This morning Wednesday July 29, 2009 The Sporting News announced the award recognizing the Greatest Coach in Sports History: John Wooden – from a list of very, very impressive coaches. That the world and I agree completely is, in and of itself, a singular event. It encourages me to reprint an article I wrote here January 5, 2009:

My Kind of Hero

Once in a blue moon you read an article that says exactly, almost word for word, exactly what you feel. On an even rarer day it might express exactly what you feel 10 years from today. Almost never does it express exactly what you hope you will feel on the day you die. I just read such an article. Its title was: ‘I’m not afraid of death,’ John Wooden says. The article started out:

The little condo on Margate Street in Encino, Calif., wouldn't pass many eyeball tests, not that the old man who has lived there since 1972 has any intention to sell it. If you want it, you're simply going to have to wait for John Wooden to die. Sadly — and beautifully — you wouldn't be the only one. Wooden, perhaps the greatest American coach in any sport, never thought he'd live to the age of 98. And he never thought living without his beloved wife, Nell, whom he lost in 1985, would be so hard for so long. Of all the love in his heart — for the three generations of family who surround him and the dozens of former players who keep him as close as ever — most of it still belongs to her. All he wants is to see his Nellie again. The article apparently just appeared in The Sporting News, but I read it on MSNBC. Of course it was the hook that you just read (underlined) that hooked me, but it was a fairly long article and every single word spoke to me!

John Wooden has always been one of my greatest heroes. Now I more fully realize why. The article spoke of his heroes Abraham Lincoln and Mother Teresa, both of whom I greatly admire. It spoke of his character and convictions, many of which I have tried to emulate. It spoke of his success which everyone would like to copy. It spoke of his love and passions much of which I could identify with. His Nell was my Minou. I felt exactly the same way!

Don’t misunderstand me. Long ago, actually just shortly after my days at UCLA when John Wooden was there, I realized I was a B+ sort of guy. I got lots of A’s at school, and throughout my life, but I usually averaged out somewhere around B+. I was proud of that and I enjoyed life. John Wooden was an A+. No question about that, but he loved his wife exactly the way I loved mine. He lived his life after her death almost exactly the way I would like to live mine. I’m fairly sure our last thoughts on this earth will be nearly identical.

July 29, 2009 / Finally the World Agrees With Me / AFW pg 102 © 2009 / CIP # 780, July 30, 2009 / SHE

Earlier I wrote entries in my notes entitled ‘Musings,’ ‘More Musings,’ etc. It got up to at least 5 or 6 – maybe more. Some of them even made it into print here, but it was all scattered – usually about 10 or 12 items with no follow up. Today we will give you just three; and each will be the subject of the next three physics articles next month:

Why do scientists often seem to want to ignore the obvious for the obtuse?

What if mass & energy & space & time & temperature were colours?

Does the arrow of time melt at absolute zero?

July 29, 2009 / Later Leanings / AFW pg 102 © 2009 / CIP # 834, July 30, 2009 / OAR

There is a place – a gorgeous place, and now a sacred place – that is, if that is possible, as beautiful as looking up or down in Yosemite. Le Revard in Aix-les-Bains has that same kind of magic, that majesty and perfection. We held hands there because we believed in holding hands. We held tight and everything was right. I’d rather be naïve and innocent than not. Sophistication never was my strong suit. We had faith and I still do. It amazed me that her friend, without even knowing, picked that very spot. But then they were very, very good friends. And the humming bird knew.

June 20, 2009 / Holding Hands / AFW pg 100 © 2009 / CIP # 778, July 30, 2009 / SHE

Here, right here! This place was where a woman was reborn. Reborn in the sense that she had been broken, almost crushed. Forty something years old and no man had ever really listened to her! Neither her father, nor her husband had ever taken the time to deeply listen to her, consistently listen, cared enough to listen carefully. That can crush a woman.

She often credited me with saving her, but of course I didn’t. I simply listened to her and watered her. She saved herself. She did the hard work. She relived the pain, she cried, she dealt with it. Slowly, in fits and spurts, she rebuilt her own self image. She became the beautiful woman she always was inside. From first to last she was a mother – from Jérôme’s first wail, to her last breath with him by her bedside. Still, in between she had broken. Now, here in my mountains she started mending; she became a mountain girl, then a hummingbird, and finally morphed into a Parisian woman. There is nothing finer.

And it all started here, right here in our mountains – the Sierra Nevada. That is why I am back. I can still feel her HERE (and hear her). And occasionally see a hummingbird.

June 3, 2009 / Here, Right Here / AFW pg 96 © 2009 / CIP # 776, July 30, 2009 / SHE

When I was 8, and then again when I was close to 58, I went through a traumatic time. Of course on neither of those occasions did I realize exactly what the trauma was, or even that it was traumatic. Yesterday I simply thought I was a lousy linguist (which is still true). Then I became acquainted with the zeroth law. Now it is as clear as mud.

I was a bit of a precocious kid, always preferred the company of adults and I read a lot. I liked to understand and usually thought I did. Still being an English, American and French little boy simultaneously presents some problems. You cannot spell, nor pronounce, virtually any word correctly. The difference between an I and an e is not a majuscule, you add an o or a u here there and everywhere. We’re not talking double entendre here, we’re talking triple, and without the benefit of titillation. Pretty soon you give up, dumb down, and certainly never ever take a foreign language, except under extreme duress. Everything works well until you go back to France and England. No matter what I say a French woman is worth it, but the trauma is back.

Anyway until yesterday I simply thought my problem was linguistics. Except for the floor problem in an elevator and above, I didn’t realize I couldn’t count. Having now taken up physics in a semi-serious sort of way, yesterday I came across the term zeroth law. Now the problem compounds and it is all more fundamental. Alpha, omega, zeroth – beginning and end; the finite and infinite – all in a quantum stew. OBOE sitting by a fencepost and I can’t even count. Natural numbers become unnatural. Computer program language becomes a little more intelligible - and that, in and of itself, is scary. C, Java and arrays are clearer but it is still zero hour. It all amounts to naught/nought.

If you understood all of this you are smarter than me. All I knew was that I loved a French woman.

June 20, 2009 / It All Amounts to Naught / AFW pg 100 © 2009 / CIP # 833, July 30, 2009 / OAR & SHE