John Wooden: A well lived life
Published: Mon, 10/21/24
Updated: Mon, 10/21/24
Lessons:The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #1 The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #2 The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #3 The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #4 The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #5 The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #6 The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #7 The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #8 The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #9 The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #10 The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #11 The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #12 |
In the summer of 2006 I had the privilege of meeting one of my heroes: legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden. Coach Wooden still holds many records that may never be broken. He won ten NCAA basketball championships, the last one in 1975. No other coach has had more than four. During one streak his teams won eighty-eight straight games. No other team has won more than forty-two. He coached some of the greatest players ever to play the game (Bill Walton, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar). He is thought by many to be not merely the greatest basketball coach of all time but the greatest coach of any sport in any era. To this day his former players call him, often once a week, to tell him they love him, to thank him for how he influenced their lives and to seek his advice in all areas of life. Though he is revered for his success as a coach, his winning record did not make Coach Wooden who he is. During the afternoon I spent with him, I asked him the secret to his life. He said, “Jim, I made up my mind in 1935 to live by a set of principles, and I never wavered from them. They are based on the Bible and the teachings of Jesus. Principles like courage and honesty and hard work, character and loyalty, and virtue and honor—these are what constitute a good life.” For three hours I wrote down nearly everything he said. I watched him as he engaged in conversation with my then fourteen-year-old son, Jacob, treating him as if he were the only person in the room. Jacob’s eyes were wide as he stared at John’s memorabilia: baseballs signed by legends such as Mickey Mantle, Derek Jeter and Joe Torre, all saying things like, “To Coach Wooden: You are my inspiration.” John Wooden found the right way to live, and he lived it every day. He fell in love with and remained devoted to Nellie, his wife of fifty-three years, when they were young. On the first day of basketball practice, he spent the first hour teaching his players how to put their socks on properly. Not doing so, John said, would lead to blisters. He was teaching his players an important life principle: Do even the small things well. He told his players to acknowledge the player who passed the ball to them when they scored. The practice of pointing to the player who assisted in scoring started at UCLA. Wooden told his players, “Discipline yourself so others won’t have to.”* “Never lie, never cheat, never steal.” “Earn the right to be proud and confident.” John has lived an amazing life. His love for his beloved wife and for Jesus seemed to fill the room. He smiles infectiously, laughs easily and is genuinely humble. He is glad to be alive, able to see his children and grandchildren, but he told me he is ready to move on to the next life so he can be with Jesus and his beloved Nellie. John has lived a wonderful life, “better than I deserved,” he told me. But the truth is that he has lived the kind of life we are meant to live, based on truth, virtue and integrity, a life leading to true happiness. John Wooden has lived a good and beautiful life. You may have noticed that John was born in 1910. That was the same year Ben was born. They lived through the same century together, witnessed the depression, two world wars, economic suffering and prosperity, and over a dozen presidents. They lived in the same country, though on different coasts. Neither one started out with a greater or lesser advantage, yet the difference in their lives was stark. What was the difference? Ben lived his life under an illusion, a false narrative about life and happiness, which ruined his life. He lived his final days in fear of death. John arranged his life around truth, around the teachings of Jesus, an accurate narrative about what constitutes a good life. By following this narrative he lived a glorious life, is content and looking forward to a radiant future with Christ. Ben built a life on shifting sand; John built his life on the strong rock of Jesus. I want to be clear that God did not bless John because he did good deeds. John’s good deeds led to a virtuous life, which is its own reward. God does not mete out blessings and curses based on our behavior alone—if that were so, all “bad” people would suffer and all “good” people would be blessed. But there is a life of joy and peace that only those who follow God can know. James Bryan Smith, The Good and Beautiful Life: Putting on the Character of Christ, The Apprentice Series (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2009), 15–16. Check out our Bible Study on The Good and Beautiful Life by James Bryan Smith. These lessons are available on Amazon, as well as a part of Good Questions Have Groups Talking Subscription Service. Like Netflix for Bible Lessons, one low subscription gives you access to all our lessons--thousands of them. For a medium-sized church, lessons are as little as $10 per teacher per year. |
