By Tom Mills of Track Record Enterprises LLC
Last time, I shared my appreciation for my surprise visit with the legendary “Wizard of Westwood.” Although for the most part, I was a mere spectator, it still was a wonderful experience for me.
As I mentioned, I was so impressed by the fact that “Coach” had his own heroes: Abraham Lincoln and Mother Teresa.
My second involvement with John Wooden occurred eight years later. I was contacted by a major Southern California sports radio station that had planned a one day event about winning. They were inviting sports icons such as Joe Montana, Magic Johnson and Pete Rose (to name just a few) and business authors such as Donald Trump to appear but the speaker who truly appealed to me was “Coach.”
The other thing that strongly appealed to me was the opportunity to work once more on behalf of one of the great charities of today, the Special Olympics.
The plan was to combine fifty actual Olympians from Southern California with 50 Special Olympians and produce a “Heroes Introduction” that would provide the name and sport of each Olympian as well as the name and sport of each Special Olympian.
For nearly 20 years, my firm has been involved in these types of projects so it was relatively easy for us to coordinate this from the Olympian standpoint.
Somewhere in the midst of working on this production, an idea popped into my head that would provide a special acknowledgement for “Coach” and also provide the participating Olympians with a special keepsake that all of them would cherish.
I suggested to the producer of the event that we present “Coach” with an original portrait that commemorated his involvement in this event. In addition, we would also produce a limited edition series that could be provided to event participants (including the Olympians) as a special keepsake.
I got a portrait artist involved and when this work was finished, the artist and I presented it in person to Coach. John Wooden also autographed the limited edition sheets and I presented the Olympians with these special keepsake gifts at a special celebration party that I hosted on October 14th (Coach’s 94th birthday).
One of the Olympians in attendance was John Wooden’s first All American basketball player, George Stanich and his lovely wife Valerie. George also won the bronze medal in the high jump at the 1948 London Olympic Games.
George was tremendously influenced by John Wooden and became an outstanding college basketball coach in his own right at El Camino College in the South Bay of the Los Angeles metropolitan area.
Immediately following John Wooden’s passing, I received a call from George and we had a lovely discussion about how this man had shaped our lives. One of the testimonials that I heard over the weekend mentioned that we would never have someone this special in our presence again.
I agree but for Coach’s sake, I hope that there will be hundreds of thousands and even millions of disciples of his principles following his example and the example of individuals such as Abraham Lincoln and Mother Teresa as we all move through our lives.
All that George and I could say is “Thank you, Coach.”
