Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court

The book’s final section covers Wooden’s famous Pyramid of Success. The genesis for his pyramid was a high school homework assignment asking him to write a paper defining success. Even well after he had graduated high school, the essay question still confounded him. Popular misunderstandings of success became especially evident to him when he was a high school teacher and his students’ parents were displeased with their children’s average grades. In contrast, Wooden felt that a student who put in their best effort and worked hard but did not get good grades was ultimately more successful than a gifted student who aced exams without trying (168-69). This belief led him to coin his own definition of success in 1934: “Success is peace of mind that is the direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming” (170). However, Wooden needed a way to teach others his definition, so he devised a pyramid diagram, which consists of individual blocks that indicate the personal qualities needed to reach the top (173). The pyramid took years to complete because each block was thoughtfully considered and carefully selected, based on the author’s years of experience rather than simply an idea of what was right (173).