From Indiana to UCLA

From the book Wooden: A lifetime of observations and reflections on and off the court, by John Wooden and Steve Jamison


Randy Alcorn's blog contains this account of John Wooden's move from Indiana to UCLA.  He calls the moving events "fate."  The great coach is 99 years old and one of my heroes.

I was teaching and coaching at Indiana State Teachers College when I was offered coaching positions at both the University of Minnesota and UCLA. I was inclined to go with Minnesota because it was in the Midwest, but there was a little hitch in the offer. They wanted me to keep Dave McMillan, the fellow I would be replacing, as an assistant.

I didn’t think that would be for the best, so they offered to consider giving Mr. McMillan another position at the university, one acceptable to him. However, this would take a few days for the board to determine.

They promised they would call me Saturday at 6:00 P.M. with their decision. I told them if they could make the change and it was acceptable to Mr. McMillan, would come to Minnesota to and coach their basketball team.

Meanwhile, UCLA was waiting for a decision. I told them to call me on Saturday night at 7:oo. By then I would know what Minnesota had decided. I informed UCLA that Minnesota made the offer I would be staying in the Midwest. But fate stepped in and changed things.

On the day the University of Minnesota was supposed to call me, a blizzard hit the Twin Cities and knocked out all phone service in and around Minneapolis. Unaware of the situation, I waited patiently for the call. None came, not at 6:00, not at 6:30. My phone didn’t ring at 6:45.


However, right on the button at 7:00 P.M., UCLA called. I assumed Minnesota had decided against offering me the coaching position, so I accepted UCLA’s offer.


Almost immediately after I finished talking with UCLA, the call came through from Minneapolis. I was told about the storm. I was also told that the adjustment had been approved and they were offering me the position of head basketball coach at the University of Minnesota, the job I really wanted.

Had I been able to terminate my agreement with UCLA in an honorable fashion, I would have done so immediately. But I had given my word just a few minutes before. If fate had not intervened, I would never have gone to UCLA. 

But my dad’s little set of threes served me well: 

“Don’t whine. Don’t complain. Don’t make excuses.”

I resolved to work hard and do the best job I was capable of­—even when I discovered upon arriving at UCLA that I wasn’t actually working for the university but rather for the associated students. The president of the student body was actually my boss!

I believe that things are directed in some sort of way. I’m not exactly sure how. I also believe that things turn out best for those who make the best of the way things turn out.

Word attack to God's Word

 At the RJC, I've been working with Cedric, a 30 year-old cousin of Billy, who recently was transferred to Shelton.  Billy introduced me to Cedric who has a heart to grow spiritually.

Cedric struggles with reading--both word attack and comprehension.  He asked me to help him learn to read more effectively while he is trying to prepare to take a GED.

In school, he was a special education student and did not graduate. We read the Bible together out loud and I provided a small, powerful book called "Prison to Praise."  He gets most of it but stumbles a great deal.

So, he doesn't get it.  He understands that and wants to learn.

I collaborated with Judy Roberts, the Kent School District teacher at the RJC to work on a third grade-level packet which was too advanced to build on. So, she provided a solid, more basic packed on syllables and word parts.  Excellent!  We'll see how far he gets over this weekend.

Consider Eric Liddell, the famous Scottish Olympian celebrated in the film "Chariots of Fire."  Liddell became a missionary in China. For ten years he taught in a school, and then went farther inland to do frontline evangelism.

Here is D. A. Carson's account:

The work was not only challenging but dangerous, not the least because the Japanese were making increasing inroads. Eventually he was interned with many other Westerners.

In the squalid camp, Liddell was a shining light of service and good cheer, a lodestar for the many children there who had not seen their parents for years, a self-sacrificing leader. But a few months before they were released, Liddell died of a brain tumor. He was forty-three.

In this life he never saw the youngest of his three daughters: his wife and children had returned to Canada before the Japanese sweep that rounded up the foreigners. Didn’t the Lord withhold from him a long life, years of fruitful service, the joy of rearing his own children?

Perhaps the best response lies in Liddell’s favorite hymn:

Be still, my soul! the Lord is on thy side;
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change, He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul! thy best, thy heav’nly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

fathers and sons and missions

 This Sunday, our pastor closed his sermon with a true life story of John Paton and his family being encircled by angels.  The band of angels protected his family from a tribe that was seeking to kill his family.

It made me recall this account about him--

Happy as were the Patons in their cottage home, the day came when separations were begun. John had applied for a position in Glasgow, and must go there to be examined. It was about forty miles to Kilmarnock, where he could take a train, and he had to go on foot, because he could not afford to travel in a stagecoach. His baggage consisted of one small bundle.

But the One who said, "I know thy ... poverty, (but thou art rich)," was with him, and courageously he launched out on the ocean of life.

His father, who loved this oldest son very tenderly, walked with him for six miles, and his "counsels and tears and heavenly conversation on that parting journey" were never forgotten by the son. During the latter part of the way they were speechless. The father carried his hat in his hand, and his long yellow locks fell on his shoulders, while silent prayers ascended.

When they reached the place appointed for parting, they clasped hands and the father said, "God bless you, my son! Your father's God prosper you, and keep you from all evil!"

The young man went his way, turning at the corner and waving his hat in farewell. A little farther on, he climbed the dyke for one last look, and there saw the father who too had climbed the dyke, hoping for one more glimpse of his boy. The father's eyes were not so keen as the son's, and he looked in vain for a few moments, then climbed down and started for home, his head still bared, and his heart, no doubt, still offering silent prayers for his son.

In the years that followed, temptations came, as they will to every boy, but the form of his father, as he saw him in parting, seemed like a guardian angel. The blessing his father invoked was upon him and he was kept from sin.

The years which followed were busy years for young Mr. Paton -- sometimes distributing tracts, sometimes teaching school, sometimes hard at work as a city missionary, and all the time fitting himself to be still more useful in the Lord's vineyard.

But the time came when he seemed to hear a voice plainly calling from the New Hebrides, and he longed to give his life as a missionary among the cannibals there. He thought and prayed about it a great deal, for he wanted to be sure that he was really called of God.

When he was convinced that it was the voice of the Master, he offered himself. Dr. Bates, who was in charge of the Heathen Missions Committee, cried for joy. Mr. Paton went to his room with a happy heart, for he was obeying God's call.

kicking and screaming

"Calvinism does not teach and never has taught that God bring people kicking and screaming into the kingdom," R.C. Sproul said, "or has ever excluded anyone who wanted to be there.

Remember that the cardinal point of the Reformed doctrine of predestination rests on the biblical teaching of man's spiritual death. 

"Natural man does not want Christ. He will only want Christ if God plants a desire for Christ in his heart. Once that desire is planted, those who come to Christ do not come kicking and screaming against their wills. They come because they want to come. They now desire Jesus. They rush to the Savior."

Do you want to be saved?  You might call out to God for salvation like this:

I know I am lost and cannot come to You on my own. I need to be saved, right now, Lord. Save me. I ask you to forgive me of my sins and save me. I repent of my sins and turn to You! I am jumping into Your arms, right now. 

I cannot save myself. What can I do? Who can I run to? Where should I turn?

I am crying out to You and know You will save me based on Romans 10:11-13. 

Thank you for taking all my sins and placing them on Jesus, past, present, and future. Thank you for cleansing me with Your blood and covering me with Your righteousness. 

Thank You--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for saving me. This is the beginning of my journey with You. 

"R.C. continues, "The whole point of irresistible grace is that rebirth quickens someone to spiritual life in such a way that Jesus is now seen in his irresistible sweetness. Jesus is irresistible to those who have been made alive to the things of God. Every soul whose heart beats with the life of God within it longs for the living Christ. All whom the Father gives to Christ come to Christ (John 6:37)."

How we overcome

Recently Of First Importance posted a citation from D. A. Carson.  Contemplate these biblical and powerful words:

“How dare you approach the mercy-seat of God on the basis of what kind of day you had, as if that were the basis for our entrance into the presence of the sovereign and holy God? No wonder we cannot beat the Devil.

This is "works theology." It has nothing to do with grace and the exclusive sufficiency of Christ. Nothing. Do you not understand that we overcome the accuser on the ground of the blood of Christ?

Nothing more, nothing less.

That is how we win. It is the only way we win. This is the only ground of our acceptance before God. If you drift far from the cross, you are done. You are defeated.

We overcome the accuser of our brothers and sisters, we overcome our consciences, we overcome our bad tempers, we overcome our defeats, we overcome our lusts, we overcome our fears, we overcome our pettiness on the basis of the blood of the Lamb.”

—D.A. Carson, Scandalous: The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), 103

Suffering and the Sweetness of Christ

by Jonathan Edwards 

In the last several months, I have been on an incredible reading journey.  The most recent book is "Signs of the Spirit, " an interpretation of "Religious Affections," by Sam Storms. 

Through this book, I am invited and escorted into a deeper, deeper walk into experiencing the pleasure of the glory of God. Here, Edwards tells about his delight of soul amidst a crippling illness.

In September, 1725, I was taken ill at New Haven, and while endeavoring to go home to Windsor, was so ill at the North Village, that I could go no farther, where I lay sick, for about a quarter of a year. 

In this sickness, God was pleased to visit me again, with the sweet influences of his Spirit. My mind was greatly engaged there, on divine and pleasant contemplations, and longings of soul. 

I observed that those who watched with me would often be looking out wishfully for the morning; which brought to my mind those words of the Psalmist, and which my soul with delight made its own language, "My soul waits for the Lord, more than they that watch for the morning; I say, more than they that watch for the morning;" and when the light of the day came in at the window, it refreshed my soul, from one morning to another. It seemed to be some image of the light of God’s glory.

Kingdom of grace in Forks

Jerry Corelli, Jim Dixon and I trekked to Forks on Saturday to the Olympic Corrections Center for a concert with 19 inmates and two officers.

The chapel, pictured here, reflects effort by Chaplain Terrence Madden to make it inclusive of multiple religious expressions.  By Department of Corrections policy, the chaplain accommodates as many diverse spiritual groups as choose to meet for worship.

Jerry provided the concert with a great song about the "kingdom of grace," Jim shared an awesome testimony about the transformation in his son's life, and I preached a shortened message about the awesome supernatural work of the Lord Jesus, the King of Grace.

Jerry shared reflections on his spiritual experience with the men in between his nearly hour-long concert.  He really blessed the men.

Jim Dixon and I travel to OCC in Forks four to six times a year and are constantly rejoicing as we reflect on the blessings we receive from the men at each visit.  We are hoping to do more things with Jerry, as the Lord provides opportunities with PFC. Jim loves to play hymns with the men in our concerts.

On this visit, an inmate named Dan met with me to share his need to seek forgiveness from Jake, another inmate he abused while they shared a cell in the past year.  I did not share that I knew about the chain of incidents he spoke about that got him transferred to OCC.  I continue to correspond with Dan and Jake.

We were able to pray about surrendering this matter and acknowledging that one-to-one resolution is likely very difficult in this situation. I originally met with both men at the Regional Justice Center in Kent.