Women’s basketball’s Cori Close carries forward Coach Wooden’s legacy at UCLA

Twenty-one years ago, in the spring of 1994, coach Cori Close, then the restricted-earnings coach for the UCLA women’s basketball team, was not prepared.

She was dressed in sweats one Tuesday evening when Steve Lavin, her counterpart on the men’s basketball team, told her that she was coming with him to coach John Wooden’s apartment – he said she didn’t have a choice. So Close, caught off guard and as she put it, “scared out of (her) mind,” went to meet the legendary coach for the first time.

When Wooden greeted the two, he was blunt with Close.

“Who are you?” he said.

“I’m Cori Close.”

“How do you spell that?”

“Uh, C-O-R-I.”

“Oh, good! Come right in! You’re the first person I’ve ever met that spells it just like my great-granddaughter Cori.”

It was this moment that formed the bond between the two coaches that would strengthen over the years.

“From that point on, I went back every Tuesday,” Close said. “A lot of us can say the right things, but he lived in reflection of his principles even when it was hard, even when it didn’t serve his interests.”

After leaving her restricted-earnings coaching position, she became an assistant coach at UC Santa Barbara. While at UCSB, Close said she would come down once a month to see Wooden. During these check-ins, Close would talk with Wooden and she would see his old players, greats such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Walton, come back and check in with their old coach.

In Wooden’s home, however, basketball was the topic least talked about. Close said the check-ins were for them to catch up and care for each other.

“I would say 10 percent of the time, if that, did we talk about basketball. It was about life and relationships and your principles and how you continue to grow as a person,” Close said.

Eventually, Close would move on to Florida State in 2004 and not have the opportunity to visit Wooden regularly. However, when Close returned to UCLA in 2011 after Wooden passed away, she said she was instantly reminded of his impact and realized what her duty was as the new head coach of the women’s basketball team.

On just her fourth day on the job, Close was sitting in her office when John Vallely, a former player of Wooden’s who played in the NBA, walked into Close’s office and boiled down Wooden’s impact on his life.

“(He) said, ‘I’ve been married 38 years because of what John Wooden taught me. I’ve started three successful businesses because of what Coach Wooden taught me. I’ve conquered cancer three times because of what Coach Wooden taught me. I’ve survived the death of my 12-year-old daughter because of the tools that Coach Wooden gave me.’ By this time I have tears in my eyes. He says, ‘I’m the man I am because of what Coach Wooden taught me,’” Close said.

He did not mention his basketball career once.

“Nothing short of that was going to be OK with me from that point on, so my coaching philosophy is: Provide a transformational experience for young women that equips them for the rest of their lives through basketball,” Close said.

Close said she helps her team grow by demanding hard work and competitive excellence on each play and each possession because it teaches them skills for handling off-the-court challenges.

During practice recently, redshirt junior Kacy Swain said she was having a tough day. Close noticed and did not hesitate to let her know why it was important for Swain to not give in to her frustration.

“She was like, ‘Right now, you need to fight through because this is how you learn to fight through in your life,’ and she said that in the middle of the drill,” Swain said. “Everything that we learn here from basketball is really for life.”

Not only is Close striving to teach her players values and lessons that are more important in comparison to their feats on the court, but she is also trying to build a program centered on another one of Wooden’s mantras: “You can’t live a perfect day until you do something for someone who will never be able to repay you.”

Close said those are the two lenses someone can see the world through – being a giver or being a taker. Being a taker is the easy route, Close said, and that is why it’s important to be part of something that is greater than yourself and be with people who help you make the choices you wouldn’t make if you were alone.

“What we’re trying to build here is a collective effort that ‘Man, because I’m here maybe someone else is a little less selfish and because they’re there I’m a little less selfish,’” Close said.

The fourth-year coach said that living a life in which she puts others before herself is not easy, but what helps her be uncommon is her dedication and love for her players and the program’s mission and her faith in God.

“My relationship with God really dictates for me how I want to treat people, how I want to be a bridge builder, how I want to love people that are different than me, how I want to build a group of people of diverse backgrounds,” Close said.

The team has taken steps to ensure that it upholds the philosophy off the court by helping those who are less fortunate. Two weeks ago, the players and coaches woke up at the crack of dawn for their Samaritan shoe drive when they went to a Camino Neuvo elementary school to wash the feet of approximately 500 kids and teachers and personally pair each one with brand new shoes.

The annual shoe drive, which was started by Close, is sophomore guard Dominique Williams’ favorite philanthropic event because it is a chance to see the youthful joy of the kids and put her faith into practice, she said.

“I think part of my purpose is to help other people and give to them,” Williams said. “I just think it’s such a humbling experience to wash somebody else’s feet; it just really makes me put in perspective all that I have.”

The team has adopted a family to sponsor and is collecting cans and bottles to raise money for them. After the team’s loss to Cal, a game in which it lost a commanding lead, the team met the family it was sponsoring for the first time. Swain said she was so upset about the loss, but when she saw the family and how much it was fighting every day, her perspective changed.

“I couldn’t think about (the loss) anymore,” Swain said. “What we do is bigger than basketball.”

Wooden’s legacy lives on not only through Close’s philosophy of selflessness and helping one another grow as people through basketball, but also through her players and the individuals they have helped.