Even at 99, it saddened me to hear of former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden's death. You see Coach Wooden once bailed me out of a really tight spot and in the process made me look far better than I deserved.
It was back in the mid-80's and I was pastoring a small, rural church in the mountains of Kentucky. Kentucky, where basketball is king. To make ends meet I needed a part-time job and someone told me that the local elementary school was looking for someone to coach 6th/7th grade baseball and that their expectations weren't very high. While still in high school I'd coached and umpired a few years of little league and played/umpired a little slow-pitch along the way. It couldn't hurt to ask, right? So I interviewed.
And surprise, surprise, I got hired! (This would be a really short, pointless post if I hadn't, right?) The money was just right for what I needed and, as a pastor, what a great way to plug into the community.
That's when the principal dropped the bomb that I wasn't just the baseball coach, I was The Coach.
Fine, I can do softball, too.
Good, but we also have boys' basketball starting in two weeks.
My heart almost stopped. I'd played C League (as in, "no blood/no foul" basketball for wrestlers and football players) Intramurals in college but that was the end of my basketball experience. I could probably muddle my way through running a practice but I'd never even seen a play diagrammed let alone tried to execute one. Could I handle it?
Two things turned out in my favor:
1. They didn't ask much. In this four-team league, they had a history of finishing fourth.
2. I was their only candidate.
I was in. Now, what to do...
A friend with connections snuck me into a university library where I checked out four or five books on basketball coaching. One of them was "Practical Modern Basketball" by John Wooden.
I recognized Wooden's name but I was intimidated by both his reputation and the thickness of the book. I had picked it up more out of desperation than out of any illusion that I'd be able to put it to work at Sparksville Elementary. Was I ever wrong. Turns out there's a reason for Wooden's reputation!
Even with his reputation in coaching, I don't think Wooden ever stopped referring to himself as a teacher, The reason for that came through in his book.
There were much thinner books among the five I picked up that day but none were clearer or more helpful. I had finished the other four before bedtime that evening and didn't particularly feel smarter for the effort. Out of resignation more than anything, I turned to Wooden.
I should have started there. Coach Wooden taught me how to run a practice and how to run a fast break. He talked about the chemistry to look for in your starting five and how to pick who to keep and who to cut (a problem I didn't have--you can't cut anyone when you only have eight players!) When I was finished reading I still didn't feel qualified but I at least felt ready to face the boys.
The league consisted of three outlying rural elementaries and the central "town" school. Rural kids could go to their local school or choose the bus ride into town every morning. Just before practices started our biggest/strongest/most gifted kid decided his future was in town. Foreshadowing, anyone?
So, four team league with an eight game home and home schedule. Coming into the end-of-season league tournament we were 5-3, a record-setting second place regular season finish! We won our first game in the tournament and faced the "town" team in the final.
Now, this isn't Hoosiers (although it kind of looked like it--we had the pre-game talk about not letting the size of the gym and the crowd get to you.) We lost. But my boys looked good. And in the end it was much closer than anyone expected (except me--I didn't know all the history). See, in our county district there was no question about who would finish first--the town school--so the real bragging rights went with second place. Think of it as finishing first in the small school class.
John Wooden had briefly made me a local hero, a genius. Of course, fame is fleeting but that remains a very bright spot in what became a high-adventure period in my life. i owe it to Coach.
In his basketball retirement, Coach Wooden wrote many great books on life and faith and leadership. Like Practical Modern Basketball, the ones I've read are worth your time. And along the way, I've seen several of Coach Wooden's former players write that Coach never steered you wrong. It was certainly true for me that year.
Thank you, Coach Wooden.
Posted via web from Ferndale Tonight
Lt. Col Thomas P. Belkofer, age 44, of the Army’s 10th Mountain Division at Ft. Drum, New York and formerly of Perrysburg Township, Ohio died on Tuesday, May 18, 2010 in a Taliban attack on a NATO convoy in Kabul, Afghanistan. Tom was born on June 2, 1965 in Toledo, Ohio to Donald Jr. and Sharon (O’Keefe) Belkofer. He graduated from Rossford High School in 1983 where he played football and was a standout wrestler. After High School he briefly attended Wright State University and the University of Toledo before transferring to Bowling Green State University where in 1992 he earned a bachelor’s degree in architectural and environment design technology and married his college sweetheart, Margaret (Margo) Maness. He served in the Army National Guard before signing up for the ROTC program at BGSU and was commissioned into the Field Artillery as a Distinguished Military Graduate. In 2002, he earned a Master of Business Administration degree from Syracuse University.