Readings, Lesson 4 Love

Nobody in the family gets left behind.

When I got back from World War II, I went to Indiana State Teachers College, because that's where coach Wooden had been hired.  A lot of his former South Bend High School players followed him there because we wanted to get back to that family he created in basketball.  However, during the war, I had been shot down in a B-24 raid on some oil fields in Italy, and came very close to getting killed.  I didn't want to fly for a long time after that, including when I was at Indiana State.  When the Indiana State Sycamores were suppose to fly to New York for a game at Madison Square Garden, I told Coach, "There's no way I'm getting on a plane.  You can go without me, but I'm not flying."

Coach refused to leave me behind - he got station wagons and we drove to New York.  It was family; no body got left behind.

In 1947 we got invited to a big national tournament.  One problem:  They prohibited blacks from playing.  One of our teammates, Clarence Walker, was black.  Coach Wooden turned down the invitation.  He wouldn't leave Clarence behind.

It happened again the next year.  We got the same invitation.  Again, Coach turned it down.  This time the tournament backed off.  They changed the rules.  Only after that would Coach accept the invitation.  The Sycamores got to the finals before losing to Louisville.

Our whole team went; everybody played, including Clarence.  You don't leave somebody in the family behind.  At least, Coach Wooden didn't.  His concern for us went way beyond basketball.  We were part of a family.

[As the reader, you must understand that it was not unusual for these racial segregation rules to exist in 1947 for basketball tournaments. In 2007, we would scream and stand up for the right - racial injustice, prejudice, discrimination.  BUT...in 1947 it wasn't such a clear and definite story...and few white people spoke up and fewer still did something about racial injustice.  We must remember that in 1947 that racial segregation was not against the law at the time.  In fact, it was standard procedure in many instances.  In 1896, the Supreme Court sanctioned legal separation of the races by its ruling in H.A. Plessy v. J.H. Ferguson, which held that separate but equal facilities did not violate the U.S. Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment.  The impact of Plessy was to relegate blacks to second-class citizenship. They were separated from whites by law and by private action in transportation, public accommodations, recreational facilities, churches, cemeteries, and school in both Northern and Southern states. This ruling was adopted and accepted by most organizations.  It was not until 1950 that the NAACP brought a direct assault on Plessy and the so-called 'separate-but-equal' doctrine.  Thus Coach Wooden's action before 1950 was heroic and most certainly ahead of his time.  It is easy today to see the error in Plessy, but at that time it was socially acceptable and few people spoke against it and fewer still stood against it. 

We also have to remember that the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s was in direct reaction to these unjust laws.  As Martin Luther King, Jr. so well said in his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", (Read the letter for his entire purpose)  ...One may well ask, 'How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?'  The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws:  just and unjust.  I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws.  One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws.  Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.  I would agree with St. Augustine that, 'an unjust law is no law at all....'

Martin Luther King, Jr.  in this same speech noted the need for good white people to speak up and do the right thing...however, the majority did neither.  He said, 'Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.^'2

MLK's commentary here is a reflection of his belief and his own academic growth.  He studied the works of St. Aquinas, St. Augustine, Martin Buber, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his studies of Systematic Theology at Boston University where he earned his Doctorate of Philosophy on June 5, 1955.  His study is reflected in his many speeches and writings throughout his short career.

Back to Wooden, again we must understand that Wooden's behavior in this instant is love and the courage to show love when love was not characteristic of the times.

In considering the actions of Wooden, we can learn much about the importance of values and virtue.  In Wooden's case he had a strong sense of personal values, especially the value of love and it played out through his virtuous actions.  Below read an excerpt from Vigen Guroian on the importance of virtue and value.

"There are real and very important differences between what we now call values and the virtues as they had traditionally been understood.  Let me put it this way.  A value is like a smoke ring.  Its shape is initially determined by the smoker, but once it is released there is no telling what shapes it will take.  One thing is certain, however.  Once a smoke ring has left the smoker's lips it has already begun to evaporate into thin air.  Volition and volatility are characteristics of both smoke rings and values.  By contrast, a virtue might be compared to a stone whose nature is permanence.  We might throw a stone into a pond where it will lie at the bottom with other stones.  But if, at some later date, we should want to retrieve that stone from the bottom of the pond, we can be sure that the shape of the stone has not changed and that we will be able to distinguish it from the rest of the stones.

The virtues define the character of a person, his enduring relationship to the world, and what will be his end.  (Note here how that defines Wooden).

Whereas values, according to their common usage, are the instruments or components of moral living that the self chooses for itself and that the self may disregard without necessarily jeopardize its identity. 

Accordingly, values are subordinate and relative to the self's own autonomy, which is understood as the self's highest value and essential quality.  But when we say in the tradition speech of character that Coach Wooden is virtuous and that he is a courageous person, we are saying that the virtue of courage belongs to the very essence of who and what he is. 

Being courageous is not subject to a willing for it to be so or a willing for it not to be so.  Virtues and vices define the will itself and also properly describe the willing person....Human morality is substantial, universal, and relational in character, founded and rooted in a permanent Good, in a higher moral law, or in the being of God....

Character is the gravity that keeps us afloat and virtues as the sails that propel us and the instruments that help us to maintain our course, even when the ship is being rocked by stormy waters and high seas."³

[Thus this story about Wooden is a direct comment of how his action followed his belief.  He truly practiced the value of love in all that he did].

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¹Wooden, J. & Jamison, S. (2005).  Wooden on leadership. New York:  McGraw Hill, pp. 90- 91.

²King, M. L., Jr. (1963).  Letter from Birmingham Jail. http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/popular_requests/frequentdocs/birmingham.pdf

³Guroian, V. (1998).  Tending the heart of virtue. New York: Oxford Press.

  2.  What is love?  an excerpt from James C. Hunter⁴

...Love is rather narrowly defined in English and most of the definitions involve positive feelings....[m]uch of the New ?Testament was originally written in Greek..and..the Greeks used several different words to describe the multifaceted phenomenon of love.  ...one of those words was eros, which our English word erotic is derived from, and it means feelings based upon sexual attraction, desire, and craving.  Another Greek word for love, storge, is affection especially between and toward family members. 

Another Greek word for love was philos, or brotherly love, reciprocal love.  The 'You do good by me and I'll do good by you' kind of conditional love.  Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, comes from this root word.  Finally, the Greeks used the noun agape, and the corresponding verb agapao to describe a more unconditional love rooted in behavior toward others without regard to their due.  It is the love of deliberate choice....it is a love of behavior and choice, not a love of feeling (pp. 96-97)

...

The same principle of commitment is true in leadership.  The character traits, behaviors, we have been discussing today are not so difficult with the people we like.  Many evil men and women have been kind and outgoing with the people they liked.  But our true character as the leader is revealed when we have to extend ourselves for the tough ones, when we are put in the crucible and have to love people we don't particularly like.  Then we find out about how committed we are.  Then we find out what kind of leader we've really got....( p. 123).

...leadership is built upon authority or influence, which is built upon service and sacrifice, which is built upon love.  When you lead with authority, you will, by definition, be called upon to extend yourself, love, serve, and even sacrifice for others.

Again, love is not about how you feel toward others but how you behave toward others.

...love - the verb--could be defined as the act or acts of extending yourself for others by identifying and meeting their legitimate needs." (p. 125).

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⁴Hunter, J. M. (1998).  The servant.  New York:  Crown Business.