MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) -John Wooden’s successor as UCLA’s basketball coach recalls a kind, considerate man who left behind a high-pressure job.
Gene Bartow led the Bruins for two years after Wooden’s retirement. They even shared an office for a couple of weeks.
Bartow recalled Wednesday that the two met for lunch once or twice a month and talked mostly baseball and politics, not basketball. Wooden died Friday at age 99.
Bartow says Wooden has to be the top college coach in any sport – and Bartow lives in Bear Bryant country. Bartow left to be coach and athletic director for a startup UAB program in 1977 in Birmingham, Ala., after going 52-9 and making an NCAA Final Four at UCLA.
He got a big raise from the $33,000 he was making at UCLA, where he says every loss was treated as a “major catastrophe.”
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