{"256221":{"#nid":"256221","#data":{"type":"news","title":"\u0022Sons of Westwood:\u0022 Sons of Westwood: Smith Book Views Legendary UCLA Wooden Dynasty through Cultural Upheaval of 1960s and 1970s","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.iac.gatech.edu\/faculty-and-staff\/faculty\/bio\/smith_1\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EJohn Mathew Smith\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E,\u003C\/strong\u003E an assistant professor in the \u003Cstrong\u003ESchool of History, Technology, and Society, \u003C\/strong\u003Ewas recently interviewed on NPR about his new book \u003Cem\u003EThe Sons of Westwood: John Wooden, UCLA, and the Dynasty That Changed College Basketball. \u003C\/em\u003EHe appeared on the NPR series \u003Cem\u003EOnly a Game\u003C\/em\u003E hosted by veteran commentator Bill Littlefield.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWhat best explains the annual\u0026nbsp;success\u0026nbsp;of John Wooden\u2019s teams recruiting, or teaching, or the coach\u2019s charisma? What was going on there?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWell, I think it was a combination. I mean Wooden was an excellent coach, fantastic in practice at breaking down the fundamentals, developing team unity and cohesion on the court, but John Wooden we have to remember was at UCLA for 15 years before he won his first national championship, and you can\u2019t win without great players.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESo his early championship teams were very guard-oriented with Walt Hazzard and Gail Goodrich \u2014 two All-Americans \u2014 but then when Lew Alcindor arrived in his first varsity season, in 1966-1967, the offense ran through him. And then after those players left, Bill Walton came, and so [Wooden] changed again with a center. \u0026nbsp;So his ability to adapt, really I think, is what sustained his success with the combination of these really incredibly talented players.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EJohn Wooden was\u0026nbsp;celebrated\u0026nbsp;not only as a fantastically\u0026nbsp;successful\u0026nbsp;coach, but as a fellow who stood for\u0026nbsp;tradition\u0026nbsp;and order. Was that a legitimate reading of John Wooden?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EYou know, John Wooden in the 1960s and the 1970s was a symbol of moral authority. This is an age when America\u2019s college sons and daughters have turned a deaf ear to their parents, right? They\u2019re questioning their parents. They\u2019re questioning authority. They\u2019re questioning professors and administrators on America\u2019s campuses.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWooden projects this image of consensus in a time of \u0026nbsp;dissent, but ultimately his players did respect his authority, and he was able to bring them together in a way that they were successful when it was time to play.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESome of the most compelling stories in\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cem\u003EThe Sons of Westwood\u003C\/em\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E involve John Wooden\u2019s relationship with Bill Walton. Wooden did not like Walton\u2019s social activism, which the\u0026nbsp;coach\u0026nbsp;regarded\u0026nbsp;as certainly\u0026nbsp;inappropriate\u0026nbsp;perhaps even un-American. Walton did not like the coach\u2019s rules involving things like hair length and beards. How did those two get along?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAt their core, they were both competitors. They both loved basketball and I think that\u2019s really what brought them together. And I think its part of the beauty \u2014 here they are, two very different guys. Here is John Wooden who has very different views of society and morals and politics. And then you have Bill Walton who is the son of liberals, grows up in San Diego, someone who was drawn to social-action movements. [In] the anti-war movement, he gets arrested in 1972 for occupying the administration building. Ultimately Walton respected Wooden as his coach. He challenged him, but there was a certain line that he didn\u2019t cross, and I think that that was true of a lot of the players that did test Wooden on and off the court.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EJohn Matthew (Johnny) Smith (Ph.D., Purdue University) came to HTS in fall 2012 as a postdoctoral fellow and was recently appointed assistant professor in Sports History. His book,\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Sons-Westwood-Dynasty-Changed-Basketball\/dp\/0252079736\/ref=sr_1_1?s=books\u0026amp;ie=UTF8\u0026amp;qid=1368560977\u0026amp;sr=1-1\u0026amp;keywords=sons+of+westwood\u0022\u003E\u003Cem\u003EThe Sons of Westwood: John Wooden, UCLA, and the Dynasty That Changed College Basketball\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E, was recently published in the University of Illinois Press series on Sport and Society. Smith has published three scholarly articles and is currently working on a biography of Muhammad Ali.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.iac.gatech.edu\/faculty-and-staff\/faculty\/bio\/smith_1\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EJohn Mathew Smith\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E,\u003C\/strong\u003E an assistant professor in the \u003Cstrong\u003ESchool of History, Technology, and Society, \u003C\/strong\u003Ewas recently interviewed on NPR about his new book \u003Cem\u003EThe Sons of Westwood: John Wooden, UCLA, and the Dynasty That Changed College Basketball. \u003C\/em\u003EHe appeared on the NPR series \u003Cem\u003EOnly a Game\u003C\/em\u003E hosted by veteran commentator Bill Littlefield.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27889","created_gmt":"2013-11-20 13:39:48","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:15:25","author":"Beth Godfrey","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2013-11-20T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2013-11-20T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"256211":{"id":"256211","type":"image","title":"Sons of Westwood Book","body":null,"created":"1449243846","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:44:06","changed":"1475894936","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:48:56","alt":"Sons of Westwood Book","file":{"fid":"198225","name":"2_2.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/2_2_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/2_2_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":25319,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/2_2_0.jpg?itok=406MQERW"}}},"media_ids":["256211"],"groups":[{"id":"1281","name":"Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts"}],"categories":[{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}