Plaschke: Cori Close forging a new UCLA legend with the lessons John Wooden taught her
She was a kid. He was a legend.
She was an assistant coach in her first college job. He was the greatest coach in college basketball history.
She was 22. He was 83.
When she was ushered into his Encino condo for the first time, she was so nervous, she couldn’t even pronounce her name.
“Who is this?” asked John Wooden, pointing to where she was standing behind several other visiting coaches.
“I’m Co-o-o-ri,” responded Cori Close, drawing out the simple introduction to 10 syllables.
“How do you spell that?” said Wooden.
She spelled it, and he smiled, and invited her into his den to inspect a tiny stool adorned with the same name.
“Cori, that’s my great-granddaughter’s name,” he said. “You’re the first person I’ve ever met who also spells it like that.”
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A sigh filled the room. The jitters were gone. The connection had been made.
From that moment, John Wooden treated Cori Close like, well, a great-granddaughter.
Every other Tuesday for several years, they would meet. Even after Close moved across the country, they continued to meet. Right up until Wooden died in 2010, they were in consistent contact.
Wooden would teach. Close would listen. Wooden would host her for breakfast at the VIP’s Cafe. Close would surprise him at his condo with his favorite lemon custard ice cream from Baskin-Robbins.
For 17 years, they talked basketball without ever really talking basketball. For 17 years, Wooden hoisted Close on a climb through her own personal pyramid of success, first as a UCLA assistant, then UC Santa Barbara assistant, then a Florida State assistant.
A year after Wooden’s death, Close became head coach at UCLA. Wooden never saw it, but he always knew it, and in many ways he helped create it.
And so it was that after she recently became the winningest women’s coach in UCLA history, Cori Close visited John Wooden’s statue and offered a prayer of thanks.
“It’s ridiculous how lucky I am to be able to walk in that legacy,” she said. “And now to have the humble opportunity to pay those things forward, as imperfectly as I do it? What a privilege to even be able to try.”
Close is indeed paying Wooden’s wisdom forward, and at a furious pace in what could be the greatest of her 14 seasons as Bruins boss.
She recently earned her 297th victory to surpass the great Billie Moore atop the UCLA women’s win list. A few weeks before that, the Bruins became a legitimate national championship contender with a 77-62 victory over defending champion South Carolina, breaking the Gamecocks' 43-game win streak with the Bruin program’s first victory against a top-ranked team after 20 consecutive losses.
The win over South Carolina, combined with a 14-0 start, has vaulted UCLA to the top spot in the national polls for the first time in program history. The Bruins instantly have become one of the favorites to win their second national title and first since the then-Ann Meyers led them to the AIAW national crown in 1978.
Close has led UCLA into the postseason for nine consecutive seasons, not counting the COVID-canceled postseason of 2020. She’s reached the Elite Eight once, reached the Sweet 16 five times and won the women’s NIT once.
But she’s never had a team as powerful and deep as this one. It’s all very heady stuff … and stuff that Close completely ignores.
She not only speaks Coach’s language, but lives his words.
In a 30-minute conversation a day after her 297th win, she didn’t discuss wins and losses. Not once did she mention the possibility of leading a team into the Final Four for the first time. Not once did she mention their national No. 1 ranking.
She talked about teaching. She talked about growth. She talked about molding young athletes into strong adults. For 30 minutes it was like talking to Wooden himself.
“Coach Wooden talked about how the least of his concerns were a championship trophy and a banner,” she said. “Those were the byproducts of being a great teacher of life and lessons about things that will live on long after the ball goes flat.”
She is truly the UCLA coach who is carrying the Wooden torch. Just check out how her team plays. Wooden would have loved it.
Led by 6-foot-7 Lauren Betts, eight of her players average at least 20 minutes a game, comprising what is essentially the country’s deepest starting lineup. Five players average at least two assists and five players score in double figures. They are the epitome of teamwork and unselfishness.
“I’m not at UCLA just to be an individual star, I want to be on a winning team, a championship team,” said Kiki Rice, the Bruins’ flashy guard who would own the headlines at almost any other school. “Having that mindset means you’re giving up personal recognition for team recognition, but at the end of the day, that’s always more important.”
The players not only share with each other, but with the fans. Before each game, they throw T-shirts into the crowd. After each game, they wade into the crowd in a mosh pit of high-fives and hugs. Then later, two players walk up to the concourse and sign autographs.
“We want to be an uncommon transformational program that teaches and equips young women for life beyond UCLA,” said Close.
Sound like Wooden? His family agrees.
“My grandfather would have been extremely happy with Cori’s success,” said Greg Wooden, the legend’s grandson. “It sounds like he was her mentor for many years. Just listening to her, there is no question about that.”
Bonding with Close helped unlock a little-known awakening in the legend. It turns out, women’s college basketball was Wooden’s favorite sport.
“My grandfather really liked women’s basketball, he felt the women’s game was closer to his style than the way the men played today,” said Greg.
Greg said his grandfather would have been proud of Close’s attention to more important things than final scores.
“My grandfather was always concerned about how his players would turn out afterward,” said Greg. “She’s the same with her players. Those are the types of things where you can see my grandfather’s influence.”
Close delighted in honing that influence.
For the three years she was an assistant at UCLA, she would spend every other Tuesday with Wooden. They would visit in his modest cluttered condo and she would listen as he reiterated the golden oldies such as, “Be quick but don’t hurry” and “Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.”
“You’ve heard of 'Tuesdays With Morrie,' I had my Tuesdays with Coach Wooden,” she recalls.
When she became an assistant at her alma mater in Santa Barbara, she would look for any excuse — recruiting trip! — to drive down and keep the connection alive. After 10 years at Santa Barbara she spent seven years at Florida State, from where she would always plan trips to her parents’ Santa Barbara home around visits with Coach.
“I tried to maneuver it, whatever I was doing, whatever off days I had, I tried to make quality time with him a priority, totally selfish on my part,” she said. “I would literally schedule my flights into LAX around going to see him. And amazingly, he always made time for me.”
Sometimes she would bring fellow Florida State coaches with her. Their reaction was always the same. They would walk into the condo confident that they could keep up a conversation with Coach, only to be awestruck into silence.
”I didn’t blame them — he was so deeply wise you knew you were in the presence of greatness as a human being and you didn’t want to miss a minute of what he had to say,” she said.
Four days after she began her head-coaching career at UCLA in 2011, there was an incident that convinced her to completely model her program in her mentor’s large footsteps.
She was visited in her office by John Vallely on behalf of a cancer fundraiser. Vallely launched into the ways Wooden had helped him endure several personal trials, encouraged her to contribute to the charity, and then abruptly left.
Close had no idea Vallely was a former Bruin star guard or two-time national champion or had spent six years in the NBA.
“I thought, who is this guy, and then I looked on the computer and found out all about his basketball background, none of which he had mentioned,” Close said. “His basketball career clearly paled in comparison to the man he had become and I thought, that’s it! How many John Vallely stories can we create? Yes we want to raise banners, but may they always pale in comparison to the character of the women and who they become.”
Her players see this philosophy the moment they walk into her office and see a pyramid of success on the wall near a framed autographed photo of Close and Wooden.
“The themes that Coach Wooden preached, Coach Cori carries them over to us,” said Rice.
Amazingly, there are UCLA recruits who have never heard of Wooden. Not surprisingly, by the time their recruiting trip ends, they know all about him.
“On every recruiting visit I’ve been part of, she tells the story of John Wooden, and by the time they end their visit, they know who he is,” said Rice.
Charisma Osborne is a former Close disciple who started all but two games during her five years at UCLA, meaning she’s heard all those Wooden stories. She even took a class on Wooden where Close was part of a video presentation.
“It was weird to see your coach in a school setting,” recalled Osborne with a laugh. “But, yeah, she talks about him a lot.”
Osborne soon learned that with Close, it was about more than words.
“She really cares about us more than just basketball players,” Osborne said. “When you have somebody leading you not only on the court but off the court, you really want to play hard for her.”
Several years ago Close took her Wooden connection to the next level when she invited the late Rafer Johnson into her locker room to follow a Wooden preseason tradition of teaching the team how to put on their shoes and socks.
“As he put on his shoes and socks he kept weaving in stories about his past, he kept teaching,” said Close. “When he got to the end, he turned to our players and said it didn’t matter if you were from another country or of a different religion or race, it didn’t matter where you came from, because we all started by putting our shoes and socks on the exact same way.”
Close emphasizes this lesson every season, marveling in its brilliant simplicity.
“Rafer ended by saying it doesn’t matter what role you play or how many stars are next to your name as a recruit, we can all come together as a team because we all start by putting our shoes and socks on the same way,” she said.
Interestingly enough for someone so entrenched in detail, Close says she has no idea who her Bruins defeated for her first coaching victory in 2011 (hint: It was McNeese State).
“I just remember the faces,” she said. “I just remember the smiles.”
It figures that she also doesn’t remember much about her record-breaking victory against Long Beach State.
“I just remember the texts from my former players,” she said. “Those will live with me longer than a final score.”
She is still in touch with the Wooden family, texting son Jim on his birthday and regularly checking in with — you guessed it — that great-granddaughter whose identical name sparked an everlasting bond.
She is Cori Andersen, a teacher from Murrieta, and the two namesakes often text and occasionally visit.
Close has arranged tickets for Andersen’s daughter’s basketball team. Andersen has made decorative pillows for Close’s office.
They live far apart, but remain close in the shared memories of a man that Andersen calls, “Poppa.”
“Poppa’s influence on her is very evident,” said Andersen. “She’s leading the way he would lead.”
Put that quote on a banner. Engrave it on a trophy. In a time when college athletics has veered far from the teachings of John Wooden, his pupil cherishes the thought that he’s looking down on her with a smile.
”I don’t want our players in this NIL quick fix immediate gratification society to miss out on how meaningful it is and how content you feel when you know you’ve done something bigger than yourself and you’ve invested in somebody else with no expectation of anything in return,” Close said. “That’s what a meaningful life looks like. Coach Wooden taught me that.”
Taught her well.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
