They'll take it from here, Coach Wooden

buddahfan · Oct 13, 2007

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Mike Warren, Henry Bibby, Gail Goodrich and Bill Walton have the podium as UCLA's legendary coach is about to turn 97.
October 13, 2007

The years are adding up as fast as all those NCAA basketball titles he won. John Wooden will turn 97 Sunday, and those who think that makes him blessed have it wrong.

The rest of us are blessed.

We used to ponder the unthinkable. Now we assume immortality and refuse to think otherwise.

Great Coach Wooden - Wilt Story

BILL WALTON

Walton is 54, almost as big a star in the world of sports broadcasting as he was at UCLA and in the NBA. He starred on two NCAA title teams.

He talks to Wooden frequently, in person and by phone, and jokes that, as a person who once had a speech impediment that made him verbally withdrawn, he may have overdone his turnaround.

"When Shaq was getting to be a star big man," he says, "they made a commercial and brought other big centers in for the shoot. I was there and Kareem and several others and Wilt. They also had Coach Wooden, as part of it, sitting in a director's chair.

So Wilt, always dominating everything, gets us all together and he says to Coach Wooden, 'Johnny -- always called him Johnny -- so, look around you, you're the coach.

Who gets to start?'

"Wooden doesn't even hesitate. He says to Wilt, 'Which one of you won three NCAA titles?' Then he looks at Kareem."

They'll take it from here, Coach Wooden - Los Angeles Times

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They'll take it from here, Coach Wooden

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They'll take it from here, Coach Wooden

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