An Interview with John Wooden February 25, 2006 Part 13

Q: OK. The 1932 [basketball] championship year -- what sticks in your mind about that particular team?

W: I thought we played together extremely well. Most of ’em had been together the year before, and I think we had very good team chemistry. That it worked together. The other guard was Ralph Parmenter, who is much taller, maybe 6-4, a big left-hander. Our forwards were Ray Eddy and Harry Kellar. Then Dutch Fehring and Johnny Stewart played the centers primarily, most of the time, not all the time, between the two of ’em. And then I remember some of the other players on the team too. But those are the ones that actually played the majority of the time.

I think a bit of Lambert, again, brushed off on me too. Lambert wasn’t one for doing a lot of substituting. He wanted to have one extra guard, and one extra front-line man, and he would work those seven together, an awful lot. He felt, to keep them together as team in practice. In the five-on-five work, he wanted those together. He thought then, when they get in the games, there’d be a work-together approach. Now you find other coaches, successful coaches, substituting all the time. Lambert didn’t do that. And he wouldn’t get a lot of us in ’til games are won or lost. And otherwise, he’d be about the seven, and that was my philosophy almost throughout.

Q: So. for that team, Stretch Murphy was already graduated?

W: Correct [1930]. And that, my sophomore year, when we had a great team then. It was Stretch was center, and Glen Harmeson was one forward, and Vic Gibbens. And then George Herman Boots was the other guard. And I know, we were good friends. And we liked to, when we were playing on the road, when we’d go to hotels, we liked to walk behind Stretch. And then, after he’d go by people, then, by the time we’d get there, people would be saying, who’s that big guy? They’d be looking up at him. We teased Stretch, who was a wonderful friend. We teased him a way, never offensive, because he knew we loved him.

Q: How did you get to away games? Was it always by bus? Or did you take trains? Did you fly sometimes?

W: No. Bus or train. Bus or train. When we played in Philadelphia, a train. In the conference, most of ’em by train. Illinois, we usually went by bus. Indiana, by bus. We went to Notre Dame by bus. I think Illinois, maybe to Chicago; I’m not positive. I think we both took train and, among my two years. I know we took the bus one time or other, and the train one time or other. I don’t know which we did, the most, I can’t say. But it was bus or train.

Q: Of course, nowadays, a lot of college players have the goal in mind of getting in the NBA. Was that a goal of players then? Not the NBA, but to be a professional basketball player?

W: Not at all. Not at all. My senior year, after the season was over, they had the old pro league was going then. And I was invited to play in the playoffs for the Chicago team. I had been picked as player-of-the-year and played in the Big Ten close by. And you could add a player, a college player, just for draw, in the particular areas.

And George Halas, the football man, owned the Chicago team. and he asked me to come up. It was something, because he gave me a $100 a game. And three games, a three-game series they played for the championship. And I thought that was really something! But that was the last year that league played.

But there was a team they organized to be a traveling team. They were going to call them the Rosenbloom Celtics. The Cleveland Rosenblooms had a team in that league, and the New York Celtics had a team, in there somewhere, or was the Boston Celt -- I think it was New York. And Detroit had a team and some others, and Chicago. And they formed, they wanted me to go on the barnstorming with them.

And I talked to Mr. Lambert about it. I’ll never forget this. There’s another thing about the man. And they offered me a lot of money for, I took a job, my first year, I got $150 a month; I got $1,500. I got raised to $1,800 dollars next year. And they offered me $5,000, which was a lot of money. It sounded so big.

But I went to talk to Lambert, and he said, ‘What did you come to Purdue for?’ I said, ‘To get an education, I think.’ He said, ‘Think you got it?’ I said, ‘Well, I hope so.’ He said, ‘Well, I wouldn’t throw it away.’ He said, ‘Johnny, you can’t play in dirt without getting dirty. But you make up your mind what you do.’

He told me without telling me. And that was his way in many a thing. So, of course, I didn’t do it. And whether I would or would not, anyway I’m not sure. Because I wanted to get married. And then you were going to be traveling the barnstorm around there. Nellie wouldn’t have been very happy. But that was just an idea. No one was thinking about playing professional athletics on any teams.

There were some professionals going on at that time. You know. Dutch Fehring, two years later, two years after I went anyway, he signed with the White Sox. And his claim to fame in baseball is, and he tagged out Lou Gehrig trying to come home on a hit. He tagged him out, and he remembers that. Next thing he remembers when they sent him to the Texas League, and they started throwing curve balls, and so he didn’t last very long.

Wooden interview: part 14