John Wooden’s sayings continue to inspire generations of students

As the thousands of us prepare to graduate from UCLA and move onto the next stage of our lives, I can imagine coach John Wooden smiling down from heaven like a proud teacher.

Now, none of us have attended a Wooden lecture. He never gave us a midterm or graded one of our papers. Yet he was undeniably the greatest teacher any of us ever had.

While his profession may have been limited to the basketball court, his teaching extended far beyond. In a way, you could say that it was what Wooden did after he retired that has greater traction and significance than what he did while serving as the UCLA men’s basketball coach for 27 years, a time period that is considered to be the most dominant in the history of sports.

The fact that Wooden remained such a profound figure in the historical and cultural mindset of society after he stepped away from the coaching spotlight 35 years ago speaks to the incredible wisdom he gave. It is his words that will live on far longer than any of the championships will, and it is his words that all of us should hold and take note of as we embark upon our careers.

I know I sure will.

After Wooden passed away Friday, I began to read through some of his more well-known phrases, and one in particular stuck out to me.

“Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.”

That quote may very well be the theme of what has taken place in my life the last four years.

In high school, I had my mind set on studying journalism in college and then covering a sports team for a newspaper in a major city before retiring in Hawaii.

But I took a tour of UCLA ““ the school where essentially everyone in my family went to ““ and decided that despite not having a journalism major, it was the place for me.

Fall quarter of my freshman year, I joined the Daily Bruin in hopes of beginning the journey that I set in my mind. However, over the course of the last four years, my interests have shifted because of certain opportunities that were available and unavailable to me.

I have decided that journalism is not my calling; media relations is.

I have secured internships with professional sports teams while simultaneously being denied from internships with newspapers, and I realized that the relationships team officials and reporters have with the players and coaches are different. The relationship team officials have is more personal; the reporters’ more professional and distant.

I have realized that my personality fits more with a career in media relations as opposed to journalism, and I have made the best of my situation.

In a few days, I will move to the Bay Area to pursue a position with the San Jose Earthquakes in media relations, after which I will look for another position with another team.

While there is a feeling of uncertainty in moving away from home and pursuing a field that I do not have much hands-on experience in, I am confident in my decision because, like Wooden taught, I’ve made the best of the way things have turned out for me.

The same logic can be used to describe Wooden’s passing. We can choose to mourn the loss of one of the most influential men not only in sports, but also in American history. Or we can choose to view it as an opportunity for him to be reunited with the love of his life after 25 long years apart.

So as we graduates prepare to begin our post-UCLA lives, we should heed the advice of not only the greatest embodiment of what this university represents, but also of one of the greatest teachers there ever was.

“Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.”

E-mail Howard at [email protected].