Wooden rejoins his wife

John Wooden passed away today.

He is the all-time greatest coach of college basketball, and possibly the best coach of any sport, ever.

If you don't believe me, consider for a second his coaching record:

Career highlights
Overall	664–162 (.804)
Championships
As player: *1932 National Championship As coach: *1964 NCAA National Championship *1965 NCAA National Championship *1967 NCAA National Championship *1968 NCAA National Championship *1969 NCAA National Championship *1970 NCAA National Championship *1971 NCAA National Championship *1972 NCAA National Championship *1973 NCAA National Championship *1975 NCAA National Championship

That's right. 10 national titles in 12 years - the most dominant run ever engineered by any coach.

Besides his coaching career, Wooden stood as a model husband and human being.

Simply read this excerpt from a 2000 Rick Reilly article:

"On Tuesday the best man I know will do what he always does on the 21st of the month. He'll sit down and pen a love letter to his best girl. He'll say how much he misses her and loves her and can't wait to see her again. Then he'll fold it once, slide it in a little envelope and walk into his bedroom. He'll go to the stack of love letters sitting there on her pillow, untie the yellow ribbon, place the new one on top and tie the ribbon again.

"The stack will be 180 letters high then, because Tuesday is 15 years to the day since Nellie, his beloved wife of 53 years, died. In her memory, he sleeps only on his half of the bed, only on his pillow, only on top of the sheets, never between, with just the old bedspread they shared to keep him warm."

Incredible. I'm not sad that Wooden has left this world; rather, I'm happy that he was able to rejoin his wife in another world. He recently said in an interview that he was ready to die - this might be a day to celebrate rather than mourn. The greatest coach of all time lived a full life and was ready to leave... finally, the book can close on a sports legend in the truest sense.