RIP John Wooden

Today, I'm going to take a break from talking about the Eric Bledsoe situation, Rajon Rondo playing in the NBA Finals, the upcoming NBA Draft, and the incoming #1 ranked recruiting class at UK.


Today's a day to remember the life and career of legendary UCLA Basketball Coach John Wooden. Coach Wooden is probably the best coach the game has ever seen at any level and is also one of the most influential. Everyone knows about all the Championships at UCLA, but most do not know his ties to the Bluegrass State. He began his coaching career at tiny Dayton High School in Northern Kentucky, just minutes from my hometown. His first game as a coach was a high school game in Kentucky and his last game as a coach was against the University of Kentucky, as he won his 10th National Championship. At Dayton, a school that to this day has always struggled in athletics, was where the legendary coach started his career with only a 6-10 record. That would be his first and only losing record in his career.

At 21 years old, he was not only a coach, but also an English teacher and an Athletic Director at Dayton. I played in a basketball league in Dayton as a kid and played District football games there in high school. This is encouraging to me, because I'm attending Xavier University in the near future to start working on my Masters of Secondary Education with an Emphasis in English to go along with my Sport Management Bachelors Degree at Eastern Kentucky. I have hopes of being an English teacher and an Athletic Director, and it's inspiring to me to learn that a legendary coach like John Wooden started out doing just that, right here in Kentucky. I've never met Coach Wooden and I wasn't even alive to watch him coach a single game, but just hearing his story and reading some of his famous influential quotes is enough to have great respect for the "Wizard of Westwood".

Here are a couple of my favorites:

"Success is never final, failure is never fatal. It's courage that counts."

“Learn as if you were to live forever; live as if you were to die tomorrow.”

RIP, Coach Wooden.

College Gameday: Knight won't be there, but will the '96 Cats?

"The trip to Kentucky will be unlike anything GameDay has ever seen. Rupp will be rocking. I have a deep appreciation for the tradition of the great programs. There's something magical about that big blue jersey. When those fans fill Rupp Saturday morning, pulling off a GameDay first with a sold-out house, it will give an exclamation point to what's obvious. The Cats are back!" -ESPN's Reece Davis, he "gets it".

Reece Davis understands Kentucky basketball. Guys like Bob Knight and Digger Phelps don't because they simply can't get over all those losses to the Cats in their coaching days. If you haven't heard yet, Bob Knight will NOT be at College Gameday and ESPN cites "travel issues" as the reason. I seriously doubt the legitimacy of that excuse, and at first I was disappointed as I was looking forward to 24,000 fans booing him every time he opened his mouth. However, the more I have thought about it, I'm glad he will not be there and taking away attention from where it should be. The attention should be solely focused on Kentucky basketball, not some bitter old rival coach. This is what should be a celebration of our program, past and present, on the national stage.

With the entire 1996 team in town this weekend, shouldn't Gameday be focused on them, instead? If you didn't already know, Derek Anderson has filmed a documentary about the 1996 UK team, titled "Untouchables: the Greatest Team Ever". The film is premiering with it's official "Blue Carpet" screening at the Hyatt Regency Ballroom on Friday night and the entire '96 team minus their lousy head coach will be in attendance. All the proceeds of the film will benefit the Derek Anderson Foundation. Rumor has it that the team featuring an astounding total of 10 NBA players will also be on the court for the Gameday Show on Saturday morning. This year marks the first time the entire team has all been retired from the NBA and can make such an appearance like this. Could you imagine how much Rupp will be rocking if this indeed happens? Check out the film trailer below!



Either way, it will be another clear example, with a 24,000 capacity packed crowd for an 11am College Gameday show, that there simply is no other fan base in college sports that supports their team with the same intensity and passion as in Kentucky.

Here's an example below, of when the show was at UCLA...

(Photo courtesy of rushthecourt.net)

At UCLA, one of the greatest programs in college basketball, you can clearly see from the image that only a few thousand fans in the first few sections of Pauley Pavillion were even filled up, that is if you include the pep band. This shows just how incredible Saturday's Gameday appearance at Rupp will be, with an unparalleled 24,000 fans at a morning pre-game show, 10 hours before the Cats tip off with Tennessee that evening. There is just no fan base that comes even close to Kentucky basketball fans, and that's about to be displayed again on Saturday for the entire nation to see.