Wooden: A Coach's Life (31 page)

Wooden did not discuss what happened. Nor did he sit down with Hazzard and Slaughter to make sure their feelings weren’t hurt. He did, however, make a change to his lineup. Shortly before UCLA took the floor the following evening against Texas A&M, Wooden informed the team that Hazzard and Slaughter would not be playing. “We thought it was a powerful gesture,” Blackman said. “And then we went out and played a hell of a game.”

Angry and inspired by what had happened to their teammates the night before, the Bruins took their frustration out on the Aggies. The game was still close midway through the second half, but UCLA broke things open over the last six minutes to win, 81–71, behind 22 points each from Green and Cunningham. The players felt enormous gratification. As they exited the locker room, Blackman, who considered himself quite the poet, left behind a few verses that he had etched onto the blackboard. The last one read: “
They laid me out upon the rack / And only half my name is black
.”

The accounts from local newspapers in Houston made no reference to the way UCLA’s black players had been treated. They didn’t even report Wooden’s lineup change. However, the press corps in Los Angeles was more inquisitive. When the Bruins returned home, the local sportswriters noticed that Hazzard and Slaughter were missing from the Texas A&M box score. When asked to explain it at the weekly writers’ luncheon three days later, Wooden insisted that there had been “no incidents” in Houston. “My feeling was that we’d be better off not playing them that night,” he said. “The boys told me after the game they were pleased I didn’t play them.” Wooden added that “there was no segregated seating, no picket lines, and no cat calls.” Though the
Los Angeles Times
revealed that “prior to the trip, considerable pressure was brought on the Bruins by various groups and individuals, urging Wooden not to play his Negro players in Houston,” the coach himself “indicated he didn’t care to enter into any racial discussions.”

Wooden was doing more than just avoiding a controversial topic. He was lying. It was one thing to sidestep a public discussion on race when he was coaching in Indiana in 1948, but he was now living in a time when the issue of how blacks were being treated in America had become an important topic in the nation’s political and cultural discourse. Wooden had been presented with a rare opportunity to advance the cause of justice, but he chose not to do so, ignoring once again the power of his own words. Who, exactly, was he protecting? His black players? The racist referees? Blackman saw Wooden’s evasions as being consistent with his “dedication to non-pretension,” but in this instance it was also an abdication of responsibility. If Wooden really wanted to help his black players, he would have spoken out against what happened to them in Houston, but he didn’t do so, out of fear that it might disrupt his little machine.

And yet Wooden’s black players did not begrudge his decision. In their eyes, he had spoken quite clearly through his actions. “I can’t think of any of the African American players who played for him who would do anything less than revere John Wooden for what he tried to do,” Gower said. “We understood that with his background, he wouldn’t be as tuned in to the African American experience as someone who came from a more mixed community. He wasn’t going to know who James Brown was, or the difference between the SCLC and the SNCC. But that was all right. You cut him some slack because you knew he was sincere.”

Racial problems aside, UCLA’s trip to Houston proved to be invaluable from a basketball perspective. It was an uncomfortable experience, but it was one that the players had gone through together, and it helped break down some of the barriers between them. “It took our group to another planet in terms of how well we played together. He welded us,” Blackman said. For his part, Wooden was just glad it was over. When asked at the press luncheon whether he intended to bring his team back to Houston soon, Wooden answered no. But, he added, “that doesn’t mean we won’t play there eventually.”

17

“Don’t Be a Homer!”

“Pressure, self-inflicted, is closing in on UCLA basketball coach John Wooden. A monster of his own making, a record of never experiencing a losing season as a college coach, is in jeopardy.…”

Those ominous words appeared at the beginning of an article published in the
Los Angeles Times
on January 25, 1962. Under the headline “Wooden’s Record Faces Pitfalls,” Mal Florence raised the horrifying specter that Wooden might coach a sub-.500 team. At the time, the Bruins owned a 7–7 overall record and were 3–0 in conference play, yet Florence surmised that “eight of UCLA’s remaining 11 games are with teams which, on paper, at least, figure to beat the Bruins.” That included Texas Tech, the defending Southwest Conference champion, which was coming to town to face UCLA on consecutive nights at Santa Monica City College.

The team had larger issues than a sportswriter’s pessimism. Back in December, three days after returning home from Houston, UCLA had played in the third annual Los Angeles Basketball Classic, a three-day, eight-team tournament at the Sports Arena that had drawn its most prestigious field yet. Five of the teams were ranked in the top twelve of the Associated Press poll, including No. 1 Ohio State. Unranked UCLA beat Army in its first game, advancing to play the Buckeyes in the next round.

Walt Hazzard relished the opportunity to go up against the Buckeyes’ All-American forward, Jerry Lucas, but the evening did not go as Hazzard hoped. The trouble started earlier in the day, when Hazzard missed the pregame meal. After arriving at the arena, Hazzard tried to explain to Wooden that he had gotten stuck in traffic, but the coach would have none of it. He informed Hazzard that he would not start against Ohio State. Wooden inserted Hazzard into the game midway through the first half, but by then, the Buckeyes were cruising to victory behind Lucas’s 30 points and 30 rebounds. The next evening would see the title game between USC and Ohio State, with UCLA relegated to the third-place game against Utah. This time Hazzard started, but Wooden quickly grew displeased with his star player’s showboating style and yanked him again. “He was screaming and yelling at me,” Hazzard recalled many years later. “I didn’t like anyone yelling at me. I was as sensitive as anyone.”

UCLA lost, 88–79, to drop to 4–7. The Bruins were scheduled to have a week off for the Christmas holiday before their next game. That gave Hazzard and Wooden some badly needed time apart, but the break also gave Hazzard the chance to go home and stew. After spending a few days in Philadelphia, he decided he did not want to return to Los Angeles.

Hazzard called his mentor and friend, Willie Naulls, to inform him of his decision. Since Naulls was the one who had brokered Hazzard’s recruitment to UCLA, he felt obligated to offer to contact other schools on Walt’s behalf. But Naulls also told Hazzard of the similar period of adjustment he had gone through with Wooden, and he advised Hazzard to stick it out. Hazzard also told his father he wanted to transfer, but unbeknown to him, Wooden had already called his father before he benched Hazzard for the Ohio State game. When Hazzard told his dad that he wanted to quit, the reverend’s advice was firm. Go back to Los Angeles, he told his son. Play ball. Get good grades. And do whatever the man says.

Hazzard did as his father instructed, and the new year began with some promise. UCLA opened conference play with a two-game sweep of Washington at home and then knocked off Cal in Berkeley by 11 points. And yet the local fans had seen this movie many times before. Wooden’s Bruins always pulled off delightful wins in January and February, but when they moved to a bigger stage in March, they got outclassed by some other West Coast outfit—USC, Oregon State, Cal, San Francisco, whatever. That was the underlying message of Florence’s article. It wasn’t just about the possibility Wooden’s team might lose more games than it won. It was about the growing sense that too often his teams were good enough to raise expectations but not good enough to meet them. “Wooden has dribbled himself into a corner,” Florence concluded. “Maybe that’s the price of success, John.”

*   *   *

The losing season never happened, primarily because Hazzard breathed new life into Wooden’s old fast break. The quicker tempo unleashed Johnny Green and Gary Cunningham as the prolific scorers they were meant to be, and it allowed UCLA to surge during the last two months of the season. The Bruins shocked Texas Tech in Santa Monica, winning both games by 29 points each, and followed those victories with a 73–59 upset of fifth-ranked USC at the Sports Arena behind Green’s 28 points. After the Bruins beat Stanford, 82–64, on February 10, they brought their perfect 5–0 record in the AAWU (or the “Big Five,” as it was coming to be called) to their two-game series with USC.

It was customary for a USC-UCLA game to be accompanied by some controversy, but this time it came from an unusual source: Wooden himself. During the first half of the Bruins’ upset of USC two weeks earlier, some sideline observers had heard USC cocaptain Ken Stanley yelling, “Lay off of me!” at Wooden as he ran past the UCLA bench. According to Florence, “Wooden had been needling Stanley for allegedly overguarding Gary Cunningham.” The issue of Wooden’s “bench jockeying tactics,” as Florence called them, had been quietly smoldering for many years. When it was raised at the weekly writers’ luncheon preceding the USC series, Wooden stood his ground. “I’ve been singled out, and I sort of question the fairness of this,” he said. “I definitely feel I’ve acted within the bounds of decency. I certainly don’t demonstrate to the crowd like other coaches.”

Wooden’s rough treatment of officials may have been familiar to basketball people along the West Coast, but until then it was largely unknown to the public. It grated on his rivals to know that his private behavior was so at odds with his public persona. “Dallmar and Newell used to tell me that Wooden had this purist image that wasn’t exactly accurate,” said Dan Hruby, who covered the Bay Area schools for the
San Jose Mercury News
. “Wooden would sit there with his rolled-up program, kind of cover his mouth. When an official made a bad call and ran by him, Wooden would yell at him using some pretty choice terms. Then he’d smile and wave and everybody would say, there’s good old Saint John.”

The truth is, Wooden had been jockeying from the bench ever since he was a high school coach, but it was jarring when other people, especially his own players, first discovered this side of his personality. “I had been practicing for him for almost two months before we had our first game,” Johnny Green said. “Then I get out there and I hear him yelling at a referee who was one of his favorite targets. ‘Come on, Joe, that was a foul! Start calling ’em at both ends!’ I went, Whoa, where did that come from? That’s one thing that really surprised me.”

That intensity belied the scholarly pose Wooden struck on the sideline. As the players sped back and forth in front of him, he would squirm in his seat, crossing and uncrossing his legs, clutching that rolled-up program in his hand. He often said the program served as a convenient place to jot notes, but it also doubled as a megaphone. His barbs were frequent, precise, and cutting—but never profane. During a typical exchange, a writer sitting courtside heard Wooden bark, “Dadburn it, Joe, you saw him double dribble down there! Goodness gracious sakes alive, everybody in the place saw that!”

Wooden believed this was not only appropriate but an integral part of his job. “I want my players to know I’m behind them,” he said. He also insisted his sideline behavior was no worse—and probably much better—than that of a lot of other coaches. “I don’t stand up and do anything to excite the crowd. That’s one of the worst things coaches can do,” he said. “I don’t say, ‘You’re a homer!’ I’ll say, ‘Don’t be a homer!’ I’ll say, ‘See ’em the same at both ends!’ I’ll say, ‘Watch the traveling,’ or some such.” Furthermore, Wooden added, “No official, no player has ever heard me use a word of profanity.… Of course, I have told referees that I couldn’t tell their tops from their bottoms, which is almost as bad as swearing.”

Wooden believed the criticism directed at him on this front was way out of proportion. “I don’t say I keep quiet. I needle, in a soft-sell way,” he said. “I don’t mean to be questioning their integrity. And yet when I say, ‘Don’t be a homer,’ am I questioning their integrity? I don’t think so because it’s a subconscious thing. And I think if you can get ’em thinking about it, they’ll be less likely to be swayed by the home crowd.”

Wooden’s close friend and former assistant, Ed Powell, witnessed countless moments when Wooden pulled his Jekyll-and-Hyde act in an effort to manipulate the refs. “Usually, some time in the first half, he would choose one incident, a close call, and jump all over the referee,” Powell said. “Just chew him out in, if there is such a thing, a gentlemanly manner. But let him know that side of Wooden. Then the half comes. During the half, as they’re walking to the lockers, he’ll seek out the referee and apologize to him. ‘I know it was a close call. Regardless of whether I thought you were right, it’s a job, and you’re doing the best you can.’ And Wooden in a nice meek-like manner would walk away. Now this fellow has a chance during the halftime to give it some thought. He has seen Wooden in a rage, and he has seen him in a very friendly-like manner. This works on him to the extent that the second half, if a similar situation arises where it’s a close call, he will say, ‘Do I want to meet this Wooden or do I want to meet that one?’ And chances are he’ll call the play in Wooden’s favor.”

Wooden’s halftime routine became so established that one veteran league official, Bill Bussenius, sometimes loitered by the scorer’s table to avoid the confrontation. “Wooden was no saint,” Bussenius said. “There were just two doors in the old Westwood gym, and he’d wait for you by one and give it to you when you came out.” Another former PCC ref added, “I’ve seen him so mad that I’ve been afraid he’d pop that big blood vessel in his forehead. But I’ve never heard him curse.”

Wooden was especially rabid in his early years at UCLA when he was trying to get the program established. “He was sort of a tiger when he came into the league, but that was in the days when he was trying to make his mark,” said Al Lightner, another veteran West Coast official. “I would think that any referee who does not command the respect of John Wooden can expect to be tested.” During one game, Wooden became so enraged at the officials that he refused to bring his team out of the locker room for the second half. “The athletic director of the other school came in and talked to me,” he said. “Eventually, I went on with the game.”