The Los Angeles Times Launch Orchestrated Unseemly Attacks On Coach Wooden & UCLA Basketball

who still won’t say a negative word about Pete Carroll because they need “proof”.

That tells you all you need to know.

Why do they need to do this? Look at what probably the most critical fellow coach during and after Wooden ‘s career CSLB and UNLV Coach Tarkanian had to say. For those who don’t remember Jerry Tarkanian HATED Wooden and endlessly bashed UCLA at the time but he was gracious and recognized Wooden’s greatness after his death:

Three times when Jerry Tarkanian was coaching at Long Beach State, he lost NCAA Tournament games to UCLA teams coached by John Wooden. But the two legends were more friends than rivals.

“He was always very nice to me. We had a very good relationship,” Tarkanian said of Wooden, who died Friday at 99.

After Tarkanian got his first Division I job at Long Beach State in 1968, several coaches gathered for a session with the Los Angeles media.

“I barely knew him, but John spent five minutes congratulating Long Beach State for hiring me,” Tarkanian said.

 . . .
It was after that second meeting in 1971 — which UCLA won 57-55 in the NCAA West Region finals — when Wooden tried to do Tarkanian a favor. Wooden was being pursued by Indiana but was not interested.

“John said he recommended me for the Indiana job. He gave me the athletic director’s phone number and I was supposed to call,” Tarkanian said. “I told (wife) Lois, and we were excited about it. But it was an emotional time, and I never followed up on it. Instead, they hired Bob Knight.”

. . .

Tarkanian started at Riverside City College in 1961. After leading Riverside to an unbeaten season in 1964, Tarkanian went to Kansas City for the NCAA Final Four.

“I was sitting in a coffee shop with some other coaches. Wooden came up and congratulated me on finishing the season undefeated, and I said I hope it happens for him, too,” Tarkanian said.

“John made one of the greatest comments. He said, ‘Jerry, I’m so proud of my team. I’m not going to be any more proud of my players even if they win the next two games.’ He always said the right thing.”

The Bruins finished 30-0 and won their first of 10 national titles under Wooden.

The LAT has been irrelevant for some time. They’re loosing circulation, like most newspapers, and now they’ll lose some more. Rick Reilly has a great video on SI.com, too, where he tears up a bit. Knowing all we know about Wooden, it is not possible to conceive that he would have looked the other way re Gilbert. Let’s move on, LAT, c’mon! To try to denigrate JW is simply despicable (but not surprising from LAT/SUC lapdogs). We know the truth.

Just got off the phone with the LAT – I’d been a subscriber for more than 25 years, but no more. I looked at the article in question, before throwing it out in the trash where it belongs. Can’t believe these scumbags. Enough is enough!

Something’s definitely fishy about the this. What kind of a person attacks one of the most revered sports icons soon after his death? You guys know the answer…a Trogan lover. I haven’t read a single bad thing about Coach in the last few days, but this is the first.

There are some things I despise about the LA Times, but this is going too far. I’m going to try to avoid their website, too! They get revenue from hits to their website, so if a lot of us do this, it might affect them. I’m not saying it’s gonna make a big difference, but they’ll know how we feel when we stop subscribing and even visiting their page!

Gee, isn’t it fascinating that nowhere in this abomination does it state that Sam Gilbert, being a notorious front-runner, was also a huge USC Football booster. Yet, not one place in the article does that little nugget appear. It’s not after the anonymous quotes, or the 40 year-old half-baked innuendo, or the heartless slander of Coach’s character. I’m sure we didn’t see any Gilbert articles pop up after John McKay died, did we. One might wonder if the Trogan Times has some sort of, you know, agenda.

How they would attack Coach and his legacy like this. Especially now.

Incredible.

The press receives a lot of free benifits i.e., free admission to sporting events, dinners, celebrations etc. They also need us in order to provide creditable stories to fill their columns. However when trash stories are forthcoming it is time to recipricate and deny the press the credentials and access. The LA Times should be barred from our events and let then fill their columns with meaningless trivia. I receive invitations from the LA Times for subscriptions and fill the envelopes with blank sheets of paper and mail them back because I know it costs them the postage. A little here and a little there and hopefully they will go broke.

With respect to the Sam Gilbert piece, I’m actually a little shocked that they’d run such a story less than a week after Wooden’s death. That’s in exceptionally poor taste, I’d say. I don’t deny them the right to publish the article altogether (even if there is plenty of evidence to counter the types of allegations raised in that piece), but the timing is awful.

With respect to the piece about the coaches, I think that we UCLA fans/alums ARE a bit on the tough side (though I wouldn’t say spoiled). Look at what UCLA has done – and not in just basketball! We have 106 national championships, probably three or four times that number in conference championships, and countless sports icons went to UCLA. We DO expect a lot of our teams and our coaches and John Wooden’s successors have been no exception. Yes, I am demanding and so are a lot of the people who visit this board regularly. And that DOES have an effect on the coaches and players who wear those four letters across their chests. Thankfully, it usually seems to help prod them on to victory, but I don’t doubt at all that having the legacy of John Wooden (THE epitome of college basketball coaching success – and possible coaching success period) hanging over you – that’s gotta be tough.

If NCAA does its job SUC will be busy trying to explain away the penalties. Someone asked on tv a minute ago how many athletes would transfer out. I do not see that as a real problem as moat will stay and whine or stay because lack of academic progress might come under scrutiny. I think it is time we got new newspapers in LA and OC. I am begining to rely more on blogs and Press Telegram. Sam Gilbert is old news but what was ever proved that he provided help to an athlete. We know such devious or is it deviant pracrtices never happened at the font of academia accross town. This whole thing makes me laugh and the fact that they even have a fish wrap over there is amazing.

Unlike their Opinion Page brethern who offer readers the ability to make comments, the sports writers offer only their e-mail address.

Here’s the comment you could have read, which I send to Dufresne this morning.
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Looking for a Pulitzer for tasteless? You’ll win hands down.

Your journalistic instincts can’t allow you to even wait for the man to be in the grave a few days before you see a need to offer your jealous outpouring of a ‘balanced’ view - lest we forget about the ‘dark side’ of UCLA basketball during a brief period of Wooden’s long reign.

You were probably the kid who had to tell the teacher, when the popular kid was talking in class, or the guy who wanted to get revenge on the jocks for the adulation they received in high school.

Obviously in your college education during prepartion for your ‘career’ in the newspaper game you slept through your journalism class on content relevancy when leveraging the lead story for a news cycle.

I hope you enjoy your sour 15 minutes of newshound contrivance so you can feel that warm ‘professional’ glow from ensuring the public get the full story about a man who has been lauded by the President and virtually every person of distinction who has met or heard Coach’s words or life story.

You are a petty man, who wants to ensure people will notice you during this time of sadness for the loss of a man of whom you cannot even fathom the greatness.

I am ashamed that you have the same first name, which I bear with pride. Considering your unwarranted attack on Mr. Wooden, you couldn’t possibly realize that your name “Chris” is a shortening for Christopher, meaning “Christ bearer.” Obviously you have shown through your ill-timed story about UCLA basketball, that you bare no connection in your heart to Christ’s message of compassion!

Christopher T. Wood