With the “HISTORY OF THE EVENTS OF THE ALLENTOWN COLLEGE’S 1972-1973 B-BALL SEASON, AS CHRONICLED BY, AND WITH THE PERSONAL MEMOIRS AND OCCASSIONAL PHILOSOPHIZING OF THE AUTHOR, ONE STEPHEN J. McKEE” still on Christmas break (next game January 18) this seems an opportune moment to look back on where CENTAUR SEASONS has been, and where it might be going, with a couple of MidSeason Reports.

This second MidSeason Report takes a long look at the college basketball era of these CENTAUR SEASONS — the late ’60s/early ’70s — years dominated by the UCLA Bruins and the legendary coach John Wooden.

A pair of early CENTAUR SEASONS posts — “Where’s the Centaur? (Parts 1 & 2)” — attempted to find the place of little Allentown College inside this big college basketball picture. You can find Part One here. … And Part Two here.

Meanwhile, in the post “To Everything Their Seasons,” I tried to locate perspective in the night we Centaurs scored our biggest win of my freshman year — which just so happened to be the same day UCLA won the first game of what eventually became a record-shattering 88-straight victories!

The center piece of this AC/UCLA mix-and-match, though, is an exclusive two-hour audio interview I conducted with Coach Wooden in May 1991 when I was working on a book that became “Coach,” an oral history of the sideline profession. The entire interview is available below.

The interview can also be accessed through these two CENTAUR SEASONS posts:

“U.C.L.A. CENTAURS; A.C. BRUINS: An Exclusive Inferview With John Wooden,”

as well as,

“AT THE END OF THE BENCH: What a Centaur-turned-Coach Learned at Allentown and Ahares With coach John Wooden,”

As for the Wooden interview itself, click on any of the segments below to listen to that portion of the conversation while also reading a verbatim transcript. Coach Wooden always famously insisted that he wasn’t a coach, he was a teacher. Indeed. there is much to learn here. Enjoy!

Part 1

Length – 2:14. “Hi, Mr. Wooden, this is Steve McKee… sounds like you’re listening to the Lakers game!” Explanation of interview… “… I’ll keep talking as long as you want to keep talking.”

Part 2

Length – 5:16. Lew Alcindor/Bill Walton… The expectations of winning

Part 3

Length – 2:49. “The fans are just wanting one thing.” On winning and losing; on winning when losing; on losing when winning.

Part 4

Length – 5:02. His long life in basketball; the too-physical game today – “basketball is a game of beauty and finesse”; TV & money.

Part 5

Length – 3:44. “We can’t be surprised that the money starts ruling.” The game in the Astrodome against Houston: “I never wanted to play that game there…”

Part 6

Length – 5:12. Regret missing out on the big money? “No, everything is relative.”… “Can’t live in the past.” What kept him going? “I enjoyed teaching … I enjoyed working with youngsters.” A lesson from his father.

Part 7

Length – 2:41. Who coaches the coach? His off-season “projects” to improve as a coach

Part 8

Length – 7:05. One of his most enjoyable years. Fear of complacency. The Bill Walton Era and the loss to North Carolina State. “Never blame the players.”

Part 9

Length – 8:41. “The Journey is better than the end.” His favorite poems and his “Pyramid of Success. “I’m not a rah-rah fellow.” Long hair & beards; profanity; the Sixties. “If you’re consistent, you’ll be all right.”

Part 10

Length – 6:03. His decision to quit coaching. The media in the locker room. Facing the press never got easier.

Part 11

Length – 1:11. “I would not bring practices home” … “I think my family always came first.”

Part 12

Length – 3:16. What all coaches, at ALL levels, share in common. The joys of teaching in high school. Trying (and failing) NOT to grow too attached to players

Part 13

Length – 13:00. Coaches who influenced him … attending Perdue … Getting married. WWII & the Navy. … Likely would have stayed at South Bend HS forever, but for the war. What happiness is to him and what it means … Jumps to college level at Indiana State … Non-basketball job offers.

Part 14

Length – 3:59. Coaching at Indiana State; refusing to go to the NAIA tournament because organizers said his one black player couldn’t participate.

Part 15

Length – 7:22. The choice between UCLA and Minnesota. Why UCLA? … The move to Los Angeles … Building a program … “Don’t be a dictator.”

Part 16

Length – 4:16. “Your happiness comes from things that cannot be taken away from you.” Being offered pro jobs. “I turned down positions where I could have received more.”

Part 17

Length – 3:25. Will we ever see another UCLA? The set up of the NCAA tournament.

Part 18

Length – 5:52. Note: Because the tape was being switched here, the beginning of my question is missing. Segment begins at the end of my reciting some of Coach Wooden’s UCLA season records in the late ‘50s, early ‘60s: “… 16-10, 16-9 and 14-and-12.” (Some “down” seasons after a few 20-win seasons.) It appears I wanted him to talk about the many years before he even got to his famous NCAA run.

Coach Wooden defines success. “You have to judge yourself.” Talks about one of his “finest coaching jobs.” The frustration of not having an on-campus facility in those earlier years. How the NBA Lakers helped create more interest in college basketball in Los Angeles.

Part 19

Length – 5:29. “The team comes first.” Fitting many individuals into one team. “Everyone has a role, and it’s an important role.” Writing letters to every player during the summer. The Bill Walton era and keeping players motivated.

Part 20

Length – 3:20. The young John Wooden once quit his high school team. He explains what happened and what lessons from that he carried with him forever.

Part 21

Length – 0:45. When the legendary football coach George Halas, organizer of a barnstorming basketball team, picked up the reigning College Player of the Year for a playoff run …

Part 22

Length – 2:48. Coach Wooden reports on the Lakers-Blazers game he’s had on TV during the interview. What he misses, and doesn’t miss, in retirement. His life now.

Part 23

Length – 7:28. “The game you’re playing now, that’s the big game.” Don’t be satisfied “just to get there.” Winning with Alcindor vs. Walton vs. his teams without a superstar. Come backs to talk about the current NCAA format. Teams get in with more losses than ALL the losses of his ten championship teams. (And he had to win the conference just to get into the tournament.)

Part 24

Length – 1:51. He talks of Nell, his wife of 53 years, who passed away six years before this 1991 interview. High school sweethearts, their pregame ritual – he catching her eye in the stands; she giving him the “OK” sign – started way back then. A final report on the Lakers-Blazers game. Thank yous and good-byes.

About
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Steve McKee

Steve McKee is the author of CENTAUR SEASONS, a memory blog about his basketball-playing days at Allentown (Pa.) College of St. Francis de Sales in the early 1970s (a good excuse for using his college yearbook picture -- though there's NO excuse for that mustache and hair!).

CENTAUR SEASONS can also be found at www.centaurseasons.com. The centerpiece will be the posting in "real time" of the diary that Steve kept of his 1972-1973 junior-year season, beginning on November 30. Prior to that (and after), Steve will be posting regularly about his freshman, sophomore and senior seasons, as well as about what it was like to be there at the beginning to help get a struggling college basketball program off the ground.

Steve was the original writer of The Wall Street Journal's popular sports blog, "The Daily Fix" in 2001-2002, and was even dubbed "The Unwitting Father of the Sports Blog" by Gelf Magazine, the online publication of the "Varsity Letters Reading Series. Steve was the Journal's sports editor for its original Weekend sport section and was involved in all of the Journal's Olympics coverage, Winter and Summer, from 1996 through 2008.

He is the author of three books, most recently "My Father's Heart: A Son's Reckoning With the Legacy of Heart Disease," which he is adapting as a one-man show. For his first book, "The Call of the Game," Steve traveled the country in search of sports events -- including the famous N.C. State Wolfpack victory over "Phi Slamma Jamma" of the University of Houston. For his second book, COACH, among the 150+ coaches Steve interviewed are/were college basketball coaches John Wooden (UCLA), Pat Summitt (Tennessee), Frank Layden (Niagara), Bobby Cremins (Georgia Tech), P.J. Carlesimo (Seton Hall), Bill Guthridge (North Carolina), Abe Lemons (Texas), Stan Morrison (USC), Kathy Rush (Immaculata), Jim Satalin (Duquesne), Charlie Thomas (San Francisco State), Butch Van Bredda Koff (Princeton), Bill Whitmore (Vermont) and LaDonna Wilson (Austin Peay).

For more, you can click on www.steve-mckee.com, where you can find a TODAY show appearance and an NPR interview.

CENTAUR SEASONS: Some Allentown College and UCLA Connections — really; well, OK, sort of — and the Exclusive Interview with Coach John Wooden