John Wooden is too busy to deal with death

The phone rings in John Wooden's condo the other day and the answer machine responds.

There is a sick feeling in Marc Dellins' stomach. He begins leaving a message on the machine stressing the importance and hope for a return call.

Dellins is UCLA's sports information director, and he's calling because there is a rumor Wooden has passed.

Suddenly a familiar voice picks up, Wooden hearing Dellins out and saying, "Not yet, but well on my way," the punch line the dead giveaway, so to speak, it really is Wooden.

Dellins is so relieved, he calls back five minutes later just to hear Wooden's voice again.

It has been almost two months now since Wooden was discharged from the hospital after a 30-day tussle with pneumonia, and while there have been five more visits since then for this and that, he's now 98.

"And a half," he says, sitting in the same restaurant Thursday morning that he sits in every day, the same booth -- No. 3, ordering the same number off the menu -- No. 2.

"I would say conservatively speaking I eat here seven days a week," he jokes, always the truth for Wooden -- even in the joke, dinner at another restaurant most every night too, almost always the same senior turkey dinner.

This morning's breakfast will go on for three hours, Wooden unable to shake his visitor, the line a long one day after day for others also wanting some of his time.

New York Giants Coach Tom Coughlin was here a few weeks ago, a USC assistant football coach is the latest to call seeking a meeting.

As for Wooden, he would still like "to have dinner with both Joe Torre and Mike Scioscia," even making a concession, and saying they wouldn't have to eat turkey.

He loves his baseball, all right, and his channel turner, stopping for Perry Mason, and every Saturday parking on the westerns, which got him an invite to meet Clint Eastwood on the set of "Changeling," Eastwood directing Angelina Jolie.

"A very lovely woman," Wooden says with a smile. "Those lips are something."

Like he said, he's not dead.

A FEW years ago he admits to drinking. Once. The Reseda post office is being named in his honor, and he spills his guts, drinking at a fraternity party back in his days at Purdue. He shakes his head with devilish delight when it's mentioned later maybe they shouldn't be naming a federal building after someone who should have been busted during Prohibition.