John Wooden - Success

I thought I’d take a second to talk about something other than sports scouting and NFL prospects. I’d like to regal you with a man who has recently inspired me.

John Wooden is ranked by ESPN as the number one coach of all time across all sports. He coached UCLA’s Men’s basketball team to some of the greatest wins in all of Basketball history that are still unmatched today. I found a video of a speech he gave back in February of 2001 on Ted.com.

All I knew about Coach Wooden before I watched this video was that he is known in many circles as “Coach”. By the end of his video I have decided to go find more about him. I suggest you watch the video and you can find the link below.

The video is called The difference between winning and succeeding. In the video he captures you immediately with his self-deprecating humor. He instantly reminded me of the wise and funny older uncle at the dinner table. He discusses why winning is nothing without succeeding. He talks about his own personal inspirations that lead him to becoming a great teacher and coach.

First and mentioned quite often through the video were the lessons his dad taught him as a youngster. He inadvertently used one of the number one rules in marketing to inspire and help his players and students. He used K.I.S.S.  Keep it simple stupid. He didn’t believe in Alumni giving kids material encouragement to help win games or monetary rewards. Rather, he used poetry to inspire, had a simple guidelines and three rules for them to follow.

Guidelines: 1 – School comes first.

                   2 – Basketball comes second.

                   3 – Social activities come third.

He said, “If social activities came before either of the first two, the first two would never happen.” Smart man!

Rule 1 – Never be late and Keep neat and clean.  He followed this rule himself when it came to practice. He always started on time and ended on time. He never kept the late. There are few good jokes at this part of the video I’d rather not ruin in this post. (You’ll just have to watch.)

Rule 2 – No Profanity. It didn’t matter if it was during practice or game. During practice you were sent home, during a game you’d be benched.

Rule 3 – No criticizing your fellow teammates.

With these guidelines, rules, and the addition of poetry (have to watch the video for those great poems) he really inspired many kids. In the end he came up with a pyramid system for success. At the top of the pyramid there are two ideals that he says are the most important, “Faith and Patience.” If you do what you are supposed to do and have faith and patience everything will work out. It will all come together.

There were many other great tidbits in his speech that were truly inspirational but as I’ve mentioned numerous times in this post “You have to watch the video.” 

Click here to hear this inspirational speech