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

The Genesis

UCLA won ten national championships while I was the basketball coach, and Mr. Lawrence Shidler played a role in all of them. How big a role did he play? Let me tell you a story and then you can decide for yourself.

Mr. Shidler was a math teacher back at Martinsville High School in Indiana when I was a sophomore. Occasionally he discussed topics other than mathematics. One day in March he instructed the class to write a paper defining success. Mr. Shidler wanted to get us thinking about the concept of success and whether it just meant getting rich or famous or beating somebody in a ball game.

Well, this got me thinking hard about the subject, and I continued thinking about it for a long time after I completed Mr. Shidler’s homework ...