AJC > Sports > Columnists > Archives > 2007 > March > 23 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USWooden’s shoes are too big to fill
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
San Jose, Calif. — News conferences during the NCAA tournament are usually routine affairs. So this was striking on Friday at the HP Pavilion. Three times, UCLA coach Ben Howland chastised folks in the back of the room for making too much noise. Once, he cut off a questioner for his version of a faulty premise.
Later, Howland explained to those squirming in their seats, “I just like for things to be run properly. I’m a detailed-oriented guy, and that’s the difference between being good and great.”
Sounds like You Know Who. Despite 32 years out of coaching, his shadow still smothers UCLA basketball. That’s because as the most vibrant 96-year-old you’ll ever see, John Wooden still attends most home games. Not only that, he still sits at the end of the second row, right behind the Bruins’ bench to make his dominant era live enough to strangle anybody less than brilliant as head coach across the way.
Howland isn’t Wooden brilliant, but he is close enough.
For verification, consider the intriguing declaration on Friday from the first of the seven poor souls who mostly wallowed in Wooden’s shadows along the way to screaming into the night.
“Well, I think Ben is awfully good at his job, and he has a chance with his background in the [Los Angeles] area and with his knowledge of everything to sustain the UCLA legacy maybe better than anybody since John,” Gene Bartow said over his cellphone from Memphis, where he is a special assistant to Grizzlies general manager Jerry West.
Maybe you’ve heard that Bartow used to coach a little. He took Memphis to the NCAA title game. He also built the athletics department at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, where he led the basketball team to seven straight trips to the NCAA tournament, including the Sweet 16 and the Elite Eight. He also coached at some Los Angeles school, but let’s return to Wooden and Howland for a moment.
“Ben’s been successful at Northern Arizona and Pittsburgh, and he’s an outstanding coach, he works hard, and he’s a great person,” Bartow said. “Of course, John was such a special coach. He did so much that nobody is going to do what he did.”
Bartow should know. In 1975, he was hired at UCLA to do the impossible in a hurry. He was expected to replace a national icon who had just retired after grabbing his 10th national championship in 12 years while winning 82 percent of his games in 40 years of coaching high school and college. The problem was, at 52-9, Bartow was only pretty good during his three seasons with the Bruins. He even took them to the Final Four in 1976, but he wasn’t Wooden.
Or even Howland.
With Howland’s fourth UCLA team slated to meet Kansas today at HP Pavilion, he becomes the first coach to take the Bruins to a regional final in consecutive years since You Know Who. Howland also led the Bruins to the Final Four and the championship game last year for the first time since 1995, when UCLA captured its first and only world championship since the retirement of You Know Who.
This isn’t to say the others didn’t provide UCLA with post-Wooden success. There was Jim Harrick, the architect of that world championship for the Bruins 12 years ago before his infamous stay at Georgia. Among Larry Brown’s many travels, there were his two seasons in Westwood, where he even took the Bruins to a national title game. Steve Lavin won 21 or more games during six of his seven years with the Bruins, and Gary Cunningham, Larry Farmer and Walt Hazzard weren’t awful.
They just weren’t Wooden, with a slew of national championships, or Howland, who threatens to win big for a while, even though he has yet to go all the way. Bartow chuckled, saying, “Ben knows.” Then Bartow sighed, adding, “Everybody is still following John Wooden.”
Permalink | Comments (4) | Post your comment | Categories: Final Four, Tech / ACC, Terence Moore, UGA / SEC
Comments
By WFC
March 24, 2007 8:38 AM | Link to this
John Wooden was the best college basketball coach in history. That being said, does anyone believe that he could duplicate his incredible run under the circumstances existing today? This isn’t taking anything away from Coach Wooden’s accomplishments. Far from it. But one has to wonder how many UCLA stars would have left early for the NBA? Would Wooden have been able to have recruited all those stars in the ESPN era when many good programs get media exposure? How about having to win six games rather than four to win the title? My point is, comparing any modern coach to Coach Wooden is an “apples and oranges” proposition. I’m sickened by what happened to Tubby Smith at Kentucky and I’m not even a UK fan. Coach Wooden would adapt and be a very successful coach today. But, he would not win ten out of twelve NCAA championships.
By GT
March 24, 2007 10:53 AM | Link to this
What impressed me most about Wooten was that he won a championship at the NAIA level and that first NCAA championship team didn’t have anybody special. He would win big today, he had and would have it going. His thing for detail is something missing even with good coaches today. Jordon talked about Dean Smith having his Carolina teams prepared for every event that could happen in a game. The clock is this and the situation is that, they practiced everything that could happen. I watched Tech play with all that talent and can’t figure out how to inbound the ball and all those turnovers. Wooten would have won a national championship with that team and many more that fell to the wayside this year. Disciple, detail and conditioning along with a touch of genius were his secrets. I wonder what the most salary he received in his career was
By Steven
March 24, 2007 11:59 AM | Link to this
Of course, having 2 of the best college centers ever—Lew Alcindor, aka Kareem Abdul Jabar, and Bill Walton, made 10 out of 12 a bit easier. But that being said, John Wooden was a genius of X’s and O’s but also a genius when it came to his players. He knew how to prepare and motivate them for every game and their life after the game.
By The Truth
March 24, 2007 10:39 PM | Link to this
Wooden was a great man and a great coach, but the fact is unsanctioned recruiting violations occurred under his watch by way of notorious booster Sam Gilbert. The guy paid players and kept a steady stream of talented kids coming to UCLA…and kept them happy before going pro