Coach Wooden and Me

The author narrates his work, not an overarching look at his life but a focus on an important part of it: his relationship with his college basketball coach. The two--one of the greatest players and possibly the sport's greatest coach--could not have been more different. But mutual respect and their willingness to learn from each other formed the basis of a lifelong friendship. While Abdul-Jabbar is an accomplished writer, his narration skills yield a staccato delivery. It's not as smooth as it could have been. He doesn't imitate Wooden, which keeps with his genuine storytelling style. But what Abdul-Jabbar lacks in narrating ability doesn't take away from the moments and messages. The story is a player-coach relationship that might never be duplicated, and his perspective is appreciated. M.B. � AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

March 27, 2017
Anyone inclined to dismiss John Wooden and Abdul-Jabbar’s relationship as merely coach and player— Abdul-Jabbar led Wooden’s basketball teams at UCLA to three NCAA titles in the late 1960s—will rethink that miscalculation after reading this compact, engaging memoir. The two men remained close until Wooden’s death at age 99 in 2010, Abdul-Jabbar writes: “Our friendship grew over shared values, over complicated loves and devastating losses, over a never truly satisfied search for understanding of this world and our place in it.” Abdul-Jabbar discusses his own intellectual and spiritual growth, interweaving the lessons Wooden conveyed to him over the years. He shrewdly removes any mysticism from the famous friendship, showing Wooden as more than a “Pyramid of Success” figurehead. At Wooden’s memorial service, Abdul-Jabbar recalls, “we all spoke about the lessons we learned from him rather than the games we had won.”