Wooden Story - A Lesson in Patience

We interviewed NMSU's Head football Coach Dewayne Walker on the Thursday's show and were struck by his credentials and his appetite for wisdom. In our explorations of various forms of excellence and best practices we recall an observation made by John Wooden, who is perhaps the greatest basketball coach in history (Wooden passed away earlier this year). We post Wooden's quotes and picture on this site regularly. In his book, A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court, he said:
“Most of us are impatient. As we get older, we think we know more and things should happen faster. But patience is a virtue in preparing for any task of significance. It takes time to create excellence. If it could be done more quickly, more people would do it. All forms of excellence require patience.”

Let’s examine the win-loss record of this phenomenal college basketball coach during a four year period in the middle of his career. In an era when even coaches with positive win-loss records are fired by impatient administrators, we note that Coach Wooden’s team FAILED to make the post-season tournament each of these four years.
Season W/L Conference W/L
1956-1957 22-4 13-3
1957-1958 16-10 10-6
1958-1959 16-9 10-6
1959-1960 14-12 7-5
And when new athletic director, J.D. Morgan, took over at U.C.L.A. and evaluated John Wooden not long after this stretch, he must have agreed that, “All forms of excellence require patience,” because he wisely retained Wooden. In 1960-61 once again, Coach Wooden’s team had a winning season but failed to make the post season tournament. We find it interesting that just before this great coach’s teams would begin to dominate college basketball as none have done before or since, he had missed the playoffs for five consecutive seasons. This should be a lesson to anyone thinking excellence can be achieved by artificial means or rushing.

Wooden Story - A Lesson in Patience