UCLA coach Cori Close wasn’t sure what she was expecting when she was invited to meet John Wooden at his home in 1993. But she could say it was definitely not … this.
The small two-bedroom apartment with one guest bathroom that was chronically broken (forcing guests to walk through the Wooden’s primary bedroom into their bathroom), the undersized patio outside the front door, the general diminutive nature of everything in the space for a coach whose teachings and lessons had seemed to permeate every level of basketball in America — at first, it didn’t add up.
Close was a rookie coach, straight out of her playing days at UC Santa Barbara and working as an assistant on the UCLA women’s staff. Her counterpart (in terms of rank) on the men’s staff, Steve Lavin — now the head coach at San Diego — mentioned to Close that he had been meeting with Wooden every few weeks to discuss basketball and life.
On a random Tuesday in November, Lavin surprised Close by showing up after one of the UCLA women’s practices and told her that he had informed Wooden that she’d be tagging along that night. At first, she was nervous. She remembers telling Lavin, “I’m not prepared. I can’t go.”
He laughed and asked what kind of preparations she’d need to do. Close wasn’t…
