Motivate Your Team! Cheer Up A Friend! Inspire Yourself!
Motivate Your Team! Cheer Up A Friend! Inspire Yourself!
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| Wooden's Wisdom - Volume 2 | Issue 79 |
| Craig Impelman Speaking | Championship Coaches | Champion's Leadership Library Login | |
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THE MOST IMPORTANT WORD IN OUR LANGUAGE IS LOVE AND THE SECOND MOST IMPORTANT IS BALANCE - LOVE
This one sentence of Coach Wooden's is a summary of his philosophy and how he lived his life. Love as an action has many dimensions. One is being nice to people even if they are not being nice to you.
The day after Coach Wooden passed away I concluded that the most important thing I learned from his example was to respond with love to everybody and every situation. RWL became a cheer.
I asked the team I was working with to make a list of all the people and situations they were angry or upset about and determine how to RWL (respond with love) to all of them.
Coach Wooden's philosophy started with his father who, in the evening on the porch of their farm after the chores were done, read to his sons from the Bible, followed by poetry.
The following passage from the Bible became one of John Wooden's favorites:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.
His father reinforced this value when he gave Coach a little card when he graduated from middle school. On one side he had copied down a poem that he loved, by the 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.
Coach described the impact this way: Over the years, the poem's message made more and more sense: seek clarity of thought, fill your heart with love and compassion for others, be honest and fair, and trust in the Good Lord.
In the evening before he passed away Coach was visited in the hospital by Dudley Rutherford, who would be conducting his memorial service.
Coach had selected a Scripture passage for his memorial:
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,” and, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Dudley asked Coach: Do you still want the same Scripture for your service regarding love?
Coach had not spoken much that day and nodded his head.
Dudley then asked: Coach are these two things, loving God and loving your neighbor, things you believe you have done in your life?
Coach replied quietly: Working on it.
Dudley said: Which one are you working on now Coach?
Coach replied: Loving God.
Coach finished and started the same way: with love.
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Love Your Neighbor
He is anywhere and everywhere It is Christmas but he won't have one He gathers with peers and celebrates life He is in search of a new life not suicide Open up your heart when you see him Embrace therefore your neighbor David Beckham
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