Ben Howland May Have Reached His Expiration Date at UCLA

The month of March is described as madness at UCLA because it’s when the Bruins usually wave goodbye under Ben Howland, a coach who has been under heat and scrutiny lately for not having much success in the NCAA tournament. The dreaded ending is something we’ve typically seen coming, and it seems every national expert picked Minnesota as the upset pick over No. 6 UCLA.

If you were UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero, then, how tough would it be to face a decision on whether or not to dismiss and lean toward replacing Howland? This 83-63 loss to 11th-seeded Minnesota in the first round of the NCAA tournament was the sign of a reign coming to an end, and rumor has it he won’t return for his 11th season. The truth is, he has past his expiration date to coach UCLA and couldn’t ever bounce back after falling to Florida in the national title game in 2006 and then suffering two heartbreaking losses in the Final Four appearances. This was supposed to be a moment to shine, celebrate another trip to the Final Four and represent the unvalued Pac 12 conference.

If this was another one of those magical UCLA teams, the kind we’ve seen advance to the Final Four and write miraculous stories — a UCLA library of books with stories to tell — it certainly wasn’t a story to be told this year, and in reality, Howland’s tenure is coming to an end. There is a slight chance Howland probably coached his final game as a UCLA head coach after a decade of accomplishments and disappointments. He is the biggest reason the Bruins had three consecutive Final Four appearances from 2006-2008, despite falling short in all three trips. He is the biggest reason UCLA rolled to 25 wins and won the Pac-12 regular-season title, the most victories the Bruins had since winning 26 in 2008-09.

For the Bruins, this year at least, March Madness was March Sadness and UCLA was eliminated from the tourney early. Once again, before tip off Friday night, UCLA wasn’t favored by every metric. There is a problem that can’t be solved until Howland is escorted out of the door and to his car. This is definitely a moment to rebuild and recreate a brand that defines the late John Wooden, an all-time UCLA great who built a pyramid of success. No one will ever come close to Wooden obviously. But you know — like I know — that this is a deep and talented team.

The brilliance of bringing together one of the nation’s top recruiting classes by UCLA’s polarizing coach is overlooked because of Howland’s conservative style of coaching and a suffocating defense. Either his players aren’t listening to him or he can’t coach five-star studs. If that was the case Friday night, Howland might be the one critics point fingers at, following a blowout loss that raises much concern about his job status. The Bruins seem to be in opposite directions and yet Howard landed the nation’s No. 2 recruiting class.

As we’ve seen so many times from other programs, the Pauley Pavilion was renovated but UCLA was barely making progress at home, winning a bulk of its games on the road. Before we judge, he represented UCLA with class and dignity but couldn’t give what a demanding program was anticipating as an ambassador who was once admired by a community that truly was confident that he would restore the general principles of success and pedigree. This shouldn’t be surprising to anyone. Obviously he’s not Wooden.

There’s your hit for what had gone wrong at UCLA, definitely bringing forth a discussion that became old as time progressed, that annoyed fans and had everyone speculating about Howland’s job status. This might be the time he won’t make it through this latest fiasco, and won’t be given another shot to rid the failures he and the Bruins have encountered lately.

For a very long time now, his players have done their own thing and detached themselves from Howland, with an attitude that it was their way or nobody else’s way. The bad thing is, Howland’s inability to bond and inspire his players has divided the team and affected the Bruins’ performances in the past four seasons. In a postgame news conference in front of reporters, after a painful ending to what could lead to a divorce, he couldn’t answer the last question.

“Do you think you’ve coached your last game as UCLA coach?” he was asked.

“No comment,” he said.

Meanwhile Howland is still employed, saying all the right things to salvage his job year after year, when the program can wave goodbye and begin a coaching search for someone who is worthy to take on a challenging task. But, we can only hope that he won’t return next season. The way the athletic department figures it, for business purposes, this will be Howland’s last season. That, by the way, means UCLA will buy out his $2.3 million contract. So maybe he could have saved his job only by getting the Bruins to the regional semifinals, having missed the Sweet 16 for the fifth consecutive year.

Now, because he failed to build on his three Final Four appearances, he’s being pushed out the door. Easy thing would be to cut ties with someone who is described as a control freak, and even when he’s responsible for the letdowns at UCLA, fans behind the Bruins bench gave him a standing ovation in his final moments. It’s too bad freshman point guard Jordan Adams’ season-ending foot injury in the Pac-12 tournament derailed a season and even possibly ended Howland’s tenure. At the beginning of a miserable night, the Bruins were in a drought and failed to score a point in the first four minutes.

And while Larry Drew III and Shabazz Muhammad were missing easy layups, you have to wonder whether or not if his players ever respected him. It was late in the first half when the UCLA starters made their first field goal. By halftime, the Bruins had nine turnovers and missed an array of shots. Then in the second half, the Bruins were still in the game while Minnesota made nine threes and blew open its largest lead. It was more disgusting to see Muhammad, who is UCLA’s leading scorer, miss all seven shots in the first half and never really find a groove.

I happen to like Howland and mainly thought he was good for UCLA and its program. For instance, I defended him over the years while former UCLA big man Bill Walton recently called for Howland’s coaching job, which a bevy of growing critics continues to pick apart his slow, methodical offensive sets and poor clock management of the game. The criticism of Howland won’t ever cease and certainly not after the Bruins were eliminated in the first round of a tournament they once were allowed to brag and celebrate about — after a long history of dominance and Final Four trips. These haven’t been easy times for the Bruins, and especially not for Howland, whose job security could be in jeopardy.

The program embodies the essence of extraordinary traditions and achievements, but lately the team has had poor discipline and lack of leadership from players who performs individually and selfishly, not playing as a team and pouring on effort. The whole idea of having a coach is to recruit brilliantly and build a competitive athletic program, and while Howland has accumulated talent, the Bruins have floundered to find ways to win when it counts.

A nation of fans lost no sleep when Tubby Smith’s Golden Gophers routed UCLA and sent a distinguished program back home to Westwood, California, where fans clad in classic blue and gold were cheering for the Bruins, who usually makes the tournament and rarely misses the action in the month of March.

Logic is, Howland’s UCLA career has been a great run but it is essentially over.

Leaving fans wondering, once again, will he return?

My guess is no.

UCLA Long Ways Off From Elite Level

This is a game in which nothing is generally guaranteed, a game where a team can dominate so well all season, and then derail in a meaningful game during bowl season. In a season where UCLA pushed and shoved around everybody in the Pac-12, the Bruins had this amazing ability to make strides for an unimaginable season, a relentless run that eventually made them relevant — more relevant than crosstown rivals USC, mind you.

Thursday night’s game was a blowout no one ever imagined. Baylor pummeled UCLA 49-26 in a Holiday Bowl that was expected to be a mesmerizing event. Almost exactly a month removed from their mammoth upset against USC, the Bruins worked themselves into BCS conversations. Promises were conceivable, dreams were nearly fulfilled and winning turned into a reality. This all happened before the Bruins turned stale and unraveled on national television, in front of a national audience and disappointed UCLA fans, who were looking for answers throughout a game that left many scratching their heads in absolute shock.

“We’ve got a long ways to go,” coach Jim Mora said. “But we’re on the right path. … The team that we want to be is a national champion and tonight showed us just how far we have to go, but we’re determined to get there. We’re heading in the right direction, but we’re a long ways off.”

Bruins fans, many of which were disenchanted and lost for words, witnessed UCLA’s worst game all season. The Bruins were trounced by Baylor in the Holiday Bowl in a neutral site that felt like a homecoming with seas of blue and gold in the stands from a large UCLA turnout. The game was played in San Diego, California, where this particular bowl game is held every season, but the site of the event didn’t matter, well, at least not to Baylor.

It was one of those nights where the Bruins were flat and phlegmatic which surprisingly resulted in a no-show, lacking alertness and competitiveness we weren't accustomed to all season. It took one loss, an agonizing lapse to realize that UCLA isn’t ready to play for a national title. With a surreal ending to the Bruins season Thursday night, UCLA still needs a lot of work to be patted on the back and a national title hopeful in the upcoming years. Now that UCLA has Mora, who has proven himself the ideal coach to lead the program, the Bruins can emerge from a time when they lacked a mental capacity and couldn’t recruit the best in the country to build a national power that could dominate college football.

Let’s hear it for the Bruins … when they’ve come so far to dispel fears and inferiority, and finally can stand up to Oregon, USC, Arizona State and everybody else in Pac-12 country. Unfortunately, though, UCLA fell sound asleep on the worst night. Not even drinking and glass of milk or reading a bedtime story about “The Story of the Three Bears” would have been enough to keep these Bruins wide awake. The bottom line is that the kids never came out to play, and saw a journey of sheer dominance abruptly come to an end. At long last, they weren’t ready and encountered stronger and hungrier Bears.

It’s sad and somewhat humiliating to see what’s happened to UCLA in just one game — just as it’s lamentable to see the rebirth of a football program slip at the worst time. And aside from the Mora era, which began this season and changed the culture overnight at UCLA, nobody has been more fantastic than tailback Johnathan Franklin and quarterback Brett Hundley, who became UCLA’s first black leading passer since Jackie Robinson threw for 444 yards as a running back in 1940. It’s too bad a horrible night, a painful night — needless to say — erased a splendid season. It’s too bad an appalling night smeared the Bruins’ hopes of winning a bowl game to conclude what was a storybook season, and what was supposed to be a close, tight game they would win.

Mora, however, kept the team together and handed the ball to a 19-year-old quarterback, realizing that Hundley was already a strong leader with a sense of humility as he developed into one of college football’s top quarterbacks. He led the Bruins through Pac-12 conference play, but unfortunately losses to Stanford in the regular-season finale and the Pac-12 championship game followed by the Holiday demolition — made it clear that UCLA is not strong or fast enough to play for a BCS title, not just yet. Maybe one day the Bruins will be complete, but not at the moment, losing to a much faster and stronger team and annihilated in every facet of the game.

Entering this game, Baylor was ranked 119th on defense, and somehow, someway the Bears pressured and harassed Hundley. He was taking snaps on a frigid night in Southern California, he was trying to scramble outside the pocket and stay mobile, as he was pressured the entire game by a pesky Baylor defense that couldn’t stop anyone all season. And then, just like that, Hundley was knocked to the ground for a sack and loss of yards. This wasn’t the first time UCLA was dismal and found themselves in a hole this season — the last time it happened was against the Cal Golden Bears.

Last month, however, much of the discussion was around UCLA, considering that the season was successful after making a loud statement on a season in which the Bruins won nine games, beat USC and played for the Pac-12 championship. At one point, down 35-7 against Baylor, UCLA fans and players still believed there was plenty of time to compile points on the scoreboard for an epic comeback, but Baylor’s running game couldn’t be stopped. The public is no longer buying into the UCLA hype, followed by an unexpected blowout that sent the Bruins back to reality. Never mind that they fought hard to the end against Stanford. Never mind, although it was a huge win over a Big Ten school, that they beat Nebraska for an impressive victory. Never mind that they put together a comeback in the final minutes to win on the road at Arizona State.

Hundley was, well, stifled and couldn’t do much on offense — versatile or not, mobile or not. The night for Hundley wasn’t too kind, but he passed for 329 yards, three touchdowns and no turnovers, which was pretty good considering that he was pressured and bullied worse than a harmless kid at a school bathroom. And unbelievably, he couldn’t avoid sacks and hard hits that sent him to the ground, he couldn’t make plays while under duress.

Time after time in this game, his torpid offensive line didn’t shield him, he was running for his life and rushing his passes that were mostly incomplete. As for his duel-threat partner, Franklin -- who wasn’t nearly the brawny running back he was against USC -- he had just 34 yards on 14 carries. What was clear was this offensive line let down UCLA, but that’s what can happen when two offensive linemen are bothered by injuries in the first half. From there, the night was over for the Bruins. There isn’t any other way to put it, and pain and simple, the Bruins disappeared when so much was at stake and when they could have certainly had bragging rights over USC.

Mostly though, in this game alone, the Bruins were stopped on third downs and were forced to punt, which raised Baylor’s momentum. So when the Bruins punted five times, it usually resulted in a Baylor touchdown, from the speed of Glasco Martin or Lache Seastrunk. It wasn’t long, since UCLA couldn’t disrupt anyone on the Baylor offense, before Baylor scored on three consecutive touchdowns and, just like that, the Bruins were out of the game. There was plenty for Baylor to be proud about, such was Baylor quarterback Nick Florence, who passed for more than 4,000 yards before he obliterated them. After all of this, it’s more obvious now that UCLA missed safety Tevin McDonald, who was suspended for the bowl game because of undisclosed violations.

As it turns out, Baylor had a well-constructed game plan and executed it brilliantly against UCLA, in which Mora never had a strategy or game plan of his own to protect Hundley. It was a gut-wrenching end to what was a good season, and there is no doubt the Bruins will rank in the Top 25 with hopes they can emerge into BCS elites.

They were all so close, but not close enough.

Lane Kiffin Deflates Air Out of USC

If the late Al Davis were alive today, he’d feel vindicated and like he’s the world’s smartest person. The more it’s brought to our attention, the more fans learn the truth about Lane Kiffin, the second-year coach at USC, whose bizarre play calling and methods have smudged the Trojans’ national title aspirations.

With five losses this season, it’s hard to trust Kiffin, and his father, Monte, who is USC defensive coordinator. Whether they are athletic director Pat Haden’s guys or not, the Kiffins don’t deserve merit or applause for sabotaging the beauty of a prestigious and distinguished program that a multitude of Southern Californians marvel for its history of triumph, names and Heisman trophy winners. The Kiffins aren’t the centerpieces of the USC culture, just a step backwards, which could very well turn into a dilemma.

It was conceived that Lane and Monte are unfitted for demanding coaching jobs, a more notable and respected athletic program, where expectations are immense. The perception of the Trojans suddenly fading into the background is real, with no standards like before when USC used to be the powerhouses of college football, and weren’t vulnerable or substandard. Fact is, the Trojans are standing by someone who has proven he cannot coach an elite program, which is now on decline. This is something USC fans, students, faculty and alumni are not all too familiar with, but in the post-Carroll era, the Men of Troy are hurting without a first-rate coach who has an acute understanding on how to groom an attractive program inured to triumph and accumulating bowl titles.

Haden is absolutely serious about Kiffin returning next season. But what about your program, Haden? What about protecting the school, and not someone who had familiarity with the university under the tutelage of Pete Carroll from 2001-2006? What about keeping a winning team intact, and not caring so much about Kiffin’s recruiting brilliance, needing Ed Orgeron by his side to lure a top recruiting class?

Through it all, Haden assures Kiffin that he will return regardless of the Trojans (No. 18 BCS, No. 21 AP) finishing 7-5, after entering the season ranked No. 1 in the AP poll. For so long, the Trojans have been on top of the mountain. The tale of this storied program is something many would prefer not to tell when USC lost to Stanford, Arizona, Oregon and UCLA, three of those losses in the past month. Of course, no one ever saw this coming, since the Trojans were projected to contend for a national title, with all their talent, athleticism and depth. Unlike UCLA or Notre Dame, USC was devoid of Rose Bowl consideration, after an embarrassing loss to UCLA, which sent the Bruins to the Pac-12 title game Nov. 30.

The man who was hired to clean up the mess and purge all of the scummy violations is counting on Kiffin to change the culture and guide the Trojans to the promise land, failing to realize that he’s deflating just as fast as a football, quickly exposing himself to unfavorable judgment. The man who was brought on board to clean house is allowing Kiffin to demolish USC, and ride another season of hell and torture. The truth of the matter is, Haden is smarter than that, and should know better, who was once a Rhodes scholar and is a retired NFL quarterback. The bottom line is, Kiffin is a cheater and failure on so many levels.

In all seriousness, Kiffin wasn’t ever coaching material, although he worked in the shadows of one of the greats in NCAA history. And the longer he’s in Los Angeles, the faster the program will submerge under his watch. Bad as his past is, bad as his reputation is, Kiffin cannot be trusted, not anytime soon, not ever. If USC looks to move forward, they’ll have to divorce Kiffin and both parties would have to go their separate ways.

Until then, the Trojans won’t succeed with Kiffin on the sideline calling ill-advised plays and exploiting weird schemes, which gives him and his father bad names, as the vast majority are impatient and outraged hoping to run the Kiffins out of town. The most hated person in college football, undoubtedly, is easily Kiffin. From Knoxville to Los Angeles, Kiffin has encountered a tremendous amount of hatred and seems unwanted at every institution in the US of A. The spotlight placed on Lame Kiffin, the most scorned person at USC, is too much — and not once this season did Kiffin take responsibility for this team’s suffering, long suffering – to be exact.

He is not a hero in the sense of reviving a program, but a saboteur of some sort and a con artist whom we’d like to see disappear into the darkened clouds of his own allegations from the past, and never step foot on campus ever again. It’s utterly repugnant that he ignored NCAA rules at Tennessee, where Kiffin was cited by the NCAA for his involvement in coaches and student hostesses making improper contacts with recruits. For a long time, he was in people’s heads, beating and abusing the system, just what he had in mind. As a scumbag with no morals and no sense of integrity for the game, Kiffin violated the rules as if he was above the law, arrogant and reckless during the NCAA investigations, which led to another boneheaded action.

That was when he forayed into the Tennessee Titans and hired running backs coach Kennedy Pola as his offensive coordinator, without getting permission from Titans then-head coach Jeff Fisher. For much of his coaching career, Kiffin has been a sneaky, untrustworthy person who’s out to create mishap and play loose with the rules that enables him to behave impolitely and wrongly, which usually results in infractions. What we can take away from Kiffin’s arrogance and self-indulgence, along with his lack of awareness and concern about an institution, is the fact that he refuses to consult the rulebook and just go about it his way.

Kiffin, from the first day, was never the guy for USC when, in fact, he was hired by ex-athletic director, Mike Garrett, another former Trojan football legend, leaving USC in an absolute mess and tarnishing his legacy with a reputation as the worst sham in college athletics. The humiliating 22-13 loss to Notre Dame on Saturday night marked the first time since 1995 that the Trojans were swept by their rivals. So now there’s blame on Kiffin, which seems accurate with his play calling in critical situations.

The criticism of Kiffin is understandable, after failing to call timeouts after two runs were stopped in the Notre Dame game and after he didn’t signal for a timeout in a goal-line situation early in the game, which might’ve taken away a touchdown pass. Kiffin, who has more enemies than friends, is blamed for the Trojans disappointing season because of his dumb mistakes and clock management issues. This is something the Trojans don’t need, because the fall from grace has been horrendous, particularly when they could and should have beaten the unbeaten Irish Saturday.

While USC could have smeared No. 1 Notre Dame from playing for its first national championship in 24 years, the Irish celebrated on the field in Los Angeles and finally had bragging rights over USC, with the versatility of Everett Golson, championship-building guru Brian Kelly and senior linebacker Manti Te’o. The Trojans talent was unlimited, with Marqise Lee and Robert Woods of a lethal USC receiving core, along with Matt Barkley, who the Trojans missed on Saturday night. The injured quarterback was replaced by redshirt freshman Max Wittek, who had a solid debut. He completed 14 of 23 passes for 186 yards and one touchdown with two interceptions, but it certainly wasn’t good enough to end the Irish’s hopes.

And so the Trojans lacks leadership and have a lethargic, futile and flawed defense. But the bigger issue here is Kiffin, folks. It won’t get any better for USC, until Haden realizes that he’s essentially not made to be a coach. For his career, he is a staggering 37-32 as a head coach with the Oakland Raiders, Tennessee Volunteers and USC. It sounds like Kiffin can only beat unranked opponents, and loses to top-ranked opponents. That’s become his trait, and it’s a bad trait.

As long as Haden calls Kiffin his guy, well, then, expect the worst.

Even If Neuheisel Beats USC, His Firing Is Logical

A thick layer of fog blanket parts of the community, a neighborhood on the Westside of Los Angeles and roams quietly across the prominent university, silhouetting a football program largely doomed to failure. The bad culture altogether has perpetually led to dissatisfaction under head coach Rick Neuheisel, who has been catching fire for a long time.

At this point, winning is not a remedy and it merely becomes a matter of time before Neuheisel is canned to end laughably a lousy tenure. It’s a good thing UCLA might part ways with the former Bruins quarterback for clearly sending the university into a downfall, but also for not stabilizing the nature within the most decorated athletic program. The same is not true about Neuheisel. He is not the most decorated. In one downcast sense, he is truly a flamboyant person, not the finest coach, not even a solid recruiter.

For what it turns out to be, though he is a nice person who has a place in history with a program he once quarterbacked, Neuheisel was never the voice of the Bruins. The gravity of failures, and grisly so – under his coaching stint when he was expected to lift the program into supremacy, can’t turn any worse unless he is enabled to protect his job security for whatever reason.

While he was given the job, in his best interest of the program when he was brought in mainly for being one of the finest names to the institution, he failed so badly and watched a program fall into bedlam. His dedication and qualifications were enough when he landed the coaching gig so easily in weeks after speculations snowballed, and after accepting a task of demands and expectations that he never surmounted beyond.

What’s notable is he personified the inability of this feeble program in Division I football, he epitomized awful leadership and recruiting that smudged the landscape and wasn’t enough encouragement to embolden his players. Hardly a week passes without Neuheisel’s job security called into question as much curiosity focuses on what his future beholds at UCLA, where he has not recruited vigorously, where his strategies have backfired and decisions fizzled.

It’s time for him to relinquish the Bruins, and so with that in mind, the clock is ticking on Neuheisel. If USC wins Saturday, with Neuheisel running out of time to mend his woes, it’d probably be the last game he ever coaches at UCLA. Except one can argue that Neuheisel, who has yet to beat the Trojans with an 11-21 conference record, can consider his season a success if he finally defeats his crosstown rivals. The man rarely goes a day without hearing that he’s never beaten USC, taking the criticism and still chasing the Trojans for his first victory in three seasons.

In a larger sense, UCLA has lost 11 of the last 12 games to USC, along with the last three under Neuheisel, entering into Saturday’s game. All is well for the Bruins, particularly if they win to assure a berth in the Pac 12 Conference Championship game. It’s time to grin, realizing that Utah lost to Colorado Friday, which gave UCLA the right to represent the South Division even with a loss to the Trojans.

The Bruins, a team with a bad season, merely 21-27 under Neuheisel in three seasons for struggles and uncertainty, would place themselves in position to settle for a decent bowl game.

The irony here is, though he’s an alumni and surprisingly carried UCLA to the highest level with Pac 12 teams losing to drop in the rankings, his body of work vanished quicker than ever. As of now, Neuheisel and the Bruins are fighting for survival and it is sadly the end, much too late for him to save his job.

But these inadequacies are from the motives behind Neuheisel, for scolding at his quarterbacks after mistakes, which escalated into sideline confrontations with his starter Kevin Prince. The ill-treatment of his quarterback started an unsteady coach-and-quarterback relationship.

Face it, Bruins faithful. Football is lifeless in one of the wealthiest regions and will never advance to new heights as long as Neuheisel is the Bruins voice of havoc and misfortune. Nearing his last days, after seasons of embarrassment, he has been supported and held his position, as athletic director Dan Guerrero is overly fascinated by Neuheisel even when he underachieved in his coaching job. Guerrero could have taken the easier path and jettison him a long time ago. And for what it’s worth, a notion that his predecessors were more capable, the Bruins were better when Karl Dorrell or even Bob Toledo was coaching.

There is nothing, aside from all the Neuheisel disruptions, as fun as a crosstown rivalry in which UCLA and USC are taking on each other, fighting for total domination, bragging rights and applicability, in a hostile territory surrounded by the boorish crowd at the Coliseum. The decision – or, in this instance, of firing him is possible and if so UCLA would have to buy out the final year of his $1.25 million contract a year, including buyouts for some of his coaches on staff.

This is the week he can finally beat USC, a school looking to extend its five-game winning streak against the Bruins.

This is the week Neuheisel can finally gain success.

John Wooden's Principles, Guidance Touched Lives

The most respected elder in sports was described as a teacher of instilling spiritual and inspirational messages, which transcended beyond sports and sharpened the intellect of athletes who were willing to accept unsolicited advice from the late John Wooden.

At the age of 99, he was the strongest and active man, still impacting the lives with his famous principles and direction that brightened the minds of young lives to educate and influence young athletes.

The death of an idolized legend, which touched lives with his consequential discipline and teaching methods, symbolizes the lost of a man who believed and advocated the meaning of integrity and success. His religious theories instructed and cultivated the lives of student athletes, liberal in helping young people accomplish dreams and fulfill prosperity.

We all mourn the death of Wooden, the admirable man with a contiguous and untouchable legacy engraving a piece of eminence and will always live within the hearts of former players and alumni’s, including student athletes who never were privileged to learn from the voice of a wise man amongst an era when he coached collegiate basketball. It’s worth considering that we are lamenting the death of a man who insisted that he was a teacher more than a college basketball coach, and won 10 national championships, seven consecutive from 1967 and 1973, and garnered an 88-game winning streak, along with four 30-0 seasons.

He was still blessed to have the strength and independence of writing love letters after his wife, Nellie, died of cancer in 1985. Ever since her death, he never recovered and wrote love letters often as a way to express sanity and vent about his wife’s lost. But now, he has departed for the heavens after withstanding longevity and having exuberance as an elderly man, with a shrewd mind to still offer wisdom and ingenuity.

He was born on October 14, 1910 in Hall, Indiana, where he was raised as a humbled and selfless gentleman, only later to coach a renowned program in collegiate sports. Eternally, he’ll be remembered and greatly appreciated for his famous principles, called the “Pyramid of Greatness,” a phrase no longer discovered in an indiscipline or muddle generation, indifferent of the useful concepts that emphasized the priorities of a priceless life.


His inspirational structure was humane, constituted from his father’s kindhearted and accessible advice. “Be true to yourself, help others, make each day your masterpiece, make friendship a fine art, drink deeply from good books—especially the Bible—build a shelter against a rainy day, give thanks for your blessings and pray for guidance every day.” From his father’s advice, Wooden was devoted and shared his moral knowledge in a wealthy environment in Los Angeles. In addition, he eluded the rural livings of Indiana and traveled to California, harvesting as the greatest legend to thrive at UCLA with his methodological and spiritual beliefs.

This is a notable explanation to why he’ll always be greatly appreciated and hallowed, not only for the unbelievable championship streaks, but for uplifting one of the most recognized schools and translating the culture of college hoops. He exposed proper beliefs for achieving and reaching a pinnacle in goals, touching the lives of Bill Walton, Marques Johnson, Jamaal Wilkes, and Lucious Allen, and the spacious campus of UCLA when he was hired in 1948 for a yearly salary of $6,000. He never took the word “student” out of student athlete, but emphasized discipline and molded his players with his pleasant and diplomatic standards, which resulted in his first National Championship at UCLA in 1964.

There was Jerry West, the one legend who expressed his thoughts eloquently. “Forget his accomplishments, he’s a great man,” said West. “He was one of the greatest men I’ve ever been around in my life. He was more than just a basketball coach.”

It’s perfectly fine to suggest that he transcended more than just college sports, but was the most essential individual in basketball and all of sports in general. Yes, it’s fair to admit that his name is greater than James Naismith. As a beloved coach, he touched and taught many people in Southern California, where he stood as the superior voice near the beach and where the sun beams. Back in 1948, he drove with Nell and the kids to Southern California, admired and revered by most people for his incredible and savvy coaching.

Winner of 10 titles in 12 years will be remembered as one of his greatest and memorable accomplishments. That said, he’ll never be unrecognizable with all the astounding memories, such as when he rode a 75-game winning streak and two national titles in the season. Amid an indescribable streak, Walton, the hippie and a star player who wore long hair and a brushy beard and had returned for his senior season, after he had deeply admired and idolized Wooden, who was unmatched and won 10 NCAA titles between 1964-1975.

Therefore, he’s acknowledged as the greatest college basketball coach ever, after he died Friday night of natural causes. It’s not easy to win an unprecedented 10 National Championships and achieve his brilliant conquest at a storied program during the turbulence in the 60s and 70s when the U.S. was at war and bearing a horrendous crisis.

He was a religious, conservative, and intelligent man, but more than anything a great teacher.

4 College Football Underdogs to Win Saturday

LSU +3 @ Georgia: This line is low because of the devalued opinion of LSU based on last weeks struggle at Mississippi State where LSU won 30-26. The Tigers have a big game at home against Florida that everyone has circled and there is a thought that they’ll be looking ahead and not coming in focused. They also have the pressure of being a top-5 team now which has turned bad for five other teams this season. All past trends, including Les Miles poor record as a road underdog (0-3) in SEC play, make it a tough position for LSU. This is why LSU will win this week, if that makes any sense.

Cal +5 vs. USC: USC is in a tough position here. After winning ugly late against the Buckeyes, the young Trojans have struggled to recapture the same type of Championship mentality in their last two games against Washington and Washington State. Cal just got embarrassed by Oregon, but should be better in this match despite going 1-7 against Pete Carroll. This isn’t the same USC squad of years past. Their Freshman QB play has been awful this year other than one late drive in Columbus. Jahvid Best will continue his Heisman run with a great day against a good defense.

UCLA +5 @ Stanford: The Bruins are the only undefeated team in the PAC-10 and have won five straight over Stanford. Rick Neuheisel has something brewing in Westwood and the defense will carry them to victory this week. A great money line play with an under rated UCLA squad.

Syracuse +6 vs. South Florida: This is a perfect let down spot for the Bulls after their huge win at Florida State last week. Cuse QB Greg Paulus has put up 35 points in back to back games and the Carrierdome should provide a hungry atmosphere for a win. A good money line play this week, but getting six in what should be a close game is even better.