An Athletic Director explained to me once that the sports field was the biggest classroom in the school. Please look at the picture below for a second, the pyramid, which you've heard me profess it's virtues many times by now, in practice and here on the blog, over how ever many seasons. This has been my guide, as not only a teacher here, on the tennis court, but really a map which I hope you can draw guidance from, and see it's human values as a simple connection to both life and sport and inspire you to strive for success in both.
One quote, that you'll see in the pyramid below, which I particularly love, "The little things, make the big things happen," was one I often referenced, during our tennis season(s). Now think about our service toss practice, and how many times we practiced it, as one example. His two convergent theories, 'The Pyramid of Success,' and 'Twelve Lessons In Leadership,' intertwine life and sport. The 12 points are noted below in the pyramid in the picture. Maybe watch the first video than come back and read my piece here.
Sadly, Coach Wooden died last night at age 99. An amazing life span lived by an amazing person. The two short videos below are now being shown over and over again on ESPN in light of his death. Your sure to hear about his passing on the TV this weekend. Enjoy the videos and see why he was so special and you'll gain a further understanding of the substance and importance of Coach Wooden.
Coach Wooden and his famous pyramid were simple truths which he idealized to encourage life successes and growth with team sport as metaphor. He took 14 years to ferment and distill his ideas, wherein he carefully arranged and coordinated his best ones to act as support blocks within the shape of a pyramid, which symbolically pointed to success for the individual and team.
Coach Wooden hoped all his pupils accepted and try to embody the virtues contained in the pyramid. His team speeches would often start with one word from the pyramid. It now seems the staying power and strength of those speeches is attributed to the simplicity of those words which you see in, and outside of the pyramid. Coach Wooden used these same words as individual building blocks for whatever the subject of that particular speech might have been about on. Think a coach giving a pep talk at halftime, where Coach would use one of said words and talk about its meaning, characteristics and maybe give real life examples of such.
He hoped that his players would carry these same virtues off the basketball court and into their lives. The video essays by his former pupils will support this statement. The teachings of the pyramid did stay with them and continued to strengthen their moral fiber as they journeyed into adulthood. The pyramid continues to influence and shape their lives, and even their families lives to this day. The pyramid is dynamic and the more I look at it, and read it, the more fascinating and thought provoking it becomes. Its' complexities and possible adaptations appear to be many. You could use to achieve success in the business world for sure.
For example look at the pyramid from a slightly different perspective. You then identify an individual with a block. Wherein each pyramid block needs the other for support, as each teammate needs each other for the team to thrive. Wrapped within this is the individual always striving to improve and reach the top and the betterment of himself and the team.
If this support and competition naturally exist within a team, then the team can do nothing but succeed. The team's success, often tied to wins, but mostly the team member's growth and improvement occurs organically, if they use the pyramid as a guide for improvement on the tennis court or in the classroom. Winning has always taken a back seat in Wooden's theories, wherein the strive to win really is the never ending journey towards improvement. That we all should appreciate those moments of improvement within the journey. "Success is the piece of mind in knowing that you made the effort to be the best that you are capable of being." (Wooden quote)
In his pyramid winning is secondary to preparation, wherein preparation points to winning. The top of the pyramid. This is why I feel strongly about practice and the time we spend preparing in various ways. One of Coach Wooden's sayings is, "failing to prepare is preparing to fail." If I as your coach and you as the athlete are always striving to learn more and better prepare our athletic craft in partnership, then winning to some degree will happen. We will all improve, and it can never and should never be wholly defined by wins and loses.
If you look at the middle block of the pyramid you'll see it contains the word, "Skill." Under "Skill," it states, "what a leader learns after he's learned it all is what matter most. I see this to define the role of the coach. That no matter how much knowledge I have as teacher of whatever it is that I am called to teach, moreover I must continue to challenge myself to learn more and improve my ability to teach all.
Coach Wooden really had been working on his theories, and their arrangement, since childhood, inspired by the teachings of his father, a struggling farmer from rural Indiana. He wanted to take his father's faith, influence and ideas and adapt them in his own way, to assist his adolescent desire to find success on the basketball court. Basketball is now and was then king in Indiana, where Coach Wooden grew up during the depression. The pyramid was the formula he eventually came up with many years latter, as he transitioned from player to coach.
Though he has passed, his pyramid will live on through the Paul VI tennis teams and countless other athletic teams at various levels, but really anyone striving to be a better person, who may or may not play a sport. I am forever grateful that I learned of him and his wisdom so many years ago. Back then, when I was a junior in high school, I was only an athlete with no inkling I'd ever be a coach. I just knew of his UCLA teams, and their record 10 NCAA national championships, by watching ESPN specials. However his pyramid, when it was first described there, seemed like such a logical connection between sport and life. I had heard other youth coaches make the parallel between life and sport often, so now I was quite intrigued in my newly discovered 'sports theory.'
There were a few ideas within the pyramid that I already knew of and believed to be true, but how the connections were made and shaped in a singular working theory fascinated me. I went to the library to read further, as I always loved books on any and every sport. I took away a few points from this reading that have stuck with me ever since.
That the experience of athletic practice and competition, contained so many possibilities for individual and team growth, beyond winning or losing. When you can teach yourself to give up both you gain a feeling and freedom that is priceless. That a new path is possible and there is no end to it, and fear(losing) has been removed as a road block in your journey to a more dynamic self. I now, many years latter, meet this challenge anew as coach. It is crazy where life can lead you, without you even knowing it at the time, as all of this is just an extension of my childhood love of anything sports related. I still have it and now I can put it to use here, as your tennis coach.
Thankfully I will have his pyramid to continue to help guide my improvement as a teacher, coach and person, each and everyday. I also hope I can continue to grow by using his inspiration in order to have a positive effect on anyone I come in contact with through tennis.
Wooden Video Obituary - You can't miss the pyramids, as images shown in the backround, as persons are interviewed about Coach Wooden.
William Nack - Senior Writer Sports Illustrated -
Video Essay on Coach Wooden
A Cool Gatorade Commercial - directed by Spike Lee - a poem read by John Wooden with Michael Jordon and other college basketball images
