John Wooden

(draft)
legendary UCLA basketball coach
born 14 October 1910 in (rural) Martinsville, Ind.
died 4 June 2010

From The Indianapolis Star
Published 13 October 2009
ref: http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009910130340

HALL, Ind. -- John Wooden turns 99 Wednesday [14 October 2009]. He is a legend living out his days in his adopted clamorous land of southern California, still a high bar no basketball coach can even dream of reaching.

Here, at a sleepy crossroads with no stoplights and no businesses, where the only sounds on a Sunday were birds and a lawn mower, seemed the spot to mark the occasion.
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John Wooden's birthplace.

No signs. No plaques. The only place the name "Wooden" can still be found are pictures of old Sunday school classes on the wall of Mt. Pleasant Christian Church.

I came across Denzil Hurt, a retired farmer and Hall lifer, watching a NASCAR race in his barn. Sure, Hurt said, his father and uncle knew little John Wooden. They shot baskets with him on a farm outside of town, before Wooden's family moved down the road to another town when he was 8.

Wooden's a pretty famous native son, wouldn't you think Hall might have something to let passersby know?

"Who in the (heck) is going to drive to Hall," Hurt asked, "to see a John Wooden sign?"

Wooden's name has come to mind lately while watching the depressing mess playing out in Tallahassee, Fla., with Florida State football coach Bobby Bowden.

Wooden retired at 64 with his 10th national championship in 12 years at UCLA. Heaven knows how long he could have won, but he settled into autumn as a basketball statesman and UCLA courtside spectator.

No board of trustee member ever went public to complain about Wooden staying too long. He left them only wanting more.

Who in Hall would understand that? The only sign of public commerce is the Hall Grocery and Post Office, but the paint is badly peeling, the windows dark, the doors locked. The last carton of milk was sold years ago.

Nearby lives Bill McCarns, who used to own the store. He was sitting with family and friends, watching NASCAR. Care to guess the most popular sport in John Wooden's hometown?

"You're in redneck country," Amanda Traut was saying. She also had a question. "Who's John Wooden?"

McCarns grimaced.

"C'mon. He went from here to California, won I don't know how many championships. He never got the recognition around here that Bobby Knight got, and Wooden deserves it."

Indiana University, where Knight built his own kingdom, is maybe an hour south. Still, wouldn't people in Hall know John Wooden?
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"The old timers? Every one of them," McCarns said. "This is a laid back place. The people know whose car goes by, if they live a mile away.

"We used to have a mortuary, a gas station, a bank, a pool hall. They're all gone now. The store closed 13 years ago. We tried it for 10 years and just couldn't make it. The most people that ever was in the store at one time was the day they opened the lottery."

Wooden became a civic treasure amid the millions of Los Angeles. The population of Hall?

McCarns simply counted households. It didn't take long.

Hurt doesn't have a lot of inside information on little John Wooden. "If I wanted to know about him, everyone here's dead and gone," he said.

But he remembers watching UCLA games, right? "Not any more than I had to. To me, basketball is Indiana."

The issue was where, exactly, Wooden was born. From which location did Hall send Westwood its wizard?

Hurt, McCarns and the others pondered that a spell. "It was just the other side of the stop sign."

Wherever it was, the structure is long gone. What remains is a sliver of wood on a white barn outside of town, painted over many times, that once served as a backboard for the town boys.

"Every time Wooden's name came up," Hurt said, "my dad said he played basketball right here."

Soybean fields surround the barn. Off in the distance, trucks roll across the Midwest on Interstate 70. John Wooden turns 99 Wednesday and the game still speaks his name in almost hushed reverence. It all started here.

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Wooden dies at age 99: http://sports.espn.go.com/los-angeles/news/story?id=5253601

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John Wooden: What the legendary coach got wrong about basketball --
http://www.slate.com/toolbar.aspx?action=print&id=2256117