Swearing by the Wizard? Devil Made Him Do It

At the end of the birthday party the folks at the Encino-Tarzana Regional Medical Center threw for John Wooden Monday, I asked the coach kind of a devilish question, and, well, he swore at me.

“Goodness gracious,” Wooden exclaimed, and I thought Roy Firestone, the birthday bash moderator, was going to keel over in shock.

“I’ve talked to some of his players,” Firestone said, “and Coach never uses profanity, but when he says ‘goodness gracious,’ it’s the same thing.”

Never uses profanity? “You have never used any profanity in your 93 years on Earth?” I asked.

“Once,” he confessed. “I was in the barn with my brother, and he picked up a pile of manure with a pitchfork and tossed it over his shoulder and into my face.”

The devil tapped me on the shoulder again. “So tell me, what swear word did you use?”

Without hesitation, Wooden said, “I’m going to tell you,” but when he began to open his mouth, it was as if he had something caught in his throat. He started to wheeze and I thought, great, so I’m going to be known as the guy who sent the Wizard of Westwood to an early grave choking on a cuss word.

“You can do it,” I said, while trying to encourage Wooden to swear.

Firestone was laughing. “He still can’t say it.”

Wooden said something inaudible. Then he tried it again, explaining he yelled at his brother: “You son of a b.”

He said his father spanked him hard for saying that, and I said that wasn’t fair because Wooden hadn’t even finished the whole swear word.” And he grinned and said, “Oh yes I did.”

*

LET ME tell you, I know what it’s like hanging around really old people. Sports editor Bill Dwyre’s office is next to mine at The Times. But there’s nothing old about Wooden, who put on a show for the medical staff, reciting several lengthy poems from memory. I asked Dwyre a few weeks before the USC-Notre Dame game if I could go to South Bend to root on the Trojans, and he forgot we had talked.

What a wonderful way to spend an afternoon -- away from Dwyre. Firestone asked Wooden, who had the audience mesmerized, who was the best-ever college basketball player, and he said, “The most valuable player was Lewis Alcindor.”

The best defensive college player, he said, was Bill Russell; the guy he’d want taking the last shot, Larry Bird; the greatest basketball mind as a player, Mike Warren; the most memorable player he coached, both Alcindor and Bill Walton; the greatest moment in college basketball history, UCLA versus Houston in the Astrodome; the best basketball player ever, Michael Jordan; the biggest surprise -- that I heard -- mentioning Karl Malone’s name on his all-time top five list of players.

What about LeBron James, today’s phenom? Wooden said in all his years watching young talent before going pro, only James and Oscar Robertson played at a higher level than their peers.

He told the audience he had long been against raising the height of the rim, but now he’d like to see them experiment by raising it six inches.

Firestone said he is always asked if Wooden could dominate today as he did so many years ago. Wooden smirked. “We’ll never know, will we?”

And when it’s all said and done, Firestone asked the coach, what would Wooden like people to say about him? “Always considerate of others,” he said.

*

WHEN ALMOST everyone had left, the devil returned. I teased/chastised the Wizard for the symbolic impact of sitting behind the Bruins’ bench and appearing to look over the coach’s shoulder.

Wooden laughed, and made it clear to me there was no second-guessing. “Those guys on the bench are so tall,” he said. “I’ve never seen a tipoff yet.”

*

THERE IS a plaque in front of the medical center honoring Nell, Wooden’s wife of 53 years before her death in 1985. He has been coming here for the last four or five years to celebrate his birthday.

A year ago Dr. Norman Lavin, who extended the initial birthday invitation to Wooden, asked an expert on Abraham Lincoln to deliver a personal lecture to the coach, knowing Wooden’s devotion to Lincoln. Next year Lavin intends to have an expert on Mother Teresa do the same thing. His gifts to the coach.

“I want to learn something every day, including the last day I live,” Wooden said. “I remember hearing Wilt Chamberlain telling a reporter, ‘No one handles me. You handle things. You work with people.’

“I had just published a book and one of the chapters was entitled, ‘Handling Your Players.’ I went home and crossed out the word ‘handling,’ and in all subsequent editions of the book, it reads ‘working with your players.’ I learned something from Wilt that day.”

Wooden continues to produce books -- two this year. He autographed copies for the medical staff and when he finished, Bill Marlow stepped forward.

“You probably don’t remember me, Coach,” he told Wooden, “but we talked in 1978. I went to Fresno State, and I had just been told I wouldn’t be on the traveling squad. I was really mad, and we talked.”

Wooden looked up. “Yes, I remember.”

By the look on Marlow’s face, I can’t imagine him hearing any better words.

“You mentioned family, life, education and how they were more important than basketball,” said Marlow, who helps premature babies in the hospital when they have breathing problems. “You were my idol, and I just wanted you to know after all these years how much those 10 minutes we spent together meant to me and my life.”

By the look on Wooden’s face, I can’t imagine him hearing any better words.

T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com.