John Wooden

John Wooden is recovering from pneumonia, and the 98-year-old basketball coaching great is expected to be released from the hospital soon. UCLA, the school Wooden coached to 10 national titles, said Friday he was admitted to a Los Angeles-area hospital Feb. 13 and is completing his recovery. "My father is doing well," said Nan Muehlhausen, Wooden's daughter. "His lungs are clear and he has been eating well. We expect him to be released soon."

If Sir Alex Ferguson had stuck with his original plan, today we might be praising his pasta and Chinese noodles rather than his decision to start Robin van Persie over Wayne Rooney. Or if he had chosen to pursue his interest in U.S. history, particularly the Civil War and the JFK assassination, he might have become a master teacher of men rather than a master motivator of them. But then again, if Ferguson hadn't passed on those two options to become the most successful coach in British soccer history, we wouldn't be calling him sir. After all few chefs, and even fewer U.S. history buffs, get knighted by the queen.

Ayeet Timothy Odeke, basketball coach at Nkumba University in Kampala, gets the look - the same one Bill Walton might have given John Wooden years ago - when he instructs his players on the proper way to put on their socks and lace up their shoes at the start of each season. "If you didn't get the words, the face would talk to you," Odeke explained. "Are you mad? Are you crazy?" It was 10 years ago, at a basketball clinic in Uganda, when Odeke was exposed to certain Wooden life lessons for the first time: Don't mistake activity with achievement.

It's rare when both local universities introduce new basketball coaches a day apart - and even rarer still when USC trumps UCLA off the court - yet if public relations counts for anything, I'd say Andy Enfield just defeated another established power to advance while Steve Alford was upset again in the first round. Steve Ross New York :: It is not that UCLA has made the wrong selection for the basketball program, but they certainly did not make the bold selection; that honor falls to USC. Perhaps each program has made the "right" selection - only time will tell - but I do have a bit of a bad feeling that UCLA should have been braver.

If Sir Alex Ferguson had stuck with his original plan, today we might be praising his pasta and Chinese noodles rather than his decision to start Robin van Persie over Wayne Rooney. Or if he had chosen to pursue his interest in U.S. history, particularly the Civil War and the JFK assassination, he might have become a master teacher of men rather than a master motivator of them. But then again, if Ferguson hadn't passed on those two options to become the most successful coach in British soccer history, we wouldn't be calling him sir. After all few chefs, and even fewer U.S. history buffs, get knighted by the queen.

UCLA basketball coach emeritus John Wooden was informed by his 9-year-old granddaughter that her coach wanted grandpa to come and talk to the girl's elementary school basketball team. Wooden, who will celebrate his 84th birthday on Thursday, wanted to know whose idea it was. "Both (of ours)," she responded, "but I said I'd ask you because you couldn't turn me down." Wooden, the Wizard of Westwood, doesn't put up much of a defense when friends and family put the touch on him.

Almost every morning, just as daylight begins to brighten the color of the leaves on the Eucalyptus trees lining the sidewalk closest to his front door, John Wooden sets out on a 5-mile walk. The route he takes is always the same: White Oak to Burbank, up Burbank to Balboa Park, through the park, up Balboa to Ventura and back home. He could probably walk his path with his eyes closed, because in 17 years, it has never varied.

He will awaken today in a condominium where time has not budged for 27 years. There is shag carpet on the floor, crushed velvet furniture in the corners, his late wife Nell's enduring vision on walls filled with aging clocks and plates and photographs of men in basketball hot pants. He won't turn on his cell phone, because he doesn't have one. He won't jump on the Internet, because he doesn't own a computer. He will not watch the TV in his bedroom, because it hasn't worked for years.

The rumors that had been circulating for months and escalating since UCLA was ousted from the Pacific 10 Conference tournament with a final season record of 16-14 came true Wednesday morning when Athletic Director Peter Dalis met with Walt Hazzard and relieved him of his duties as the UCLA basketball coach. Hazzard had been the Bruin coach for four years, longer than any of the four other coaches who followed Coach John Wooden.

Tyler Trapani couldn't have been more than 6 when his great-grandfather, John Wooden, decided to begin teaching him a thing or two about the game of basketball. The legendary coach was patient with his great-grandson, initially going over the fundamentals while being careful not to discourage the impressionable youngster. More than 11 years later, Trapani, a senior at Simi Valley High, doesn't remember much about those early lessons.

I saw the guy working on TV, his team surprising folks in the NCAA tournament, but honestly I don't even know his first name now that he has become USC's basketball coach. But he has to be more interesting and exciting than the dolt introduced as UCLA basketball coach Tuesday. It's pretty well understood that whoever coaches UCLA basketball is a dead man walking, it being only a matter of time before the alumni agree he'll never be another John Wooden. But this might be the first time UCLA actually hired a dead man. Yeesh, the John Wooden statue outside of Pauley had more life to it than Steve Alford, the robot who sputtered nonstop platitudes while never once answering a question directly.

Steve Alford might not seem to have many ties to UCLA basketball. He played at Indiana for Coach Bob Knight, who seemed to go out of his way to praise Pete Newell at the expense of John Wooden, who like Alford was an all-state high school player in Indiana who became an All-American in college and led his team to an NCAA title. But here's a nugget I found from an extensive 1997 story I did on Alford when he was coaching at Southwest Missouri State. After Alford was released by the Sacramento Kings in 1992, he was offered a job to coach Division III Manchester College in Indiana. The school was looking for a home-state hero to rescue a struggling basketball program.

Ben Howland, who led UCLA to three Final Fours, was fired Sunday, the school announced, ending the longest tenure for a Bruins coach since John Wooden retired in 1975. Howland spent 10 seasons in Westwood, finishing with a 233-107 record. He is coming off one of his best coaching performances, with the Bruins winning the Pac-12 Conference regular-season championship. Yet his star had fallen considerably since he took UCLA to consecutive Final Fours in 2006, '07 and '08. He was informed Sunday that he was fired.

There is unfinished family business brewing, though Minnesota guard Austin Hollins was unaware of it. Hollins, a 6-foot-4 guard, is eagerly anticipating his chance to play against UCLA in the second round of the NCAA men's basketball tournament, which he will get in Austin, Texas, on Friday. After spending Selection Sunday unsure whether the Golden Gophers would be chosen to advance, Hollins had a revelation: "We have a new opportunity. " The game fell right out of the family tree.

The players Cori Close inherited when she took over as coach of the UCLA women's basketball program were not a cheerful bunch. It was the spring of 2011 and the Bruins had just lost their previous coach, the charismatic Nikki Caldwell, who bolted to Louisiana State for more money and a job closer to family. Fans grumbled, wondering if Athletic Director Dan Guerrero had tried hard enough to keep Caldwell. The players felt betrayed. "We had a lot of trust issues," forward Jasmine Dixon recalls.

In a week when you thought you might have heard it all, I present to you Bill Walton speaking to USC students and bashing UCLA basketball. "I never knew they had pretty girls here at USC," began Walton, one of UCLA's all-time greats, after being introduced to a packed auditorium of sports business students. And for the next two hours he wouldn't shut up, entertaining, inspiring, opinionated, off the wall and dedicated to preserving the memory of John Wooden. It was all part of a bus tour to promote the Pac-12 Networks, Walton trumpeting an upcoming game in his own way. "What should be an absolute unbelievable game will be ruined by the style of the UCLA basketball team who loves to do nothing but call timeouts and run plays.

John Wooden, who coached the UCLA Bruins to an unprecedented 10 national basketball championships before retiring in 1975, will receive the 1987 Bellarmine medal, a humanitarian award, at a dinner ceremony here Oct. 2. The award, given by Bellarmine College, honors people "who exemplify charity, justice and temperateness in dealing with controversy." It has been won by Philip C.

It turns out we were wrong about John Wooden. We always thought about him in terms of Xs and O's and Ws, saw his mark in the "UCLA cuts" still utilized by coaches today, the 10 championship banners he brought to Pauley Pavilion, the three basketball Hall of Famers he tutored. The real legacy of John Wooden can be found in items as mundane as a pair of socks and players such as John Vallely, whose NBA career consisted of 100 games and 359 points.

President Gerald Ford and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev negotiated the SALT II Treaty in Vladivostok, a 3.2-million-year-old skeleton later named "Lucy" was discovered by anthropologists in Ethiopia and the top song on the charts was "I Can Help," by crossover artist Billy Swan. And … the Buffalo Braves' franchise record 11-game winning streak ended with a two-point loss in Chicago, despite Bob McAdoo's 31-point performance. The date of all these seismic events? Nov. 24, 1974.

A county from home is not so far. A site listed as "neutral" shouldn't feel so foreign. But the Bruins entered Anaheim's Honda Center on Saturday to find themselves hated villains. San Diego State fans bathed the arena in red, flooding its lower levels, swamping its nosebleed seats. Its student section stood and roared throughout; the rest of its faithful screamed, pumping fists. It marked the first time these freshmen-laden Bruins faced a ranked foe — the Aztecs were No. 23 — and the first time they played in any environment where the crowd was heavily against them.