“You can’t live a perfect day,” John Wooden believed, “without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.”
He taught this lesson by example. One such occasion remains as vivid as if it happened last week, not three decades ago. Actually, it is a series of remembrances that merge into one from every time I visited Coach in his Encino home.
In my mind’s eye I can still see the plastic postal bin, the size of a laundry basket, filled with outgoing fan mail: photographs, trading cards, magazine covers, even basketballs and UCLA jerseys people sent Coach to autograph. Requests for a signed Pyramid of Success were also common.
These gift balls are stacked in a real Pyramid of Successful Giving!
Surprisingly, most of these fans did not enclose return postage. No matter. Coach trekked to the Post Office once a week and footed the bill himself.
Once again, we all have a chance to emulate Coach’s example and live a perfect day by helping others who can never repay us through Woody’s Holiday Ball Drive that kicks off today.
The inspiration for this annual endeavor occurred 25 years ago at a youth basketball clinic when former Ventura College and NBA star Cedric Ceballos awarded autographed basketballs to handful of lucky attendees. Leaving the gym afterward, I happened upon a 10-year-old boy who had won one of the prized keepsakes…
…which he was now dribbling on a blacktop outdoor court, and shooting baskets with, all while perhaps imagining he was Ceballos with the game clock ticking down to the final buzzer.
Meanwhile, the real Ceballos’ Sharpie signature was quickly wearing off.
Curious as to why the boy had not protectively taken the trophy basketball home to put safely on a bookshelf, I interrupted his playing to ask.
“I’ve never had my own basketball,” he answered matter-of-factly between shots.
With visions of that boy – and other boys and girls who do not have their own basketball to shoot, soccer ball to kick, football to throw – dancing through my head that winter, I asked you dear readers to help brighten the holidays by donating new sports balls for disadvantaged kids. You responded like champions then and have every year since.
Are you up to the challenge once more? If so, drop off new balls (no batteries required!) at a local Boys & Girls Club, YMCA, Toys For Tots, fire department or house of worship. The organizations will pass them into deserving young hands.
You can also drop balls off (weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Dec. 16) at Jensen Design & Survey at 1672 Donlon St. near Target on Telephone Road in Ventura; or have online orders shipped to this same address (California, Zip Code 93003); and I will take it from there.
And please be sure to email me about your bouncing gifts at woodywriter@gmail.com so I can add your generosity to this year’s tally.
We are already off to an early start as Jim Parker, my old Star colleague, bought three basketballs way back in July. Jim is usually the first to donate, but this year he was beaten to the punch. In March, various members of the Somis Thursday Club donated 12 basketballs with John Vincent, a retired firefighter, adding 10 more, noting: “I didn’t always give to my church the way I should have when I was younger. Now that I’m retired and wiser, I’m trying to make up for it.”
And just before Halloween, Katherine and Frank Anderson gave an early treat with four basketballs while my dad tossed in five footballs.
Together, we can make the holidays a little more perfect.
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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn
Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.
Personalized Signed copies of WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” are available at WoodyWoodburn.com