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Coach Wooden and Me
Our 50-Year Friendship on and off the Court
My Thoughts
You will like this book if you have an interest in basketball, coaching, John Wooden, or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Kareem tells a wonderful story with many good insights.
My Favorite Quotes
- The test of true friendship is how many of life’s tough obstacles you helped each other overcome.
- As you get older it’s tougher to have heroes but just as necessary.
- Inspiring compassion is just as important as inspiring success.
- Happiness begins where selfishness ends.
General Notes
Never try to be better than someone else.
Learn from others and never cease trying to be the best you can possibly be.
If you get yourself too engrossed in things over which you have no control, it’s going to adversely affect the things over which you have control.
Wooden’s dad was fond of moral values that came in sets of three.
Never lie, never cheat and never steal.
Don’t whine, don’t complain and don’t alibi.
Kareem references Coach Wooden’s pyramid of success but does not discuss it in detail.
The graphic below is from Coach Wooden’s site which contains an interactive pyramid of success and link to download a printable version. The interactive version allows you to click on each block of the pyramid for quotes from John Wooden.
Our heroes became heroes by making mistakes and learning from them.
Two ways a great teacher influences students:
- By the practical value of their words in teaching the students how to do things they couldn’t do or could now do better.
- Through the purity of their actions.
Preaching moral platitudes is easy, but walking the line and living them takes great strength.
A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment.
The test of true friendship is how many of life’s tough obstacles you helped each other overcome.
Winning is a byproduct of hard work.
Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.
Failure is not fatal but failure to change might be.
Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends with them?
If you want to be your best, you can’t take shortcuts.
As you get older it’s tougher to have heroes but just as necessary.
Inspiring compassion is just as important as inspiring success.
Happiness begins where selfishness ends.
Related Book Summaries
Hope you enjoyed this and got value from my notes.
This is the 83rd book read in my 2018 reading list.
Here is a list of my book summaries.