Wooden: A Coach's Life (65 page)

“It’s a two-way street,” Phelps shot back.

In the end, UCLA won 82–63 for its sixty-first consecutive triumph, a new NCAA record. Phelps was gracious in defeat, handing Wooden the game ball at center court. (Asked afterward what his exchange during the game with Wooden was about, Phelps joked, “He asked me if I had read his book.”) Wooden took the microphone and, true to form, soft-pedaled the moment. “This isn’t the greatest thing that’s happened on this day,” he told the crowd. “It is my granddaughter’s birthday, but the most important thing is that this was cease-fire day in Vietnam. That’s much more important than this.”

After the game, Wooden did something truly historic: he opened his locker room to the press. His players were jubilant, not just because they broke the record but because they had done it on the road, in a heated environment, against a good team. They relished their role as dynastic villains. “We like pressure,” Walton said. “I know I thrive on it. And I like hostile crowds. They make me want to play better.”

In the postgame press conference, Wooden waxed philosophical. “I’m very happy about it, but it doesn’t compare with winning your first national championship. It’s the continuation thing that makes you proud,” he said. “I’ve had many blessings in this game of basketball. I’m one of the fortunate ones. I think for many years I was a very poor tournament coach. I think I’m better now.”

Wooden was glad to get the record behind him, but he felt bad about his exchange with Phelps. He wrote a letter of apology that somehow (wink wink) wound up in the hands of
Philadelphia Inquirer
columnist Frank Dolson, a frequent Wooden critic, who published its contents. “I owe you and John Shumate an apology and hope you will accept it in the spirit it is offered,” Wooden wrote to Phelps. “I acted hastily without thinking clearly and taking all things into consideration and, as usual, actions from emotion are seldom with reason.” He also added this postscript: “Please convey my feeling to John. He is a fine young man and an outstanding basketball player and I did him an injustice.”

Wooden’s contrition was no doubt sincere, but it’s not hard to imagine a little gamesmanship at play. Just as he had done with referees at the old men’s gym, he had shown Phelps both of his faces. By writing the letter, he gave the Notre Dame coach the same implicit choice: Do you want to deal with this John Wooden, or do you want to deal with that one?

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Having finally staked yet another place in history, Wooden could go about the business of tinkering with his machine. The 1972–73 Bruins were a wonder to behold. Never before had he had such a splendid combination of talent, depth, and cohesion.

Keith Wilkes, for one, was starting to get his due, not just for being a gifted athlete but a classy, intelligent one as well. A more immature and petulant player would have struggled with having to play in Walton’s shadow, but Wilkes never let it bother him. “I’ve learned to play for my own satisfaction,” he said. “I don’t place much importance on being recognized.”

These Bruins were also high performers in the classroom. Walton, Wilkes, and Lee were all academic All-Americans. “I believe this gives them a certain carryover that enables them to cope with praise off the court,” Wooden said. That also explained why Wooden was so flexible when it came to mixing older and younger players to develop his depth. Seasoned thoroughbreds like Larry Farmer and Larry Hollyfield provided steadiness alongside sophomore colts like Dave Meyers and Pete Trgovich. Tommy Curtis, also a sophomore, provided a spark off the bench, although he was starting to cut uncomfortably into Greg Lee’s playing time.

And the redhead stood at the center—literally, figuratively, and metaphysically. Wooden’s genius lay in his ability to harness Bill Walton’s talents without squelching his free spirit. As usual, the coach struck a perfect balance. “There was total structure and complete freedom,” Walton said. “He never used the blackboard. We never had a play. There was no number one, no fist, no slash, no come-up-the-court-and-do-this. There was none of that. He never started practice with the words, ‘What do you guys want to do today?’ But he never held us back. That’s the beauty of basketball.”

Indeed, the Bruins’ offense was so elementary that Bill Bertka, a former coach at Kent State who ran a nationwide scouting service, said that UCLA was among his least-requested reports. “That’s because everything they do is so predictable,” Bertka said.

For all their differences, Wooden and Walton connected because they both loved the game for the right reasons. And they both really wanted to win. Walton was tickled when Wooden rode referees and opposing players. During one game, as Walton was sitting on the bench while an opposing big man made a basket, he cracked up as he heard Wooden yell, “You think you’re really good. Let’s see you do that on Walton!” Walton also claimed that during one pregame talk, Wooden told his players that the coach of the opposing team was “bad for the game of basketball” and that he wanted them to win so decisively that the coach would get fired. “John Wooden liked to win,” Walton said many years later. “He and Larry Bird were the biggest trash-talkers I ever knew.”

Walton was so antsy before games, the last thing he needed was for his coach to fire him up. Wooden’s bare-bones pregame speeches were designed to appeal to Walton’s mind, not his gut. “He never talked about basketball. He always talked about life, big-picture stuff,” Walton said. “When the game came around, he would walk in the locker room and say, ‘Men, I’ve done my job. I’ve prepared you for this game. When the game starts, don’t look over at the bench and look for instructions. If you play to your potential, you will be pleased with the results.’” Knute Rockne, he wasn’t.

Away from basketball, they had their conflicts, but once practices and games began, all that washed away. “He worked as hard as any player could possibly work. He was a great player, an unselfish player, and a good student. You never had to worry about his classwork,” Wooden said. “The only thing I ever had to worry about him was between practices because he was very active in the anti-establishment era. But as a basketball player, from the time he’d come on the basketball floor until he’d finish, Bill Walton was perfect.”

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The folks who closely monitored UCLA’s streak figured that it was a foregone conclusion that it would at least reach 105 games. That would take the Bruins through the NCAA championship game in Walton’s senior year. The only question was whether Walton would stick around that long. Both the NBA and the ABA were positioning themselves to scoop him up if he decided to bolt at the end of his junior season. That included the ABA team in Walton’s hometown, the San Diego Conquistadors, whose owner, Leonard Bloom, announced that he would select Walton in the draft just in case.

Meanwhile, the Bruins continued their march through the Pac-8. One of their toughest tests came on February 22 at Oregon. Digger Phelps’s former boss, Dick Harter, had come to Oregon precisely because he wanted to take on Wooden, and he imbued his teams with a pugnacious, Philadelphia-bred mentality. The Ducks dove on the floor so often that they were labeled the “Kamikaze Kids.”

The game in McArthur Court was an ugly slugfest. After UCLA won, 72–61, Wooden castigated Harter’s methods. “I don’t remember being in a rougher game,” Wooden said. “They ran under us when we went to the basket three times in a row and it was only called once. That just isn’t basketball.” Harter agreed it was “an exceptionally rough game,” but he made no apologies. “The days when they yelled, ‘Hey, hey, UCLA, go by and score,’ are over,” he said. “Our style is aggressive and tough, but it’s not rough. I’m amazed that quality coaches can’t appreciate good defense.”

Aside from a 51–45 home win over Stanford, during which they trailed at halftime by 7, the Bruins breezed through yet another perfect regular season, pushing their streak to seventy-one entering the NCAA tournament. The West Regional was played in Pauley Pavilion, where UCLA’s advantage went beyond the partisan crowds. Wooden had arranged for the nets to be woven extra tight. That way, after every basket, the ball would hang an extra second or two before hitting the floor, which would give the Bruins a couple of extra ticks to set up their full-court press.

Not surprisingly, UCLA beat Arizona State and San Francisco by a combined 32 points to advance to the NCAA semifinals in St. Louis. From a competitive standpoint, the championship weekend didn’t augur much suspense. The greater intrigue surrounded Walton’s plans for the draft. Reports circulated that the Philadelphia 76ers were prepared to offer him a $4 million contract as soon as the tournament was over. (The actual figure was $2 million, still a princely sum.) The Conquistadors were preparing their counteroffer. Rumors were also swirling that the ABA was willing to put a team in the Los Angeles Sports Arena if Walton agreed to play and that the league would sweeten the pot by making Sam Gilbert a part owner. “I’d rather get cancer,” Gilbert said. “I want to be Bill’s friend, not his owner.”

UCLA’s semifinal opponent was sixth-ranked Indiana. The Hoosiers were led by another aggressive young coach, a high-octane Ohio State grad named Bob Knight. He had coached for six years at Army before taking the Indiana job the year before. Knight’s temper was so volatile that the Indiana press dubbed him “Ragin’ Robby.” Knight liked to compare himself to George S. Patton, but Wooden often said he was not a big fan of Patton’s leadership style. He preferred Omar Bradley, a soft-spoken general who was known to say “please” when giving out orders.

Indiana’s offense may have been the only one in the country that was less structured than UCLA’s. Instead of drawing specific plays on a blackboard, Knight put his players in position to read the defense and make decisions on the fly. He called this a “motion offense,” and he had formulated it with help from Pete Newell, whom Knight had cultivated as a close friend and mentor. Knight’s relationship with Newell also led him to become close friends with Henry Iba and Bob Boyd. In other words, he knew all about Johnny Wooden.

Knight insisted that his team would not be intimidated by UCLA, but the Hoosiers were badly outclassed in the early going. UCLA built a 40–22 lead at halftime and owned a 22-point advantage early in the second half, thanks partly to a technical foul on Knight. But then something happened that was rare for a John Wooden–coached team: the Bruins got blitzed. Indiana forced UCLA into a slew of turnovers, many of which ended up in the hands of Hoosiers center Steve Downing, who would finish with a game-high 26 points. By the time they were through, the Hoosiers had scored 17 unanswered points. With 5:51 to play, UCLA led by just 2 points, 57–55. “You bet I was worried,” Wooden said afterward.

The game’s pivotal play came at the 7:57 mark, when Walton drove to the basket and collided with Downing. Both players had four fouls, so the referee’s decision would be decisive. The call was a block on Downing. He left the game with UCLA up by 5 points, and though the Hoosiers later cut the deficit to 2, they could not sustain the momentum with Downing on the bench. UCLA pulled away to win, 70–59. The hero for the Bruins turned out to be Tommy Curtis, who scored 22 points, many of them on long jumpers. After the game, Wooden said he believed his team would have won even if Walton had fouled out instead of Downing. Knight believed Wooden should have been more generous. His team did win, after all.

Toward the end of the game, Walton told Morgan, who was sitting in his customary spot on the Bruins’ bench, that he felt worn out. When Morgan asked why, Walton said it was because his room at the team’s hotel was way too small. To Walton’s delight, Morgan offered to give Walton his room at the Chase Park Plaza, which had a king-sized bed.

When Morgan left the hotel, however, the reception desk assumed he had checked out and assigned his room to someone else. At 2:00 a.m., Walton was awakened by a loud knock but ignored it. A few minutes later, the police were pounding on his door. Walton called down to the front desk to explain the mix-up. The hotel manager spoke to Morgan and then immediately hustled Walton to another room. It was a magnificent penthouse, with a huge bed, multiple rooms, and several baths. Big Red was livin’ large.

Walton’s hotel switch ignited yet another firestorm of speculation that he was going to sign that contract with the 76ers after the final. Gilbert denied it, but only after a rash of stories had been published. Walton was furious. Wooden was so concerned by the external pressures that he abandoned his protocol and ended the next day’s practice with an extended dunk contest. “It was a calculated risk on my part, but I thought we had gotten a little taut,” he said. “We showed it when we lost our poise against Indiana.”

Their opponent in the final was unranked Memphis State, which surprised the field by upsetting No. 9 Kansas State and No. 4 Providence in its previous two games. The Tigers’ coach, Gene Bartow, was similar to Wooden in presentation and style. He was a southerner, not a midwesterner, but he was a homespun churchgoer with a scholarly aspect. He eschewed profanity and alcohol, which is why he was given the nickname “Clean Gene.” Bartow also had a pretty good center himself in Larry Kenon, known as “Dr. K,” who Bartow thought might be able to defend Walton one-on-one.

He was wrong. Memphis State came out in a straight-up man-to-man defense, with the six-foot-nine Kenon playing directly behind Walton. Big Red shredded him. With Greg Lee floating pinpoint lobs, Walton made every shot imaginable up, over, under, and around the helpless Kenon. Walton missed a short bank shot early in the first half, but every other shot he tried was true. When UCLA built an 11-point lead, Bartow switched to a zone, but he still played Kenon behind Walton with precious little help.

Though he shined on offense, Walton was out of sorts on defense. Kenon made a lot of buckets himself and forced Walton into foul trouble. With the game tied 39–39 at halftime, Bartow fumed as Morgan gave the referees an earful on the way to the locker room.

Early in the second half, Walton had to go to the bench after committing his fourth foul, which allowed Memphis State to briefly take the lead. When Walton returned, he immediately helped the Bruins turn a 45–45 tie into a 57–47 lead with twelve minutes to go. From there, as Walton continued to drop in shots from in close, UCLA pulled away. With under three minutes to play, Walton broke Gail Goodrich’s NCAA championship game total by scoring his 44th point. A few seconds later, he injured his ankle and left the game to a huge ovation.