Coach Wooden's Forgotten Teams - Book Review

Book:  Coach Wooden's Forgotten Teams

Author:  Pat Williams with Jim Denney

Publisher:  Revell

196 pages, paperback


This is a very well written book, consisting of 9 chapters.  Coach Wooden was a legendary basketball coach.  He not only trained his players in the game, he also trained them for life with his godly wisdom.  This book brings to light the summer basketball camps many were privileged to attend.

We hear stories from some of the coaches who worked at the camps.  We also hear from many of the campers themselves, as they look back over the years to when they were younger enjoying the basketball lessons.

The book is inspiring as it shares many of the wise sayings of the coach.  We also get the sense that he was a very humble man with a great Christian faith.

Here are a couple of my favorites from the book:

Page 65, "The example Coach set by doing things like that made a big impression on me. Coach didn't preach.  He lived his lessons. He set an example. Whenever you were around him, it was lesson after lesson. He'd never say, "This is how you should  lead,' but if you had eyes to see and ears to hear, you'd learn by watching the man."

Page 75, "He would say, 'Drink deeply from good books, first and foremost, the Bible.' I think he spent a lot of time there, and his faith was a grounding point."


Reading this book will make you want to be a better parent. It will make you want to be a better person, in general.   You might even start taking notes, or highlighting passages in the book, for later reference.

* Disclosure - This book was provided for review purposes. *