Last night, P.C. and I took Megan out to an early dinner. While we were there, one of P.C.'s greatest heroes, former UCLA Coach John Wooden, came into the restaurant with his son.
For those of you unfamiliar with college basketball. Coach John Wooden is the winningest coach in history. His accomplishments, likely to stand forever in the history books, include:
**Ten NCAA men's basketball championships.
**Seven NCAA championships in seven consecutive years (1967-1973).
**Most appearances in the Final Four (16), most consecutive appearances (9), and most victories (21).
In short, Coach Wooden is the greatest college basketball coach of all time. Maybe the greatest coach of all time. And in Los Angeles, he is worshipped. At age 98, he still attends UCLA basketball games and is flocked by fans. For you Baltimoreans, this is like seeing Cal Ripken Jr., Brooks Robinson, Eddie Murray, Earl Weaver, and Johnny Unitas having dinner together at the same table. But even they can't boast Coach Wooden's record.
On our way out of the restaurant, P.C. stopped by Coach Wooden's table to say hello. They had met a few times before, and P.C. wanted to introduce his family to his hero. And Coach Wooden was very gracious and said hello to Megan.
Megan will never remember this event, and there wasn't a camera in sight, but this memory will be in Daddy's heart forever. It was even more special because we were having dinner at Fromin's, which for years was a regular breakfast place for P.C.'s late father, Phil. Phil was a die-hard UCLA Bruin and would have loved to have known that his granddaughter and his idol had the chance to meet in a place he loved.
2 comments:
How wonderful!
Very cool. When we lived in LA, we went to church with Coach. Aside from being the best coach in history, he's a phenomenal man. Jake will never remember either, but there's still something cool about being able to tell him that Coach would wave to him every Sunday.
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