PRESENCE

Mansfield's Book of Manly Men (231-240)

• I have learned that when a man is a genuine man and tends his field with devotion and to the glory of God, he receives both authority and grace for that field. He has weight in that field, occupies it for the good of others. He stands within it and somehow permeates it at the same time. He has rank. His spirit covers it.
• I think this is a feature of righteous manhood.
• The power of John Wooden’s presence. He was a man committed to God. He had worked hard to overcome his background and his failures, and in time he had led many fierce competitors in epic athletic contests. You felt it. All of it. It radiated from him. There was a steely authority wrapped in a grandfather’s tenderness, and you didn’t know whether to hug him or come to attention
• He had come into the world in the Indiana of 1910. 
• Among a people devoted to basketball, young Wooden led his high school team to the state championship finals three years in a row. 
• He attended Purdue University, where he was a star player, the first to be named a three-time consensus All-American. 
• He played professionally after college before the navy called and he spent three years as a young officer during World War II.
• When he returned to Indiana, he coached basketball at Indiana State, accumulating championships and crafting a philosophy of achievement that began to remake the lives of many of his players. 
• Finally, in 1948, he became the head coach at the University of California, Los Angeles. 
• From that year until his retirement in 1975—a twenty-seven-year career—John Wooden won ten national championships. 
• He was awarded every honor possible for a college basketball coach. There has been no one like him since. 
• In the nine years after John Wooden retired, four men tried to fill his shoes. All failed. 
• Many called him the greatest coach in history. He died on June 4, 2010, four months and ten days shy of his one-hundredth birthday. His was a life well lived.
• This famous pro returned to UCLA after some years and spent time with his old mentor. When the player arrived, he announced to Coach that he felt it was more appropriate for him to call Coach by his first name.
• But it all became too much for the visiting player. He finally broke down and blurted out, “I can’t do it. I just can’t!” Can’t do what?” Wooden asked. "I just can’t call you by your first name. It just isn’t right! You are Coach. You always will be. Trying to call you John is just pride. I’m sorry.”
• Later, this player said, “You just feel this force coming from the man and the last thing it makes you want to do is be all chummy with him. You want to do what he tells you to do. You want to please him. You might even want to fall down and worship. What you don’t want to do is call him John.”
• John Wooden radiated something powerful, something that arose from his life, something that surrounded you, something that drew you in and made you better.
• He was a great man, a great spirit, and you felt it every moment you were in his presence.
• And that’s how it works. In your home. In your marriage. In your parenting. In your church and your community. Men stand. Men radiate. Men carry something holy and strong for the good of all they’ve been assigned.