Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court

Perceptions of Success

I’m perceived as a very successful basketball coach because of the ten national championships UCLA won while I was there. But I know of coaches I consider every bit as capable as I am—better, in fact—who never won a national championship, never even came close. Did they fail as coaches?

In the first fourteen years I coached at UCLA we didn’t win a national championship, even though I worked every bit as hard as in those years as when we won ten of them.

Did I fail as a coach during the first fourteen years? Was I a success only when I coached a team that won a national championship?