I never in my wildest dreams thought I would get even one play at Indiana, let alone 25 years later, walk Bruin Walk, walk UCLA where Coach Wooden built his legacy.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
It's been an unbelievable thing for me to walk Bruin Walk and walk past Coach Wooden's statue, a guy that when I was in elementary school, it's Coach Wooden winning his final championship, his 10th in 12 years.
Then I went to UCLA - so of course I became a huge Bruin basketball fan... and later came to football.
I never dreamed I would coach at UCLA. It was not one of those things in my coaching career I thought would happen. It's a tremendous blessing, and I'm going to make the most of it.
I went to UCLA, my dad's alma mater, and that was his dream.
I grew up in Indiana. My first four years of elementary were in the gym where Coach Wooden went to high school.
My dream was to play for Alabama - football, basketball.
I just go back to my roots. I was literally born 26 miles from Martinsville High School where Coach Wooden grew up, and then my dad coached there for four years.
I think I'm telling the truth. I sat by Ray Perkins at the Hall of Fame dinner in New York, and at that time he didn't know he was our coach and I didn't either.
In my era, where I'm from, I only had Donald Whiteside. He's from Englewood and he's the only one that came out of Englewood. Other than him, I really didn't have anyone else to look up to that was from my area. So in seeing him, I never gave up hope, just kept playing and then I realized that I might have a future in basketball.
When I left the University of Notre Dame, I honestly felt I would never coach again.
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