AN AMAZING COACH!

On Tuesday the best man I know  will do what he always does on the 21st of the month. He'll sit down and pen a  love letter to his best girl. He'll say how much he misses her and loves her and  can't wait to see her again.

Then he'll fold it once, slide it  in a little envelope and walk into his bedroom. He'll go to the stack of love letters sitting there on her

pillow, untie the yellow ribbon, place the new one  on top and tie the

ribbon again. The stack will be 180 letters high then,  because Tuesday is 15 years to the day since Nellie, his beloved wife of 53  years, died.

In her memory, he sleeps only on  his half of the bed, only on his pillow, only on top of the sheets, never between, with just the old bedspread they shared to keep him  warm.

There's never been a finer man in  American sports than John Wooden, or a finer coach. He won 10 NCAA basketball  championships at UCLA, the last in 1975. Nobody has ever come within six of him. 

He won 88 straight games between January 30,  1971, and  January 17,  1974.   Nobody has come within 42  since.

So, sometimes, when the Basketball  Madness gets to be too much -- too many players trying to make Sports Center,  too few players trying to make assists, too few coaches willing to be mentors,  too many freshmen with out-of-wedlock kids, too few freshmen who will stay in  school long  enough to become men -- I like to go see Coach  Wooden.

I visit him in his little condo in  Encino, 20 minutes northwest of Los Angeles, and hear him say things like "Gracious sakes  alive!" and tell stories about teaching "Lewis" the hook shot. Lewis Alcindor,  that is...who became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

There has never been another coach  like Wooden, quiet as an April snow and square as a game of checkers; loyal to  one woman, one school, one way; walking around campus in his sensible shoes and  Jimmy Stewart morals.

He'd spend a half hour the first  day of practice teaching his men how to put on a sock. "Wrinkles can lead to  blisters," he'd warn. These huge players would sneak looks at one another and  roll their eyes. Eventually, they'd do it right. "Good," he'd say. "And now for  the other foot."

Of the 180 players who played for  him, Wooden knows the whereabouts of 172. Of course, it's  not hard when most of them call, checking on his health, secretly hoping to hear  some of his simple life lessons so that they can write them on the lunch bags of  their kids, who will roll their eyes.

"Discipline yourself, and others  won't need to," Coach would say.

"Never lie, never cheat, never steal," and  "Earn the right to be proud and confident."

If you played for him, you played  by his rules: Never score without acknowledging a teammate. One word of  profanity, and you're done for the day. Treat your opponent with respect. He  believed in hopelessly out-of-date stuff that never did anything but win  championships.

No dribbling behind the back or through the legs. "There's no  need," he'd say.

No UCLA basketball number was  retired under his watch. "What about the fellows who wore that number before?  Didn't they contribute to the team?" he'd say.

No long hair, no facial hair.  "They take too long to dry, and you couldm catch cold leaving the gym," he'd say.  That one drove his players bonkers.

One day, All-America center Bill  Walton showed up with a full beard. "It's my right," he insisted. Wooden asked  if he believed that strongly. Waltonsaid he did.

"That's good, Bill," Coach said.  "I admire people who have strong beliefsand stick by them, I really do. We're  going to miss you." Walton shaved it right then and there. Now Walton calls once  a week to tell Coach he loves him.

It's always too soon when you have  to leave the condo and go back out into the real world, where the rules are so  much grayer and the teams so much worse.

As Wooden shows you to the door,  you take one last look around. The framed report cards of his great-grandkids,  the boxes of jelly beans peeking out from under the favorite wooden chair, the  dozens of pictures of Nellie.

He's almost 90 now. You think a  little more hunched over than last time. Steps a little smaller. You hope it's  not the last time you see him. He smiles. "I'm not afraid to die," he says.  "Death is my only chance to be with her again."

Problem is, we still need him  here.

Live each day as if it were your  last!!!