I am a self professed Bob Knight fan. I think he's the greatest coach of all time, and I don't think he shares that title with anyone. Including John Wooden. Wooden died on June 4th at the ripe old age of 99. He lost his wife Ellie 25 years ago, and still wrote her love letters every day, even after she was gone. Sweet. Cool. Touching. Heart warming. A lovely story. But if I have to hear one more time about how his coaching legacy is unmatched and will never be touched, I swear, I'll sew Bill Walton's mouth shut. Okay, thinking that through a little, I'll do it as a favor to the highest bidder. Let's have it.
Does anyone with a pen or a pulpit care about Sam Gilbert or a 65% graduation rate? Does any "professional" journalist give a darn about getting the story right, or is it simply about the pollyanna and halcyon days of lore when UCLA was king, and Wooden was the coach?
Back in the 1970's, the NCAA was far less authoritative than they are now. They wanted no part of punishing the great UCLA, and largely turned their head to Gilbert who was paying UCLA's players (including Walton) and bragging about it. UCLA was then the meal ticket the NCAA Tournament is now. Punishing them would have been business suicide because losing UCLA telecasts meant losing Walton, Lew Alcindor, Jamaal Wilkes, Henry Bibby, and Larry Farmer. Not a chance the NCAA risked that in the late 1960's and early 1970's. Not when you had one game a week on NBC! Walton himself said "It's hard for me to have a proper perspective on financial matters, since I've always had whatever I wanted since I enrolled at UCLA." I wonder where he got "everything he wanted" when he enrolled. The argument was his family provided it, but what...his family started giving him things as soon as he enrolled at UCLA?
Even Jerry Tarkanian got in on the act when he said this : "You couldn't be more obvious than Sam," said Tarkanian. "He just laughed about it. Everyone in America knew." And we're supposed to believe everyone in America knew....except John Wooden, the coach of the paid players. Uh huh. Sure. Sorry...not buying it. John Wooden was a successful coach because his players were paid to play for him. Knight's players were't paid. Knight graduated over 90% of his players. Knight didn't cheat, and the sad thing is, UCLA didn't have to.
In a 2004 interview with "Basketball Times," Wooden recalled a conversation in 1969 with UCLA players Sidney Wickes and Curtis Rowe, who showed up at a team function wearing new clothes. He asked "Did you get these from Sam Gilbert? I don't like this." No self reporting. No probation. No scholarship cuts, and guess what? They kept the clothes, and UCLA was never punished for Gilbert's "involvement." When asked if his titles were tainted, Wooden's reply was "I don't care." Nice legacy. Knight was fired for directing a kid to treat people with respect. I know there's more to the story, but that's the point. There's more to the Wooden story, too.
A nice old man died Friday. A kind man who said some very worthwhile things and accomplished greatness on the basketball floor. But cutting corners and being the head of a shady program the NCAA was afraid to punish at the time gave him that success, and personally, I'll take Knight. Rest in peace Coach Wooden. The apologetic media will send you off in style, I'm sure. Say hello to Mr. Gilbert.
RT Brightman
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2 comments:
I can't agree with you more. When I was in college my goal was to be a "hot shot" college basketball coach. I was a Wooden guy. I might have been the only college guy in the world (this was the early 1970's) with the Pyramid of Success hanging on his wall!
About that time Bob Knight came to IU and I became a fan. One of the reasons I gravitated to Knight is because his man to man defense came from Tates Locke who was a good friend of my high school basketball coach.
I was studying "at the feet" of both Wooden and Knight. All of a sudden the news about Sam Gilbert comes to light. Then, in an interview Wooden was asked what he thought about Knight. In so many words he said he didn't much care for Knight because of his bad language and how he treated his players. That is when the Pyramid of Success went into the trash and I ended my respect and admiration for Wooden. Knight was what he was and was certainly open to be bashed, however, he was no hypocrite or a cheat!
From that point on I hoped Wooden lost every game he coached! All these years later I learn that his teams had a graduation rate of 65%! Yet the idiots of the press like Kravitz, Benner (local idiots) and then the rest of the national media will treat him like a god!
Sorry, not me!
I don't know who you are streit, but your comment made my day. What a terrific "first hand" example of "the rest of the story." You can have Wooden. I'll take Knight all day every day.
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