Coach Wooden and the Pennies

Coach Wooden and the “Pennies”

 

Although he knew he would never get it, Coach Wooden’s goal was perfection. You have heard of the sayings, “Leave well enough alone.” and, “If it aint broke, don’t fix it.” But you would have never heard those words coming out of the mouth of John Wooden. In regards to executing basketball plays, no matter how well things worked in games, to John Wooden, the plays were never good enough and still broke, perhaps less broke than before, but still broke.

 

Frequently, and that means every practice, when we executed a play so brilliantly, we scored an easy basket, exactly the one Coach wanted to see, and we expected Coach to say, “Great job,  we heard, “Try it again.” We thought, ‘Why? We couldn’t have run that play any better?’

 

Ben Franklin is credited with the saying, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” Coach Wooden preached and lived that. He believed, the purpose of the basketball practice session is to fully-prepare the team for the upcoming game. To John Wooden, “fully-prepare” meant the team was so well-trained to quickly and properly respond to all challenges, those “challenges” turned into opportunities that were taken advantage of.

 

Preparation for basketball games is not limited to quick and proper execution of offensive and defensive plays; for John Wooden, it also included the very clothes we wore during practice. When preparing for a home game against the University of Washington, for example, the “second team” (non-starters) wore purple “Pennies” (pull-over tank tops) during scrimmage while the “first team” wore white T-Shirts, the exact colors both teams would wear during the game. Coach believed this was good preparation because we got used to seeing that color.  

 

Does that seem trivial? What difference does color make? And players are accustomed to opponents wearing different colors. Those who think this way have bought into the disposition of, “Leave well enough alone.” But Coach Wooden believed, “It is the accumulation of the little things that could make a difference.” This, my friends, is one difference between a champion coach and a runner up.

 

By failing to prepare, you prepare to fail.