Lost John Wooden Quotes

As you probably know this past week, legendary basketball instructor and Los Angeles fixture John Wooden passed away at the senseless age of 99. Not only was it the end to a storybook existence as an iconic name in the lore of American sports but it was the second time in the past week that someone blew the quest for something special by a hair. 100 is a milestone. 99 is the price for a pound of chicken cutlets.

The other brush with almost-greatness came from former steroid-pin cushion clean-up hitter turned stud hurler Andres Galarraga. Apparently, the "Big Cat" as he commanded to be called by his lesser dugout mates for the better part of 20 seasons in the big leagues, gave up the pine tar and traded it in for a rosin bag. He almost squeezed jaculate out of it as he was a blown call away from a perfect game sometime last week. This is great, because the last time I can remember a decent hitter trying his luck at pitching was Babe Ruth - and that was all over a sub-par Broadway musical.

In any event, to commemorate the passing of one of the last men we can remember to make horn-rimmed glasses fashionable, I leave you with some forgetten quotes never published before. Apparently these were found two days ago while rummaging through his closet in San Clemente. They were written on an In N' Out Burger receipt and stuffed into an old Alcindor jockstrap he kept with the net from the 1967 Final Four.

You may of heard of famous lines like "be quick but don't hurry" and "failing to prepare is preparing to fail" but these are an exclusive. Enjoy:

"Ability is a poor man's wealth. Wisdom is an old man's fruit. Congeniality was a movie with that sweet kid from the bus picture."
"Basketball is a thinking man's game. Carnivals are for midgets and tossers and tweakers."
"Bill Walton was a better guitarist than Kurt Cobain. I should know - I coached both of those sons of bitches."
"When life gives you lemons make lemonade. When God gives you a 30 game schedule win every fucking last one of 'em."
"Don't measure yourself with a common yardstick. Unless you're Alcindor, in which case we're talking like elephant trunk."
"Details are vital. It's the little things that make big things happen. Like, think about all those dudes holding the balloons in the Macy's Parade. You know?"
"Success is never final. Failure is never fatal. But at the very least a 'C' cup is just awesome."
"You know that Grateful Dead song that goes like 'Driving that Train, High on da da, da da dum da da da, da da da ... Casey Jones you better watch your speed?' I'm supposedly Casey Jones in that. Garcia had a great left hand by the way."
"I tell Walton all the time - you'll never live as long as I have. I tell him that all the time. Walton is a good kid, though."
"The main ingredient of stardom is the rest of the team. It doesn't hurt that L.A. has some great looking Asian women either."
"Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing. Haha, just kidding that was Lombardi. I was more into vocabulary words and telling Digger Phelps he looked like my grandmother."
The worst thing about new books is that they keep us from reading the old ones. Unless of course you're like Matt Damon's character in 'Good Will Hunting', whereas once was probably enough. Oh and maybe like Matt Christopher books are fine just once-through. Dickens you could read over though. Dickens is like a twice-over type of writer. He was a limey".