John Wooden

1910–2010 · UCLA basketball coach & former English teacher

John Robert Wooden (14 October 1910 – 4 June 2010) coached UCLA men’s basketball from 1948 to 1975, winning ten NCAA championships including seven in a row from 1967 to 1973, and was the first person enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame as both a player and a coach. Before Westwood he taught English at South Bend Central High School, and he built his coaching around aphorisms — his Pyramid of Success, his father’s maxims, and a working stock of borrowed proverbs he quoted freely without ever claiming to have written them. That habit is exactly why so many sayings he merely repeated now travel the internet under his name.

Traced to source

1 quote we’ve traced

“Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out”

Disputed

Not actually John Wooden

Often misattributed to John Wooden

Famous lines widely pinned on John Wooden that we’ve traced to someone else.

“Failing to prepare is preparing to fail”

actually Anonymous proverb

“If you fail to prepare, you are preparing to fail”

actually Rev. H. K. Williams

“Sports do not build character. They reveal it”

actually Heywood Hale Broun

On the research bench

Commonly pinned on John Wooden — under review

1 line flagged as pinned on John Wooden and queued for a full source trace — not yet verified.

“I don't give advice; I give opinions.”

Disputed

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