UCLA Coach John Wooden and his Crispy Bacon at VIPS

"Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming."

"Learn as if you were to live forever, live as if you were to die tomorrow."

"Be quick, but don't hurry."

- John R. Wooden, Head Basketball Coach, Emeritus, UCLA

My son, Joshua, and I had the extraordianry privilege and honor to be at legendary UCLA Coach John Wooden's memorial service at Pauley Pavilion on Saturday, June 26th. Coach had died on June 4th at the age of ninety-nine surrounded by family and other loved ones including some of his now famous basketball players. The service was incredibly moving and funny; filled with the love and admiration he so genuinely earned in his lifetime.

I was raised on John Wooden UCLA basketball in its heydey of 10 NCAA titles. My father had known Coach for sixty-one years since his days as an MBA student at UCLA, then through teaching in the graduate business program for seventeen years often tutoring athletes and throughout his professional career as a BusinessManager/CPA in the entertainment industry.

My father was (still is!) absolutely crazy for athletics, but especially UCLA basketball. There were blue and gold tumbler glasses with Coach Wooden's picture on them with a list of each championship team behind the bar in my parent's living room. He had (still has!) season tickets and has travelled the country to be there for NCAA title games, often with Michael Warren, a Wooden player from the championship teams '66-'67 and '67-'68 who also became a friend and client when he switched careers becoming a successful actor. Michael and my dad often regaled Coach with their hysterical escapades as the Felix and Oscar of the UCLA Alumni set.

I was extremely fortunate to be the beneficiary of my dad's relationship with Coach Wooden who I met and shared meals with on several occasions. As a little girl I couldn't have possibly known that I was witnessing athletic and basketball history. All I knew, of the perhaps more than one hundred games that I attended with my dad at Pauley Pavilion, was that we always won and won by a ridiculous amount of points!

We often got to sit in the UCLA Student Rooter section because even though my dad had his own season tickets he was able to get these special tickets from players like Sidney Wickes and Curtis Rowe. Imagine being five, six or seven years old walking past the players bench...Lew Alcindor (later to become Kareem Abdul-Jabar) being taller than you while sitting down... and then sitting in this special section shouting at the top of your lungs...U-C-L-A...UCLA, UCLA, FIGHT, FIGHT FIGHT! Such heady stuff...so exciting. Oh, how I promised my dad in those moments that I would go to UCLA and be a pom pom girl...he couldn't have been prouder imaging that scenario. Alas, I went to UC Berkeley and never got near a pom pom.

In recent years my dad has taken Joshua to many games indoctrinating him into the great tradition of the UCLA "brotherhood", meeting Coach Wooden and often sitting with him at the games. Coach was kind enough to autograph a t-shirt for Joshua and his children's book, "INCH and MILES - The Journey to Success" based on his adult version "THE PYRAMID OF SUCCESS". I have now put those things away for a future time when Joshua can really understand the greatness that he got to touch and experience by knowing Coach Wooden.

To me (and most of the world who followed his life) the most impressive aspects of John Wooden's life were his integrity, his devout faith, his abiding love for his family (his beloved wife, Nellie, their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren), his commitment to teaching - to "we" being more important than "me" and his wickedly funny sense of humor. He was a traditional man in a constantly changing world who stuck to his core beliefs and lived a life worth living; a life he could never have imagined while growing up in Indiana during the Depression.

One of the things that made Coach Wooden happy in his later years was going to VIPS Family Restaurant in Tarzana, California not far from his condo in Encino. For breakfast he always ordered the crispy bacon with chili and eggs. For dinner it was always meat and potatoes but I bet you could have guessed that.

Anyway, that crispy bacon was a staple and delighted Coach to no end...he never had breakfast without it...like he never let the monthly anniversary of Nell's death go by without writing her a love letter and tucking it beneath her pillow which was still beside his on their bed. He told one interviewer that he had had fears of death like everyone else but that after Nell died that was no longer the case because he knew that when he died he would be with her again in heaven. Theirs was the quintessential love story.

I know I don't have to give anyone a recipe on how to make bacon but if you're in the neighborhood and want to have the same crispy bacon that Coach Wooden loved so much just go to family owned VIPS where they serve breakfast all day long...they'll be glad to oblige you and serve you some. Their address is 18345 Ventura Blvd. Tarzana, California 91356/818-343-7361.

"One should always put family No. 1. I don't care what the situation."

"Young people need role models, not critics."

"Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there."

Suffice it to say, that at the end of the memorial service and twenty minute video of Coach Wooden's life in his own words there was not a dry eye in the house. My father and I were sobbing uncontrollably. I later called him to tell him that he was the John Wooden of our family and that if Joshua and I ended up having half as much character as him and Coach Wooden I would be very content indeed...thank you Dad, thank you Coach.