Best of Series: John Wooden

Our Great Coach on this episode is John Wooden

Coach Wooden was an American basketball coach who led the UCLA Bruins to 10 NCAA Championships, including a record 7 titles in a row.

Over a 29-year coaching career, his teams won a record 88 consecutive games, and he was voted coach of the year on 7 occasions. As a player he was names a collegiate All American on 3 occasions and was the first person to be enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame as a player and coach.

He is one of the most revered coaches in history and is by far the coach mentioned most by the Great Coaches we have interviewed.

John Wooden wrote 13 books on coaching and leadership; but it is his opus from 2005, the Pyramid of Success through which he has become internationally recognized. In that book he lays out his key principles to leadership and success in life.

Unfortunately Coach Wooden passed away in 2010 at the age of 99. However, he left so much rich material behind that we are going to recreate a posthumous interview with him.

Much of the footage of him is copyrighted and so not able to be reproduced without a lot of cost and bureaucracy, so we have ordered his words around key coaching and leadership themes hired an actor to read those words. And that is what you will be listening to today.

We used multiple books to find the words you will hear:

Coach Wooden's Pyramid of Success

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

Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization

The Essential Wooden: A Lifetime of Lessons on Leaders and Leadership

If you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach, who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you, please contact us at paul@thegreatcoachespodcast.com or contact us through our website thegreatcoachespodcast.com

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