Monthly Archives: June 2015

Champagne for the Heart

by Woody

 My new memoir WOODEN & ME is available here at Amazon

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Compliments Are Champagne for the Spirit

A short while ago, I wrote about a party for Laszlo Tabori in honor of history’s third four-minute mile he ran 60 years ago. The theme of that occasion, and my column, was exemplified by this old Irish proverb:

’Tis better to buy a small bouquet / And give to your friend this very day,

Than a bushel of roses white and red / To lay on his coffin after he’s dead.

1twaincomplimentWhile the anniversary party was a grand bouquet, I have personally witnessed how a single flower in the form of a few kind words can make a person feel as though champagne is flowing through his veins. Considering compliments cost nothing, it seems a shame we are oftentimes stingy dispensing them.

As my son puts it: “Giving compliments does a lot more good than taking out the trash, and should thus be done more than once a week.”

At the risk of appearing self-serving, I hope sharing a few compliments I have received recently will serve to inspire others to give their own friends, family, and even strangers, a verbal splash of champagne to lift some spirits before they next take out the trash.

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Let me begin with the generous people who complimented me by responding to a request in this space a few weeks ago to sponsor sign-up fees, and buy new gift tennis rackets, for the USTA youth lessons program that began this week at Buena High School.

Led by a generous donation from Carolyn Hertel – who noted with her contribution, “Tennis is not only a sport for life, the people you meet are often friends forever” – readers served up more than $1,200 to give disadvantaged kids a better summer.

As program director Paul Olmsted told me: “Wow! With all the trouble in the world it is uplifting to know that there really are some generous people out there.”

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Among of the nicest compliments I have received as a writer was when a man came up to me at a restaurant, pardoned himself for the interruption, and proceeded to show me one of my columns he keeps in his wallet. I have figuratively folded up the memory for my own safekeeping when I need a lift.

In a span of just a few days another reader came up to me at a “Wooden & Me” book signing and shared that she routinely displays my columns on her refrigerator; a teacher told me she occasionally reads and discusses my columns with her high school class; and a woman at a service group I was a guest speaker at showed me a thick folder of my columns she has clipped out, explaining through tears how my words have affected her life over the years.

As Paul Olmsted put it, “Wow!” Each encounter took only a brief moment from the giver, but I can assure you the good feelings in the receiver have been lasting.

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Sometimes a first-rate compliment can be passed forward secondhand.

Larry Baratte, head swimming coach at Ventura College and a Ventura County Sports Hall of Fame inductee, attended the Southern California Sports Broadcasters Awards Luncheon as a guest two weeks past.

The event featured a Father’s Day theme and one of the speakers was John Wooden’s daughter, Nan. Larry had the opportunity to meet Nan and happened to mention me to her. This in itself was a kind thing to do, but even kinder was his reaching out to me afterwards with Nan’s immediate response: “Daddy loved Woody.”

Hearing those three words left me sitting speechless for five minutes, lost in memories with tears in my eyes but also champagne in my heart. Larry’s forwarded compliment not only made my day a masterpiece, to borrow one of my favorite Wooden-isms, it made my entire month a masterpiece.

Remarkably, despite my two-decade friendship with Coach and many visits in his home, I have never met Nan. This is something I must soon remedy. I need to find the right words, a small bouquet of a compliment, to put some bubbles of joy in her veins.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

Wooden-&-Me-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

Dads Forge Memories

by Woody

 My new memoir WOODEN & ME is available here at Amazon

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One Role of Dads is to Forge Memories

Dads have countless roles and surely one of the most important is to forge lasting childhood memories for their kids. In honor of Father’s Day, here is one of mine.

1dadsdayThe summer of 1969, a month before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin would walk on the moon and two months before Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin rocked at Woodstock, my dad planned to take my two older brothers on an epic fishing adventure in Canada. Having just turned 9, I was deemed too young to tag along.

I felt more left out than Apollo 11’s third astronaut, Michael Collins, orbiting the moon in the Command Module.

T-minus two nights before our family Plymouth station wagon with faux wood side panels was to blast off, Pop’s friend, Mel Olex, who was to fill out the travel party, fell ill. It was not the first time Dr. Olex had come to my rescue: after separate accidents he put plaster casts on my broken leg and fractured wrist.

Now, he healed my broken heart because in his absence there was room for me. After all, food for four had already been packed. For me it was Christmas in June.

For Pop, now the only driver, it was a long haul from Columbus, Ohio, north across the border to Canada’s Lake Heron. We then hopped a motorboat to an isolated island where we stayed in a one-room rustic cabin at the Westwind Lodge. The name was fortuitous for it brought to mind a poem my Grandpa Ansel used to recite when he took us three boys fishing at farm ponds:

When the wind is from the north, / The wise fisherman does not go forth.

When the wind is from the south, / It blows the hook into the fish’s mouth.

When the wind is from the east, / `Tis not fit for man nor beast.

But when the wind is from the west, / The fishing is the very best.

Fishing at the Westwind Lodge thus promised to be the very best.

In the chill of dawn we would head out on the lake in a small boat with a temperamental outboard motor that leaked an ironically beautiful rainbow of ugly gasoline on the water’s surface.

By late afternoon we would have a collection of pike, walleye, perch and bass which the lodge cook filleted, breaded, fried and served us for dinner.

The first three days we returned to the Lodge for lunch before heading out for a second round of angling. This limited how far we could venture, so when Pop learned about a distant “Secret Cove” – doesn’t every lake have a “Secret Cove” that isn’t really a secret? – where northern pike the size of VW Beetles were reported to lurk, he got the cook to pack us lunches.

Next morning, Pop gave us our assignments: Jim was to make sure the rods and reels were all in the boat; Doug was in charge of the lunches and the cooler with the sodas; and I was told to put on my life jacket and try not to fall in the lake. Again.

We were starving by the time we finally found “Secret Cove” and decided to go ashore for lunch before catching some VWs with gills. We three boys bolted from the boat and soon learned an important lesson: when standing on an uprising smooth rock landscape, don’t pee facing uphill.

Pop (still in the boat): Hey, Dougie, where’d you put the lunches?

Doug (sneakers getting wet on land): I think they’re by the life jackets.

Pop: Nope. I don’t see them or the ice cooler anywhere. Dougie, you didn’t leave the lunches on the dock did you?

Doug: Stone silence.

Pop: (We boys would have gotten our mouths washed out with soap if we repeated what Pop said next.)

While I cannot state this as fact, I am convinced the true native name of that “Secret Cove” was “There Ain’t No Fish Here Cove.”

I am convinced of this, too: hippies at Woodstock didn’t have a more wonderfully memorable summer of ’69 than my big brothers and I did at Westwind.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

Wooden-&-Me-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

Help On Our Life Journeys

by Woody

 My new memoir WOODEN & ME is available here at Amazon

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Having Help Along Our Journeys

In addition to offering kind words of congratulations, a number of people have requested I share in a column my induction speech from last Sunday’s Ventura County Sports Hall of Fame ceremony.

Their wish is my day off. Here, then, is an abridged version, picking up midway and including a brief tale I shared in this space a few years ago but warrants retelling.

My personal Hall of Famers -- Greg, Lisa, and Dallas.

My personal Hall of Famers — Greg, Lisa, and Dallas.

“Four score and seven years ago . . .” Oops, not my speech.

“Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth.” Oops again, wrong speech although the right sentiment.

OK, here we go:

I am confident finding the right words in a press box under deadline pressure, but even with lots of time to think about it, words escape me in adequately expressing the thrill of being here with fellow 2015 recipients George (Contreras), Jack (Kocur), Eric (Reynolds) and Roger (Evans) – and also joining the likes of Eric Turner, Mike Larrabee, Jamaal Wilkes, Mike and Bob Bryan, and on and on.

None of us being honored tonight, and this includes you remarkable high school and college student-athletes of the year, got here by ourselves. We all had help along the way from parents and siblings, friends and teachers, teammates and coaches, from spouses and an endless string of others.

An example I like to share is Roger Bannister breaking the 4-minute barrier in the mile. Running is a solitary sport – but success isn’t.

Bannister would not have made history without Chris Brasher pacing him through the first two laps and Chris Chataway sacrificing himself to lead Bannister through the third lap.

In life, we all have people blocking the headwind for us and pacing our way.

I’m here because as a kid I got hooked reading Jim Murray’s sports columns and in college had him answer a letter with advice and as a young sportswriter had my writing idol befriend me.

I’m here because of sports editors who believed in me; and copy editors who caught my mistakes and colleagues who inspired me; and athletes and coaches who gave me their time.

I’m here because of Wayne Bryan’s and Coach John Wooden’s mentorship.

And, of course, I’m here because of my wife, Lisa, and daughter, Dallas, and son, Greg.

Let me close with this brief story. It happened in a small farm town in Ohio where a young girl wandered away from home and got lost in the family’s wheat field that had grown taller than she was.

We all get lost in our own "wheat field challenges" and need a helping hand.

We all get lost in our own “wheat field challenges” and need a helping hand.

Her family called out her name and searched frantically, but could not find her. Soon neighbors joined in and eventually half the townspeople were running through the wheat field trying to find the little girl, but with no success. The field was simply too big.

Darkness fell and so did the temperatures. If not found soon, the little girl would surely die from the bitter cold.

Finally, the little girl’s father called everyone in from the wheat field. No, he was not giving.

Rather, he had an idea. He gathered all the volunteers and had them join hands to form a long human chain. They then walked together, side by side by side, and combed through the tall, amber waves of grain.

In this manner they did not miss a single area as they had when searching separately as individuals. Within ten minutes, the search party of nearly one hundred individuals, now united as one, found the little girl curled up on the ground – shivering, but still alive.

We are all lost at times and need others to help us overcome our own “wheat field challenges.”

Other times we must offer the helping hand.

And so to everyone who has linked hands to help me along my journey, to the Hall of Fame Committee and to all my loyal readers, I say to you what Coach Wooden once wrote to me:

“Although it is often used without true feeling, when it is used with sincerity, no collection of words can be more expressive or meaningful than the very simple word – Thanks!”

Thanks!

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

Wooden-&-Me-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

Celebrating Legendary Laszlo

by Woody

 My new memoir WOODEN & ME is available here at Amazon

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Celebrating a Race, and Life, Well Run

An old Irish proverb came to mind last Sunday afternoon in a ballroom at the Hyatt Westlake Plaza:

’Tis better to buy a small bouquet / And give to your friend this very day,

Than a bushel of roses white and red / To lay on his coffin after he’s dead.

My son, Greg, with his beloved USC distance track coach, Laszlo Tabori.

My son, Greg, with his beloved USC distance track coach, Laszlo Tabori, at the 60th anniversary party of his sub-4-minute mile.

Nearly 200 people traveled near and far, not with bushels of roses but rather to give small bouquets, in a manner, to their friend, Laszlo Tabori, who at age 83 is very much alive and well.

Specifically, they came to celebrate with him the 60th anniversary of the very day – May 28, 1955 – when the Hungarian-born Tabori became the world’s third person to run a sub-4-minute mile.

His official time was 3 minutes 59 seconds flat, four-tenths faster than Roger Bannister’s historic first the previous May. Tabori’s feat is proudly recorded on his personalized license plates: 359IN55.

In ’56, at the Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Tabori – then the world-record holder at 1,500 meters (3:40.8) – finished fourth in the 1,500 and sixth in the 5,000 despite losing training time because of the tumultuous Soviet invasion of Hungary.

Directly after the Closing Ceremonies, Tabori defected to America and settled in Southern California. He remained a star on the world running stage, yet could not compete in the 1960 Rome Olympics because he was a man without a country as his U.S. citizenship had not yet come through.

Tabori unlaced his racing spikes in 1962 and quickly became a world-renowned coach, employing his diabolical interval workouts to train a handful of Olympians, two Boston Marathon champions, and myriad collegians at L.A. Valley College and USC. Too, the longtime Oak Park resident created the San Fernando Valley Track Club where he still coaches men and women runners of non-elite abilities.

Now. Tabori is on his 84th trip around the sun, but it was those four orbits around a cinder track 60 Mays ago that put him in the history books and gave reason for this anniversary party.

And so one by one some of his protégés took the microphone and shared stories about how their lives were impacted by this demanding old-school coach with an accent thicker than his new autobiography, “Laszlo Tabori: The Legendary Story of the Great Hungarian Runner.”

They talked about his legendary toughness, but also his tenderness. Through laughter they teased him and through tears they called him their hero, cheerleader, mentor and friend.

Laszlo Tabori, No. 9, running his 3:59.0 mile in 1955.

Laszlo breaking the tape and the 4-minute mile barrier.

Midway through the celebration, the ballroom lights went down and a video went up on a big screen. Instantly it was 1955 again, May 28 again, and Laszlo Tabori was 23 again. He did not need a cane due to a hip replacement and his now-white hair was dark and thick and curly. His face was chiseled, his legs sinewy and powerful, and in the grainy black-and-white film footage he was flying around the chalk-lined oval inside London’s White City Stadium.

His stride was as graceful as poetry as he roared through the backstretch of the fourth-and-final lap in third place on the outside shoulders of Britons Chris Chataway and Brian Hewson.

Suddenly, Tabori did precisely what he would tell my son and all the other runners he has coached over the past half-century to do during workouts and races – “Put the guts to it!” – and the kid with No. 9 pinned to his racing singlet overtook Chataway, and then Hewson, too, and pulled away to win by five meters. 359IN55.

The ballroom erupted in cheers as if the feat just happened live.

“That race was a lifetime ago, but I still remember it like yesterday,” Tabori later told me in a private moment as I thanked him for the important role he has played in my son’s life. He added with a twinkle: “I’m happy I’m still around.”

After the video ended and the lights came back on and it was 2015 again, the former fastest man in the world slowly made his way to the front of the room and emotionally thanked everyone for showing up.

Truth is everyone was there to thank Laszlo Tabori for showing up in their lives.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

Wooden-&-Me-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”