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    Wooden: A Coach's Life
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    Wooden: A Coach's Life
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    Wooden: A Coach's Life
    Ebook956 pages15 hours

    Wooden: A Coach's Life

    By Seth Davis

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    A provocative and revelatory new biography of the legendary UCLA coach John Wooden, by one of America's top college basketball writers

    No college basketball coach has ever dominated the sport like John Wooden. His UCLA teams reached unprecedented heights in the 1960s and '70s capped by a run of ten NCAA championships in twelve seasons and an eighty-eight-game winning streak, records that stand to this day. Wooden also became a renowned motivational speaker and writer, revered for his "Pyramid of Success."
    Seth Davis of Sports Illustrated and CBS Sports has written the definitive biography of Wooden, an unflinching portrait that draws on archival research and more than two hundred interviews with players, opponents, coaches, and even Wooden himself. Davis shows how hard Wooden strove for success, from his All-American playing days at Purdue through his early years as a high school and college coach to the glory days at UCLA, only to discover that reaching new heights brought new burdens and frustrations. Davis also reveals how at the pinnacle of his career Wooden found himself on questionable ground with alumni, referees, assistants, and even some of his players. His was a life not only of lessons taught, but also of lessons learned.
    Woven into the story as well are the players who powered Wooden's championship teams – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Walton, Walt Hazzard, and others – many of whom speak frankly about their coach. The portrait that emerges from Davis's remarkable biography is of a man in full, whose life story still resonates today.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateJan 14, 2014
    ISBN9780805099416
    Unavailable
    Wooden: A Coach's Life
    Author

    Seth Davis

    Seth Davis is a studio analyst for college basketball at CBS Sports and senior writer at The Athletic. He is the New York Times bestselling author of Wooden: A Coach’s Life and When March Went Mad: The Game Transformed Basketball.

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    Reviews for Wooden

    4.5/5

    27 ratings13 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This is a great book for a narrow audience. Even though it is full of tips for how to live a successful life there is way too much basketball detail for a casual reader to wade their way through this thing. That said, for a coach, player or UCLA fan this book is very, very good. This is no whitewash job as there were improprieties in the UCLA program over the years and Seth Davis is very fair in presenting a balanced portrayal here. He even writes a little about something I always complained about which was that UCLA had an easier route through the NCAA tournament in the early years because brackets were based on geography and they were able to avoid playing a series of games against teams in the stronger East coast conferences in the early rounds. If you like basketball and don't mind a lot of game detail this is a great book.
    • 5/5
      A very in-depth and balanced look at the life of the most successful college basketball coach of the 60s and 70s. The author's detailed research is obvious, if not a little over-included. He doesn't whitewash Sam Gilbert or the racial tensions surrounding the team and his coaching while, at the same time, providing a detailed look at why he was successful as a manager of players. There is not as much discussion of what made his fast-break offense tick - interestingly for a book about a basketball coach whose successes were forged on the practice court, there is very little about the basketball he taught there. But this is a minor problem, to this reviewer, in an excellent biography
    • 4/5
      John Wooden had such a long career in basketball that a story of his life is also, by necessity, a history of the game of basketball. You can see the game change throughout the story of Wooden's life and career.Seth Davis made no effort to gloss over the negative aspects of Wooden's life, while still showcasing his innate talent and love of the game.The book is a bit wordy and could have been edited down a bit, but I would recommend it to anyone interested in either the life of John Wooden or anyone fan of college basketball.
    • 5/5
      An outstanding, well-researched and thorough book on the man considered one of the great coaches and teachers of the last century. Warts and all, Davis is not afraid to show the reader who the real John Wooden is. Well done.
    • 5/5
      Seth Davis thoroughly details the life events, on and off the court, that turned Johnny Wooden the boy into John Wooden the man. Davis tells Wooden's story in a delightfully readable prose that flows remarkably quickly through the decades without leaving any detail untold. We've all heard of the legend that Wooden was, Davis proves it many times over. This is not a basketball book, it's about a man more than worthy of emulating who just happened to be associated with the game.
    • 5/5
      I received a free advance copy of this book in exchange for a review.I was too young to be much aware of Coach John Wooden during his coaching career, but he is a familiar figure to me, as he must be to even the most casual fan of college basketball. He is “The Wizard of Westwood,” revered for his coaching prowess, wisdom and numerous national championships. This book is a respectful and remarkably balanced portrayal of his life from beginning to end, as well as a fascinating window into the interpersonal, institutional and social dynamics behind the great UCLA basketball dynasty. Though Wooden’s brilliance and success is well-documented, his career spanned decades of dramatic social change, and he often struggled to adapt. His relationships with players, assistants and the media were sometimes strained. Davis illustrates the coach’s strengths and weaknesses objectively throughout, reporting the facts without passing judgment. That this biography is the product of meticulous, exhaustive research is evident on every page. I found it compelling, well-written and a pleasure to read.
    • 4/5
      Well-written and thoroughly researched, Seth Davis' biography of John Wooden - "Wooden", A Coach's Story- is an honest appraisal of the great coach's life. Davis works with dozens of players, coaches, and others who were closest to the man to paint a fully-fleshed out portrait of a complex man. Wooden, the owner of the most men's NCAA basketball titles in history was a genius on the job, a doting husband, and a polished PR man. He also built one of the greatest dynasties in sport's history, let alone college basketball history.Davis interviews former Bruin stars like Lew Alcindor, Bill Walton, Marques Johnson, Lucius Allen, Walt Hazzard, Gail Goodrich, Sidney Wicks, and Curtis Rowe, just to name a few to give readers a close look at every UCLA season under Wooden. Also interviewed extensively for this book are the Bruin benchwarmers who provide some of the most interesting details and honest appraisals of the Wizard of Westwood.College basketball fans and historians will find this book an absolute treat. Author Davis has done a wonderfully fair job creating a complete story of John Wooden's life. This book is a slam dunk!
    • 4/5
      For any basketball fan who really likes to know about the history of the college game, this is a great book. It gives a very raven picture of Wooden, talking about both his good points and his bad points. It also gives a lot of background on the relationships with his players and how they changed over the years. I knew little about Wooden before reading this and found it enjoyable.
    • 4/5
      I received "Wooden: A Coach's Life" as part of a Goodreads giveaway.

      As someone whose sports interest tends towards pro hockey and baseball, I didn't know a lot about John Wooden coming into this book. However, Davis' biography of the legendary UCLA basketball coach is through while remaining eminently readable. I got a sense of Wooden not only as a legendary coach, but also as a person--a devout Christian Midwesterner transplanted to the West Coast, followed by towering success and a bittersweet end to his career.

      One of the aspects of the book that I most respected was Davis' balanced portrayal of Wooden. After researching and working on the book for years, including three separate interviews with Wooden himself, in addition to being an accomplished college basketball writer, it would be understandable if Davis fell prey to hero worship, but that's not the case here. He takes plenty of times to highlight Wooden's mistakes, blind spots, and faults. Wooden, while on the whole a very good man, was human, and the book reflects that.

      One of the challenges of writing about sports in general, and college sports in particular, is the revolving door nature of teams. I'll admit that, over Wooden's more than two decades at UCLA, including his string of championship runs in the 1960s and early 1970s, names and personalities did tend to run together a bit, but I don't necessarily lay that at Davis' door; it's just sort of the nature of the subject.

      Even as a novice of college basketball, "A Coach's Life" was a fascinating read. Recommended.

    • 5/5
      A moving and detailed book about John Wooden's life. I enjoyed the reality behind the myth. No one's perfect and it was nice to have a balanced book that discussed Wooden's faults and achievements. His life and rise in the coaching world is even more amazing when you see where he came from. Even beyond Wooden, this is a great story of the evolution of basketball and how they game has become what it is.
    • 5/5
      Like most sports-crazed teenagers in 60's LA, I was a huge fan of John Wooden and his spectacular Bruins teams. But the Coach Wooden I knew was far more complex than the nice older gentleman I saw on TV and read about in the newspaper. For example, I knew he was inducted in the College Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach - but I didn't know he was inducted into the College Hall of Fame in 1960 - as a player. I didn't know he viciously baited referees and other teams' players. I do now, thanks to "Wooden: A Coach's Life" by Seth Davis.Davis gives the reader an in-depth, well-researched look into the life of America's most successful college basketball coach: 10 national championships, including 7 in a row, in a span of 12 seasons is a record that likely will never be broken. He brings Wooden to vivid life, warts and all. If you're interested in basketball history, or are just a fan, I think you'll find this a worthwhile book.
    • 4/5
      Seth Davis provides a thorough look at a somewhat contradictory man. Wooden could be forceful and quiet, determined to win and happier when the team lost. I liked that Davis did not pull any punches while dealing with his revered subject, showing both a willingness to listen to others and a stubbornness that often worked to his detriment.
    • 4/5
      First off, this is a very big book, however, it takes a big book to cover 100 years of basketball history, 100 years of social issues in the US, and the almost 100 year life span of John Wooden. I enjoyed reading about his early years in Indiana when basketball was still a new game. I enjoyed reading about how he adapted or not to the changing times. I enjoyed reading about how his players could leave UCLA frustrated with him only to realize later what an impact he had on their lives. I did find some repetition by the author to be tiring, we were told over and over again that John was not a drinker and avoided the cocktail party events and we were told over and over again that John was raised by a father that didn’t hug and coddle him and that was how he treated his players. The author seemed determined to show the good and bad of John Wooden but frankly it seemed like he had to try too hard to show the bad.