UCLA had defeated Louisville 75-74 in a double-overtime semifinal of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, and the Bruins were whooping it up appropriately in their locker room when coach John Wooden strode in and held up his hand. Instantly, the room went deathly still.
“He told us he was proud of the way we came back from being down,” reserve forward Wilbert Olinde recalled. “He said that winning wasn’t everything but he really wanted this win because he is bowing out. He said a few more things and then left the room.”
Two nights later, on March 30, 1975, UCLA defeated Kentucky 92-85 in the championship game, giving Wooden his 10th NCAA title in 12 years. Then the greatest coaching career in college basketball was over, and its like would never be seen again.
The Wizard of Westwood was gone from the sideline at 64, but memories of his magic live on.
More than three decades later Wooden is still around at 98, though a siege of pneumonia - the latest of several serious illnesses - hospitalized him for a month this past winter. Over the years, his stature has only increased. He has written several books, and reproductions of his famous “Pyramid of Success” hang in gymnasiums and arenas around the country.
Yet fame and success never changed him. When fans would approach and want to shake his hand, Wooden always said the same thing: “Thank you.” In a profession that encourages bombast and ego, he was a benchmark of gentility and courtliness (no pun intended).
Most of the time, anyway.
“There is the perception that he is this saintlike creature and so calm, so reserved,” star center Bill Walton once said. “But there also is this side of Coach Wooden that he is this caged tiger.”
And why not? Nobody ever won a single game by being meek, much less 10 national titles. Just ask any referee who incurred Wooden’s wrath. He got on the zebras as often as any other coach, and “heavens to Betsy” was not one of the epithets he used.
Wooden’s retirement should have been no great surprise, because rumors had fluttered all season. He had experienced mild heart problems, and there was nothing left for him to prove - at least until David Thompson’s N.C. State Wolfpack interrupted UCLA’s string of seven NCAA championships in 1974, beating the Bruins 80-77 in a double-overtime semifinal.
So the Wizard set out to regain the title he had won so often, though stars Walton and Keith Wilkes had departed as No. 1 draft choices by the Portland Trail Blazers and Golden State Warriors, respectively. No problem. The Bruins, led by senior star Dave Meyers, finished with a 28-3 record that boosted Wooden’s 27-year totals at UCLA to 620-147.
Surely the timing of Wooden’s announcement to his team was no accident. If his impending departure provided a bit more motivation for the grand finale, that was OK, too. Of course, Wooden denied any connection.
“Coming off the floor after the semifinal win, it just hit me - time to go,” Wooden said. “It was an emotional thing. I can’t explain it. … [The players] were shocked. … My wife didn’t know. I didn’t know myself until it happened.”
The championship game was close most of the way, with 15 ties and five lead changes in the first half alone. UCLA broke out to a 66-56 lead with about 12 minutes left in the game. Kentucky eventually cut the deficit to one point but never caught up.
Wooden told people after the game that his last title was no more special than the others. Nobody believed him.
“I wanted to win it for Coach Wooden,” said Meyers, who led the Bruins with 24 points. “He’s done a masterful job.”
That was no surprise either.
The retirement became official the following Oct. 14, on the eve of preseason practice, because Wooden “didn’t want to be looking over the shoulder” of successor Gene Bartow.
Bartow got the Bruins into the Final Four the following spring, yet he and three other coaches left UCLA in the nine years after Wooden’s retirement. The school finally won another title in 1995 under Jim Harrick but lost championship games to Louisville in 1980 and Florida in 2006.
In this era of long pants, longer NCAA tournaments and greater parity in college basketball, no team or coach will again dominate the scene as UCLA and John Wooden did from 1964 through 1975.
In fact, it was sheer Wizardry.
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