Screenshot of the UCLA homepage featuring a tribute to the late John Wooden. (Click for larger image, ucla.edu for original.)

I just learned that John Wooden died today, and what a sad moment that was.  After yesterday’s false alarm, I was hoping he’d get through this trial and make it to 100 and get that letter from the President!  How cool would that be?  But unfortunately, whatever ailed him got the better of him today and now I will never fulfill my dream of meeting him in person.  I suppose I still could, but not at the book signing I had imagined.

I wonder if part of it was because he’s lived a long, fulfilling life and he was ready to go.  Perhaps he just didn’t have the willpower to fight whatever put him in the hospital because he would be perfectly content dying now.  I think that was part of it.  Without a compelling reason to live, it’s very easy to let go.  Certainly he deserved to not have to struggle in an aging body.  After all, it seems the only thing he didn’t accomplish was being a centenarian!

It’s amazing that I can feel so sad that this man is gone.  I never met him and haven’t even read his books yet.  But there’s a deep-seeded respect that runs through every True Bruin, for he was a respectable man who led like no other in the short history of our school.  (Random thing I noted was that he’s 9 years older than UCLA.  Puts into perspective just how young our school is!)  The good thing is that I’m not sad in a bawling all over the place kind of way.  I’m sad in a “I missed out and it’s unfortunate the world has lost a great influencer” type of way.  A pensive, curious, questioning kind of way.

I wish I could have joined the hundreds of students who gathered at the Ronald Reagan Medical Center today, to pay tribute to this great legend.  May his legacy live on to inspire generations to come.  🙂