Happy birthday, Coach

By Nick Pinkerton

Happy 99th birthday to you, Coach Wooden.

Last week, former UCLA men's basketball coach John Wooden turned 99 years old.

The Indiana Rubber Man may see his time on Earth coming to an end, but as sports fans, we will never see his legacy come to an end.

The facts don't lie. He is one of the most decorated figures in all of sports, having won 11 NCAA National Championships, including 10 in a 12-year span as the UCLA coach.

From Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) to Bill Walton, Wooden had a knack for not only finding great players, but also maximizing those players' potential in a way today's coaches would marvel at.

Wooden did not require the best recruits at every position in order to build a perennial championship-caliber team. What he required were the essentials to playing his style of basketball and the intangibles of a winning team.

In an interview with ESPN last week, Wooden defined his three criteria for players: always show up to everything on time, never use profanity and never criticize a teammate.

The bottom line is that the coach had a firm hold of his players, but in a way that can rarely be replicated.

UCLA Bruins played for Coach Wooden because of his commitment to improving their performance as athletes and as learning, maturing students.

What Wooden gave to the sports world as a coach and mentor was a sense of love for his players. That level of chemistry, coupled with the commitment to, as Wooden said, "make each day your masterpiece," resonated with every squad and elevated them to a level that today's dynasties could never reach.

In the current sports world, we see coaches blowing off steam in pressrooms and grabbing players by the facemask or jersey to give them lip.

That doesn't mean that such coaches can't win a championship -- Bob Knight, Lou Pinella -- with four-letter words and an occasional thrown chair. What sets Wooden apart from these guys is his constant compassion and understanding of those who play for him and contribute to his personal growth and knowledge.

We all need that kind of mentor in life -- someone who wants to give us an intangible entity we can hold onto forever but who we can give back to as well.

You don't need to be an athlete to have this kind of relationship. However, given today's sports environment, it's a gift to have Coach Wooden's legacy brought into perspective through sports.