one hope to increase the chances of success through more specified means.

As discussed above, encouraging self-motivation is a key component of success, because this will allow individuals to sharpen their own skills and virtues through their own encouragement. For a coach, encouraging self-motivation demands communication with players and others above and beyond the standard interactions of the game. This means genuinely conversing with players and understanding their personal motivations independent of those satisfied by the game directly, such as a desire to win or the enjoyment of physical activity.

No matter what level the game is being played at, players will always have motivations that go deeper than the game itself, and it is the job of an effective coach to discover these deeper motivations and tie them to the players' own practice and performance. Wooden was a teacher as well as a coach, and the evidence suggests that one reason for his stunning success is that he was able to effectively draw a line between the relatively trivial matter of a college basketball game and the larger, more significant hopes and dreams of everyone involved. This does not mean bringing up something personal every time a game is played, but rather helping players to draw a line between their own personal motivation and the success of the team as a whole, because this will simultaneously serve to help them view their own contributions as important while further engendering team cohesion and cooperation.

Before concluding, there is one more area that seems important to discuss, and that is the concept of continuing to develop one's skills. What was so stunning about Wooden's career is the fact that not only did he win games, but that he continued to win them, sometimes in previously unheard-of streaks. He continued to be successful throughout his career, and part of this was almost certainly due to his tendency to never stop growing. The third tier of his pyramid is occupied by a block for "skills," but by this term he does not merely mean physical ability. Rather, he is referring to all those skills that may be honed and expanded, and one may view his transition from player to coach as the ultimate demonstration of this tendency (Wooden & Jamison, 1997, p. 152). In real-life situations this continual improvement is no less important, because encouraging constant growth and developmental on the part of coaches and players alike is the only way of effectively coping with the pressures of competition, which only heighten as time goes on. By encouraging players and coaches to hone their skills in all areas of their life, one can more effectively outfit a team with the broad range of physical, mental, and emotional abilities necessary for dealing with the demands of competition, in sports and elsewhere.