Bellarmine Medal Is Awarded to John Wooden : After Cronkite and Mother Teresa, They Looked for a Worthy Sports Figure

John Wooden, who coached the UCLA Bruins to an unprecedented 10 national basketball championships before retiring in 1975, will receive the 1987 Bellarmine medal, a humanitarian award, at a dinner ceremony here Oct. 2.

The award, given by Bellarmine College, honors people “who exemplify charity, justice and temperateness in dealing with controversy.” It has been won by Philip C. Habib, who recently resigned as President Reagan’s special envoy to the Middle East and Central America; Walter Cronkite, retired television newscaster, and Mother Teresa of Calcutta, founder of Missionaries of Charity.

So, why is it being given this year to a former basketball coach?

“We all became very well acquainted with the criteria for this award,” said Bill Samuels, a Kentucky bourbon maker and chairman of a search committee for the award. “The criteria eliminate about 99.9% of us mortals.

“We had a number of very frustrating meetings, and finally, in jest, one of our members suggested we ought to have someone from the world of sports.”

Committee members laughed. Nobody from the world of sports had ever won the award, and this would mark the 25th medal presentation in its 32-year history.

“This was right after the Len Bias disaster,” Samuels said, referring to the cocaine-induced death of the former University of Maryland basketball star. “We had been talking about what a sorry lot athletics had become.”

Then came the joke: Someone from sports should win the Bellarmine medal.

Said Samuels, known in Kentucky for the unorthodox advertising of his bourbon: “It was so obvious that that was the wrong answer, my little bells went off and I said, ‘Let’s take 15 minutes to explore this.’ ”

Wooden’s name was mentioned. Committee members were thrilled. And off went Samuels to visit Coach Denny Crum at the University of Louisville.

Crum, one of Wooden’s former assistants, told Bellarmine officials that he thought Wooden would accept the nomination.

“I was a little hesitant,” he said. “To be quite honest, I wasn’t aware of what it was about.”

Then he was told it was an award that Mother Teresa had received. That prompted another reaction.

“I felt out of place,” Wooden said. “I’m a little awed by it. . . . But I’m very proud and honored that they selected me.”