'There Was Nothing More Important Than Being on the Team'

Bill Walton was living the dream.

He was in his early 20s, the best player in college basketball, and a student on one of the nicest campuses in America.

And yet, he wasn’t satisfied. John Wooden had implemented a set of strict, seemingly arbitrary rules, and Walton failed to see the logic behind many of them.  

“I wanted to know why I had to cut my hair, why I had to shave, why I had to wear the clothes he wanted me to wear, why Nixon was president, why we were in Vietnam, and why the cheerleaders couldn’t be in my hotel room for the road games,” Walton said.  

Finally, the coach had enough.  

“Bill, that’s all fine and good that you think that way, but I’m the coach here. And while we’ve enjoyed having you, we’re going to miss you,” Wooden said.

Decades later, Wooden was asked at an event whether he was actually going to kick a three-time national player of the year off of his UCLA team.

He paused, looked around the room, and said, “Well, Bill should’ve thought so, and that’s all that mattered.”

Walton and former UCLA teammate Andy Hill shared that anecdote with The Daily Coach in 2021.

Walton passed away from cancer this week at 71, but his humility, selflessness, authenticity and genuine zest for life will inspire leaders for generations to come.  

For this week’s Saturday Blueprint, we put together some of our favorite Walton quotes from that 2021 interview.  

On Coach Wooden’s culture:

“There was nothing more important than being on the team. He created a culture, an identity and a style of, ‘We have a collective sense of effort and purpose, and we’re going to get this done. If you’re not interested, that’s fine. There’s somebody else who is.’ It was a privilege to play for him. Of all of the different things he said, none of it made any sense to me as a teenager. Later on in life, everything he said did come true.”

“The expectations at UCLA were to have an undefeated season, and to win every game, and to play perfectly. It was at UCLA that I embraced, came upon, and was inspired by the standard of perfection and the search for excellence that I’ve tried to maintain throughout the rest of my life.”

“We didn’t know adversity was coming. We were all from Southern California and had gone to UCLA and were winning every game. We thought that was the way life worked. But (Coach Wooden) knew. He talked about the need for self-motivation, when he talked about the need to have balance and quickness in every aspect of your life, to have a creative imagination when things went the wrong way, to have empathy and sympathy, to have the confidence, perseverance, persistence and discipline to get what you want and need, that’s what he was really after. That’s where he was at his best.”

On leadership:

“It’s not about the coach. It’s about the players. The job of the coach is to make people better.”

“The job of the coach is to breathe life into everybody else and to make them feel supreme, to make them feel that the light is all shining on you.”

“Sacrifice, discipline and honor are the elements of group dynamics and success.”

On mindset:

“I like to focus on the positive. There is tons of negativity, but any time that there’s a negative aspect, I always try to turn that into a positive solution.”

When Walton would address friends, strangers, TV viewers or seemingly anyone else he crossed paths with, he’d often say, “Thank you for your life.”

We at The Daily Coach thank you for yours, Bill. As always, shine on.

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