Page 21 - How to Create a Winning Organization

INTRODUCTION

“Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction
in knowing you made the effort to become the best of
which you are capable.”

officially became “Coach” Wooden on Monday afternoon,
I September 5, 1932—the first day of football practice at Day-
ton High School in Kentucky. I was 21, married a month, and re-
cently graduated from Purdue University with a major in English
and a minor in poetry.
The Dayton school board was paying me $1,500 annually and
divided it up like this: $1,200 for teaching English classes; $300
for coaching football, basketball, and baseball. Despite the dispar-
ity in pay, everyone understood that I was hired primarily as a
coach, not as an English teacher. That’s how it was done in those
days.
If pressed, school officials would have told you that Johnny
Wooden, a three-time All-American and Big 10 scoring leader
while a member of the national champion Purdue Boilermakers
basketball team, was on the Dayton faculty not to teach English
but because he knew all about coaching and leadership. They were
wrong.
What I knew how to do was teach English, including Shake-
speare and spelling, poetry and punctuation. As a matter of fact,

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