Wooden On Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization

Wooden begins with an anecdote concerning his brief time playing semipro basketball to earn extra money when he began his coaching career. Making a larger point concerning values, he compares two different team owners that he played for. The first owner once presented him with an extra $100 on top of his $50-per-game salary because he accomplished the remarkable feat of making 100 consecutive free throws over many games in a season. The second owner once docked his salary by half when he and a teammate were late for a game after being stranded in a snowstorm. Wooden also uses an anecdote concerning the recruitment of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who he describes as “the most valuable player in the history of the college game” (63), to elaborate on the notion of values.

Because of Wooden’s unique policy of not contacting potential recruits, he had to wait for Abdul-Jabbar to initiate a meeting. Abdul-Jabbar, who was then known as Lew Alcindor, had his high school coach contact Wooden to let him know that UCLA was among the five schools he was considering. He then visited the UCLA campus with his parents and ultimately chose to play for the Bruins.