Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court

“Too often we get distracted by what is outside our control. You can’t do anything about yesterday. The door to the past has been shut and the key thrown away. You can do nothing about tomorrow. It is yet to come. However, tomorrow is in large part determined by what you do today. So make today a masterpiece. You have control over that.”

Wooden is referring to his philosophy of coaching, whereby he urged his players to try their hardest to improve every day. He argues that this philosophy also applies to life in general because “you can never make up for a lost day” (12). This sentiment—that one should value and focus on what they can control—directly mirrors the author’s later definition of success: Success relates to one’s efforts and innate potential, not external accolades. A person cannot control whether they are talented, but they can control their efforts.

“You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving.”

The passage titled “Love and Marriage” explains what love means to the author. He argues that love means giving, sharing, forgiveness, patience, learning, and most of all consideration for your partner. The passage ends by pointing out that Abraham Lincoln once said that “the best thing a man can do for his children is to love their mother” (18). The idea of selflessness recurs in Wooden’s thoughts on teamwork and leadership.

“Be more concerned with your character than your reputation. Character is what you really are. Reputation is what people say you are. Reputation is often based on character—but not always.”

Part of the Seven Part Creed, “be yourself” means doing the work to understand yourself and put your best self forward, and that reputations are not always earned. One should not rest on a strong reputation. This idea resonates with Wooden’s core philosophy of valuing an internal locus of control and an internal font of identity.

“Early on I came to believe that you should learn as if you were going to live forever, and live as if you were going to die tomorrow.”

A key piece of Wooden’s advice is to have an eternal quest for knowledge and wisdom. Doing this will help to prepare you for whatever roads may lay ahead. He argues that you can be succeeding only so long as you are growing and learning.

“I believe when we are out of sympathy with the young, our work in this world is over.”

A titled “Young Folks, Old Folks” addresses the stark generational divide in America that has been evident since Wooden’s time at UCLA in the 1960s. He points out that young people are naturally impatient and cannot understand why societal problems cannot be solved right away, while older people are naturally resistant to change because they often become set in their ways (43). He argues that this divide could be lessened with more mutual trust and understanding on the parts of both the young and old, but the responsibility to initiate such trust lies with the older generation.

“How you respond to past success can be damaging if you let it infect your thinking, if you let it diminish your preparation in the present or the future. Then you’ve been infected by success.”

This quote refers to “the infection of success,” or what might otherwise be described as resting on one’s laurels. Success comes through hard work and preparation, but when one begins to believe that it will happen automatically because it happened in the past, they fail to prepare for the future. Because “preparation” is another way of saying “process,” this quotation accentuates the theme of Process over Results. Process is so important that, if someone neglects it, they can lose all their results.

“Goals should be difficult to achieve because those achieved with little effort are seldom appreciated, give little personal satisfaction, and are often not very worthwhile.”

A passage titled “The Realistic Optimist” suggests that goals should only be difficult but realistic ones. The reason for this is that unrealistic goals, when not achieved, become discouraging and counterproductive and may lead to giving up. Nevertheless, the author believes the best goals are still challenging ones; Wooden continually emphasizes the importance of striving for improvement, and this emphasis runs through to the end of the book.

“Mix idealism with realism and hard work. This will often bring much more than you could ever hope for.”

Expanding on “The Realistic Optimist,” this refers to the fact that people should only set only truly attainable goals. He warns that youngsters should be told to “think positively” rather than to “think big.”

“It is best not to drink too deeply from a cup full of fame. It can be very intoxicating, and intoxicated people often do foolish things.”

Wooden believes that often when people receive individual recognition, acclaim, awards, and fame, they sometimes do not remain grounded and committed to future success because they are living on their past success. This sentiment plays into the author’s intermittent advice not to live in the past, though the applications of this idea vary widely (see Quote #7).

“Understanding that the good of the group comes first is fundamental to being a highly productive member of a team.”

According to Wooden, this is the primary characteristic of a team player. He states that all of us fit into different niches—and when all of those individual talents are mixed together, a team can be successful, in sports or other aspects of life. Wooden’s description of team spirit shares some features of his idea of leadership; neither leaders nor team players should be preoccupied with self-glory.

“Fame is just something other people perceive you to be. You’re no different. You’re still you. It’s their illusion. I didn’t want it to become my illusion.”

Wooden states that when one becomes well known, they really are no different from the person they were before the fame—at least, they should not be. Just as he sees fame as extraneous to a person’s identity, Wooden later insists that others’ criticisms should not impact a person’s sense of self. These ideas tie into the Seven Point Creed’s maxim about staying true to oneself.

“You are in the presence of a true competitor when you observe that he or she is indeed getting the most joy out of the most difficult circumstances. The real competitors love a tough situation. That’s when they focus better and function better. At moments of maximum pressure, they want the ball.”

“True competitors” improve more in the more difficult games. They also get the most enjoyment out of playing against the very best opponents (87). This is how Wooden identified competitors who had greatness within; he saw that their greatest abilities came out in moments of extreme pressure. Part of the author’s philosophy about sports involves his respect for opponents, which shines through in this quotation and appears elsewhere in the book when he advises against taunting defeated opponents.

“Everyone has a certain amount of ego, but you must keep that ego under control. Ego is feeling confident and important, knowing that you can do the job. But if you get to feeling that you are too important, that you’re indispensable, or that you can do the job without real effort and hard work, without the correct preparation, that’s arrogance. Arrogance is weakness.”

In his passage “Ego and Arrogance,” Wooden explains the difference between feeling confident because of one’s ego and feeling arrogant because of the same ego: Ego (or healthy confidence) is knowing that you can do the job, but arrogance is thinking that you are the only one who can do the job. The author has a pattern of making fine distinctions between words and concepts, and he gradually uses these distinctions to articulate his vision of success.

“If you spend too much time learning the tricks of the trade, you may not learn the trade.”

Wooden asserts that people should not look for shortcuts; shortcuts may work briefly, but old-fashioned hard work is the only way to achieve, and focusing on shortcuts will result in not developing enough skill to actually succeed in the future. This idea derives from the author’s characteristic focus on challenging oneself with formidable but realistic goals.

“A leader, particularly a teacher or coach, has a most powerful influence on those he or she leads, perhaps more than anyone outside the family. Therefore, it is the obligation of that leader, teacher, or coach to treat such responsibility as a grave concern.”

Wooden is referring to the “sacred trust” that he had in molding character, instilling productive principles and values, and providing a positive example to the basketball players who came to play for him at UCLA (111). This passage, which illustrates the theme of leadership, highlights a recurring premise in Wooden’s viewpoint: Leadership isn’t just power—it involves an ethical responsibility to those being led.

“Leadership is the ability to get individuals to work together for the common good and the best possible results while at the same time letting them know they did it themselves.”

Wooden believes the fundamentals of leadership can be learned, and the key is that a leader can’t simply tell others what to do—a leader must get individuals to work together. Wooden also emphasizes the somewhat counterintuitive idea of giving credit to the team, not to the leader. There isn’t much glamor in his model of leadership.

“Knowledge alone is not enough to get desired results. You must have the more elusive ability to teach and to motivate. This defines a leader; if you can’t teach and you can’t motivate, you can’t lead.”

Wooden earlier suggested that leadership is not equivalent to power, and he now suggests it is not equivalent to knowledge. He asserts that among experienced coaches, there is very little difference in their technical knowledge about the sport (122). However, some are able to mix that technical knowledge with the ability to teach and motivate—and this is what makes them true leaders. His focus on teaching—a developing motif in the book—ties to his analogy comparing coaches to professors. 

“Your reaction to victory or defeat is an important part of how you play the game. I wanted my players to display style and class in either situation—to lose with grace, to win with humility.”

Part 3 frequently addresses how players should behave in relation to the game. Wooden insists that players should be more concerned with effort and preparation than with winning and that they should not be dejected as long as they gave full effort—but he also says excessive jubilation is counterproductive because it leads to a clouded perspective. In particular, he sees showboating and taunting as a blight on the game because it disrespects the opponent.

“There is a difference between spirit and temperament. It is a slight difference, but it is an important one. I valued players with spirit and avoided those who were temperamental.”

Wooden argues that “a leader is charged with recognizing the difference” between spirit and temperament (139). For example, Keith Erickson and Gail Goodrich, who were respectively Third and First Team All Americans and members of UCLA’s back-to-back national championship teams of 1964 and 1965, were spirited but not disruptive and temperamental. This passage also reflects Wooden’s penchant for scrutinizing definitions and distinctions, just as he does with the words “leadership,” “success,” “ego,” and “arrogance.”

“Don’t look for the big, quick improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at a time. That’s the only way it happens—and when it happens, it lasts.”

Wooden points out that the big gains are not immediate, but they eventually arrive when one daily focuses on improvement. This notion indirectly ties into the theme of Process over Results; the “small improvement one day at a time” is yet another image of process.

“Records are made to be broken. They’re not yours to keep but rather to enjoy a little while you have them.”

With the seven consecutive national titles won by Wooden’s UCLA teams from 1967-73, no one really thought it was possible. However, the author is also confident that the record streak will eventually be broken, and his expectation reflects his drive for excellence; he is always looking for the next milestone, the next opportunity for improvement, whether his own or someone else’s.

“Success is peace of mind that is the direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.”

Wooden coined his own definition of success in 1934, when he taught and coached high school students in South Bend, Indiana. After observing the unfair way that parents measured success for his students, Wooden established his famous Pyramid of Success. The motif of teaching reappears in this anecdote as well.

“It’s true whether you’re an athlete or an attorney, a surgeon or a sales rep, or anything else. You’d better be able to execute properly and quickly. That’s skill. As much as I value experience, and I value it greatly, I’d rather have a lot of skill and little experience than a lot of experience and a little skill.”

As Wooden dissects his famous Pyramid of Success, he explains one of his primary building blocks, located in the very center of the pyramid: skill, which “means being able to execute all of your job, not just part of it” (188). To illustrate the point, he shares that at UCLA, he had some great shooters, but they could not get open to shoot; he also had some players who could always get open to shoot but couldn’t follow through. The anecdote ties the idea of skill to the idea of team spirit, which is yet another block in the pyramid.