Who Was Joshua Hugh Wooden?

 

All credit for this goes to Pat Williams and his book, Coach Wooden.  In reading the first chapter of his book over the great coach, I was moved by the words spoken of Wooden’s father and the respect Coach had for him.  These words needed to be remembered as a way to positively influence your kids.

He was a role model for us all.

The more you study John Wooden, the more you realize that he is not only a great man – he’s a good man.  John Wooden is a man of character, wisdom, self-discipline, faith, integrity, honor, humility, and compassion for others.

I’ve become convinced that both the greatness and the goodness of John Wooden can be traced to his father, Joshua Hugh Wooden.  In fact, I believe the character and achievements of John Wooden can largely be traced to a piece of paper his father gave him on the day he graduated from the either grade.

When John Wooden graduated from elementary school, his dad gave him a $2 bill and a card. On one side of the card was this poem by Reverend Henry Van Dyke:

Four things a man must learn to do

If he would make his life more true:
To think without confusion clearly,
To love his fellow-man sincerely,
To act from honest motives purely,
To trust in God and Heaven securely.

On the other side of the card, Joshua Wooden wrote “Seven Things to Do:”

1. Be true to yourself.
2. Help others.
3. Make each day your masterpiece.
4. Drink deeply from good books, especially the Bible.
5. Make friendship a fine art.
6. Build a shelter against a rainy day.
7. Pray for guidance and count and give thanks for your blessings every day.

I’ve always been fascinated by the unique relationship John Wooden had with his father.  I’ve never seen any other famous person honor his father as John Wooden has honored Joshua Hugh Wooden.  Those who know Coach and have worked alongside him make the same observation.

From what Coach Wooden tells me, his father was firm but gentle.  Coach never wanted to let his dad down.

Coach has described his father as a man who was physically powerful, morally upright, and intellectually curious.  He was truly a gentleman, and more than that, he was a gentle man.  Of his father, Coach Wooden once wrote, “Joshua Hugh Wooden was a famer – honest, hard-working, and fair.  I never heard him speak an unkind word about another person, even on those occasions when he had every reason to.  Dad came as close to living the golden rule as anyone I’ve ever known.  He was strong enough to bend a thick iron bar with his bare hands, but he was also a very gentle man who read poetry to his four sons at night.  He loved his family deeply.”

Joshua Wooden used tough times to impress life lessons on his four sons.  “Blaming, cursing, hating doesn’t help you,” he told them.  “It hurts you.”  It was also during tough times that he taught his four sons what he called “the two sets of threes”: “Never lie, never cheat, never steal,” and “Don’t whine, don’t complain, don’t make excuses.”

When Hugh Wooden lost his family farm due to hard times, Coach later recalled, “and his heart ached for what had been lost, yet he lived by the advice he had always given to his sons whenever we fussed about something beyond our control: ‘Don’t whine, don’t complain, don’t make excuses.  Just do the best you can.  Nobody can do more than that.’”

Young people are keen observers of their parents’ reactions during times of stress, and a teenager name Johnny Wooden was no exception.  He recalled that watching his father stick to his principles through hard times “had a most powerful effect on me.  That’s where I came to see that what you do is more important than what you say you do.”

From everything I’ve heard, Hugh Wooden was an intelligent man who was reserved and quiet by nature, not because he was uncomfortable around other people but because he was totally comfortable with himself.  He wasn’t like so many people today who have to be always busy or always talking or always entertained because they can hardly stand their own company.  People who knew him say he was comfortable being alone with his thoughts or alone with God.

Who was Joshua Hugh Wooden?  He was an absolutely common man – never wealthy, never famous, completely un-known and unheralded.  And he was also a leader’s leader.  He was the leader who led John Wooden, the leader who shaped the life and the values of the greatest coach, the greatest sports leader of all time.

He was a role model for us all.