Denny Crum becomes a legend, receives John R. Wooden award

UCLA Sports Information Former Louisville head coach
Denny Crum will receive the Wooden "Legends of
Coaching" award.

By Christina Teller
Daily Bruin Senior Staff

“Where great futures begin” is UCLA’s motto.
On the court of Pauley Pavilion is where Denny Crum’s great
future began to take shape.

Crum, the former Louisville head coach, Bruin hoopster (1956-58)
and UCLA assistant (1968-71, including three-straight national
championships), is the fourth recipient of the John R. Wooden
“Legends of Coaching” award.

“I’m very happy that it is going to Denny,”
Wooden said. “I consider him one of the sharpest people that
I’ve known. He’s worked hard and has done a great
job.”

Crum, who is only one of just 10 coaches in NCAA history to win
two or more national championships, is the first winner that has
UCLA ties.

In receiving the award, Crum joins the ranks of former North
Carolina coach Dean Smith, Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski and
Arizona’s Lute Olson.

“It’s a very select group of people to be involved
with,” Crum said. “It makes me humbled and makes me
feel very proud.”

“(Coach Wooden) meant so much to me, not just in
basketball, but his teaching in life are the most important things
I learned,” continued Crum, who retired from coaching in the
spring of 2001.

Crum coached for the first time as a 10th grader during summer
league basketball and landed his first coaching job right out of
college as an assistant for the UCLA freshman team.

“He is the only player I ever had, that at the time he was
playing, I said he was born to coach,” Wooden said.

In Crum’s 30 years at the helm of Louisville, he was
awarded with such distinctions as National Coach of the Year (1980,
1983, 1986), Basketball Weekly (1980) and The Sporting News Coach
of the Year (1986) and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of
Fame in 1994. Like the Hall of Fame, the “Legends in
Coaching” award carries added significance, as it indicates a
career of achievement.