Thanks, Coach Wooden.

It is a rare opportunity to get to meet your hero. It is even rarer to be able to spend time at their home while working with them on a book. But it is absolutely unheard of to meet someone the world idolizes – and have them exceed your expectations in every single imaginable way. That was my experience with Coach John Wooden.

In April of 2008, I had the privilege to spend several days with Coach in his Encino, California condo, as my boss, Don Yaeger, and I taped countless hours of interviews with Coach for what was to be his last (and in Coach’s own words, most important) book: A Game Plan for Life: The Power of Mentoring.

Everything about Coach Wooden blew me away. He truly lived up to all of the hyperbole about him. I mean, the man was hyperbole: No one wins ten National Championships. No one has that much poise, presence, and integrity. No one is that kind. No one is that humble. No one has that strong of a faith. No one loves his wife that much. No one is that good.

No one but Coach Wooden.

And that’s really the reason I can’t feel too sad right now, because I know that Coach is finally united with his beloved Nellie. I did see the famous stack of love letters he wrote to her every month since her death more than 25 years ago, tied in bundles on their bed, but that is actually one of my sadder memories. I felt like a voyeur, looking in on a man’s private grief. Those letters were between him and Nell; I didn’t want to intrude by staring at them too long.

It seems everyone who ever met him has their favorite Coach Wooden story. Some are stories about great moments in his career. Others are about wonderful lessons he taught them. Embarrassingly, most of mine seem to be about food.

He and I shared a lemon custard when we all went out to dinner: Coach; Don; Nan, Coach’s daughter; Dale Brown, the former LSU basketball coach, and me. Earlier in the day, Coach and I had been laughing about our mutual love for sweets; but that evening, when everyone else was ordering dessert, I refrained and passed when the waitress came to me. Coach looked at me, knew immediately that I was just trying to be polite, and with a grandfatherly wink said, “I’ll have one, but only if you make Tiffany agree to share it with me.” And, always the gentleman, he let me take the last spoonful.

Coach and I shared a lot of things that week. We talked about both being English majors in college and our love of the classical poets. We talked about both being former high school teachers and coaches, and all the challenges and joy that brought. We debated the merits of french toast over pancakes. We even laughed about having the same dosage of thyroid medicine. Nan said that Coach liked me because I was a teetotaler, just like him. We laughed about that, too.

But probably my favorite memory of Coach was when his granddaughter Caryn brought him a little peanut butter dippin’ sticks snack. He handed me his and asked Caryn to please bring him another. Then we went on with our interview, dipping our cookie sticks in the peanut butter until that inevitable, sad moment when the cookies are gone but there is still a substantial amount of peanut butter left. Had I been alone, I’d have just gone for it without a second thought. But I knew I was in the presence of greatness, and I figured I should try to act professional. Maybe I was staring at it a little too wistfully, or maybe Coach was really just a big kid at heart. Whatever the case, he leaned over to me and said, conspiratorially: “Do you know what I like to do at this point? I can’t let all that good peanut butter go to waste. I bet you can’t, either.” And he hooked a finger into the cup to get out every last speck.

I’m too young to remember Coach Wooden, the ten-time National Champion. He retired several years before I was even born. The Coach Wooden I will remember is the one who cared more about the Special Olympics than another Presidential citation; who made everyone around him feel like the most important person in the room; who was more concerned about making people feel comfortable than he was about any real decorum or pretense; and who was genuinely kind, warm, funny, gentle, and loving to everyone he ever met – including me.

Thank you for allowing me to share a few of your precious days on this earth, Coach, and for being one of the most important mentors in my own life. You are loved, missed, and irreplaceable.